Futurist resources > Futurist associations
Futurist associations
Last updated July 2026
I have worked as a professional futurist for over two decades, and in that time the community around the work has changed almost as much as the field itself. The bodies that support futurists and foresight practitioners have grown from a handful of membership societies into a broad landscape of professional associations, government networks, and education communities spread across the world.
The old model was the membership society, built around a journal and an annual conference. The World Future Society, once the largest body in the field, effectively collapsed after 2016, and the centre of gravity moved elsewhere. Foresight is now practised inside governments and international institutions, futures literacy has become a movement of its own, and much of the day-to-day community lives in networks and training communities rather than in dues-paying societies.
The significant bodies are grouped below by type, from the global professional and academic associations to the government, institutional, and education networks that now anchor much of the field.
Global professional and academic bodies
The international bodies a futurist joins or engages with to belong to the profession and its scholarship.
| Association | Based | About |
|---|---|---|
| Association of Professional Futurists (APF) | Global | The main professional association for practising futurists, with several hundred members across more than sixty countries. Membership tiers for professionals, students, and organizations. |
| World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF) | Global | The global academic peak body for futures studies and a longstanding UNESCO partner, for scholars and educators. It held its world conference in Cape Town in 2025. |
| The Millennium Project | Washington DC and global nodes | A participatory foresight think tank with around seventy national nodes, best known for its annual State of the Future report. |
| Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (CIFS) | Copenhagen, Denmark | A membership-based futures think tank founded in 1969, serving companies and public bodies with research and briefings. |
| Institute for the Future (IFTF) | Palo Alto, USA | A long-running independent futures research nonprofit and a hub for foresight tools and practitioner networks. |
| International Institute of Forecasters (IIF) | United States | The academic and practitioner body for forecasting, publishing the International Journal of Forecasting and running the annual forecasting symposium. |
| LaFutura | Berlin, Germany | A global network for corporate trend and foresight professionals, built around annual events and member exchange. |
Government and institutional foresight communities
The fastest-growing part of the field. These networks connect the foresight units now embedded in governments and international institutions.
| Association | Based | About |
|---|---|---|
| OECD Government Foresight Community | Paris (OECD) | The main peer network for government foresight units, convened by the OECD with an annual meeting. |
| ESPAS | Brussels (EU) | The inter-institutional European foresight system linking the EU institutions, with an annual conference and global trends work. |
| UN Futures Lab | New York (UN) | The UN standing foresight capability created out of the 2024 Summit of the Future, coordinating a network across UN agencies. |
| UNESCO Futures Literacy | Paris (global) | The futures-literacy movement, delivered through a global network of UNESCO Chairs and World Futures Day. |
| Dubai Future Foundation | Dubai, UAE | A government future body and global convener whose Dubai Future Forum has become one of the largest gatherings of futurists. |
| Public Sector Foresight Network | United States | A network for public-sector foresight practitioners, with growing international partnerships. |
Education and next-generation networks
Bodies focused on teaching futures thinking and developing the next generation of practitioners.
| Association | Based | About |
|---|---|---|
| Teach the Future | Global | A nonprofit embedding futures thinking in schools and universities, with a young-voices network and World Futures Day activities. |
| School of International Futures (SOIF) | United Kingdom | A nonprofit foresight practice serving governments and institutions, and a developer of practitioners. |
| Next Generation Foresight Practitioners (NGFP) | Global | An SOIF fellowship network supporting emerging and non-Western futurists through annual awards. |
| The Futures School (TFSX) | Americas and Asia-Pacific | A widely used strategic-foresight training and certification community. |
National and regional societies
Country and region-level societies and institutes, several of them long-standing anchors of their national foresight communities.
| Association | Based | About |
|---|---|---|
| Futuribles | Paris, France | An independent foresight institute and membership association with a journal and major prospective programs. |
| Finnish Society for Futures Studies | Helsinki, Finland | A learned society at the heart of Finland’s deep foresight ecosystem, which also includes the Finland Futures Research Centre at the University of Turku and the parliament’s Committee for the Future. |
| Dutch Future Society | Netherlands | A network putting Dutch trend researchers and futures explorers on the map. |
| Netzwerk Zukunftsforschung | German-speaking Europe | The association for futures research across the German-speaking countries, spanning academics and practitioners. |
| Italian Institute for the Future | Naples, Italy | A foundation for futures studies running the Naples Foresight Center, training, and publications. |
| Polish Society for Futures Studies | Warsaw, Poland | A learned society for futures-studies scholars and practitioners in Poland. |
| Institute for Futures Research (IFR) | Stellenbosch, South Africa | A foresight unit within Stellenbosch Business School focused on executive and business futures, and co-host of the 2025 WFSF world conference. |
| Futuristler Dernegi | Istanbul, Turkey | Turkey’s futurists association, running a Future Day event and a futurist academy. |
| The Futures Foundation | Australia | An Australian nonprofit promoting futures thinking, with a membership and a find-a-futurist directory. |
| Asia Pacific Futures Network | Asia-Pacific | An academic and practitioner network holding an annual regional conference. |
| Futures4Europe and the Foresight Europe Network | Europe | The online home and practitioner network of the European foresight research community, and the successor to the earlier European Foresight Platform. |
Sector-specific bodies
Associations applying foresight within a particular domain.
| Association | Based | About |
|---|---|---|
| Euroconstruct | Europe | A network of nineteen national institutes forecasting the European construction market. |
| Society of Police Futurists International | United States | A body applying futures methods to policing and law enforcement, linked to the FBI Futures Working Group. |
| Communities of the Future | United States | A long-running network applying futures methods to community transformation and local capacity building. |
The field is more global, more institutional, and more open than the one these pages first described. Wherever your work sits, whether you practise, research, teach, or bring foresight into an organization, there is now a community for it. Find the ones that match how you work, and take part.
Alongside my work in these communities, I speak globally on the future of AI. Learn more about my work as an AI keynote speaker.
