A month ago Ian Miles posted a useful comment on a previous posting here which I thought would be worth posting as an entry in its own right. It's hard to get to grips with what's actually happening in the world of practical foresight and future studies, but Ian's collection of blogs looks like a good place to start. Anyway, over to him, with a few added links:
The closure [of the University of Houston's futures course is] ironic, given the huge upsurge in futures activities in Europe. Much of this goes under the label FORESIGHT, and spins off from the Technology Foresight activities launched in many countries from the mid-90s on. I can supply some historical material for anyone interested, but there are various documents online:
Handbook of Knowledge Society Foresight at European Foundation (see also their European Monitoring Centre on Change) or at our own website PREST: this may be particularly interesting as by going up a level from the page you will find much other material on the Knowledge Society Foresight project and also stuff on the FISTERA (IT Foresight) project.
PREST runs a week-long Foresight training course each year, and we participate in similar courses run by UNIDO and other organisations. From the publications page of PREST's website you'll also find links to several other publications including the Practical Guide to Regional Foresight and the much revised Practical Guide to Regional Foresight in the United Kingdom [PDF] is online -- this is the UK version, national editions in appropriate languages are available for 14 of the EU-15 members. FORETECH has a lot of useful publications on its site too. And at PREST, try looking into Denis Loveridge's personal pages.
Thanks Ian... rather a lot of material to get to grips with.