A course on foresight for sponsors and practitioners

Foresight, its theoretical and practical underpinnings, has been a core part of the work of the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (formerly PREST - see Endnotes) for the past two decades. In 1999, a training course, encapsulating PREST's experience, was launched for 'sponsors, organizers and practitioners'. The evolution of this course over the past ten years is described in this essay which also indicates how the course became internationally recognized with participants attending from 40 different countries. The way the course has also influenced the evolution of other and similar courses globally is also discussed.