La prospective territoriale

Foresight covers a set of concepts, methods, and tools to help local actors better understand the major transformations at work, build and manage their strategies. A discipline in constant evolution since it emerged in the 1940s, it now offers a wide range of approaches and techniques that can help inform decisions relating to the uncertain context of the future, but also promote the collective construction of desirable futures. Our environment is marked by major transformations at the global level, with structural changes such as climate change and population aging, but also increased geopolitical, economic, technological, and societal uncertainty. On a more local scale, territories will also be affected by these profound changes in the coming decades. Foresight can help better decipher the nature of the changes at work, to reduce uncertainties but also prepare for future changes. It can draw on a toolbox of methods and techniques that make it possible to organize this work of collective exploration and construction of shared strategies. Approaches to territorial foresight can take very different forms due to the great diversity of territories, stakes, and groups of actors, as well as resources allocated to this work.