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    Manos Tsakiris1

    Posted on: 26/06/2025

    Last Edited: 8 days ago

    Salil Gunashekar1

    Posted on: 18/06/2025

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    Last Edited: 17 days ago

    Imagination and metacognition in Futures & Foresight process

    The liminal dimension of anticipatory learning: imagination and metacognition in Futures & Foresight processes

    Imagination, in common discourse, is often relegated to a secondary domain of thought – a frivolous, playful, and unreliable mental activity confined to childhood, the arts, or, at best, applied creativity. A “magic box” that opens only when logical rigor relaxes, when attention drifts toward invention and fantasy. Yet this view, however seductive, is ultimately reductive – if not misleading.

    When examined through the lens of contemporary cognitive science, imagination instead reveals itself as a profound and complex cognitive function. Not only does it actively participate in processes of knowing, but it also constitutes one of their foundational dimensions. It is the mental faculty through which we construct alternative worlds, test hypothetical scenarios, and explore the unknown without needing to experience it directly. Far from being a mere appendage to rational thought, it serves as one of its key structural supports.

    Even more striking is what emerges from recent scientific research: imagination possesses a metacognitive character. This means it does not merely generate mental content that diverges from reality, but is also capable of reflecting on itself – monitoring and adjusting its own trajectories, becoming the object of awareness and intentional regulation. In other words, imagining is not just about conjuring what is absent from the world, but also about knowing one is imagining, directing that act toward specific goals, and assessing its quality, limitations, and implications.

    This represents a genuine epistemological shift – recasting imagination not as a passive or automatic process, but as a strategic ally of thought. Within this framework, imagination emerges as a faculty that weaves together multiple dimensions of our cognitive experience:

    • perception, which provides sensory input;
    • intuition, which enables rapid, non-linear associations;
    • intentionality, which channels imaginative effort toward a purpose;
    • and self-awareness, which allows us to revise and reinterpret what has been imagined, imbuing it with meaning and value.

    It is within this layered and dynamic space that imagination assumes a renewed role: no longer a retreat into the unreal, but a critical tool for probing the possible. It becomes the lens through which we may observe not only what is, but what could be – and, through this, reconfigure our relationship with the present.

    It enables us to anticipate without predicting, and to plan without constraining.

    In educational, professional, and social contexts – and even more so within the fields of Futures Thinking and Foresight – this reconceptualization of imagination as a metacognitive skill proves to be strategically essential. To anticipate the future is not to guess what will occur, but to cultivate a gaze that can recognize alternatives, navigate uncertainties, and imagine trajectories not yet in existence. Doing so requires more than creativity; it demands a deep literacy in conscious imagination.

    To rediscover imagination through a metacognitive lens is to restore its dignity as an epistemic, transformative, and educational faculty. A faculty not only capable of generating visions, but also of sustaining, interrogating, and refining them. A power to be reintegrated into our intellectual and civic formation – so that it may help us not only to imagine different worlds, but to understand the conditions that make them possible.

    Posted on: 09/06/2025

    Last Edited: a month ago

    Arianna Ferrari1

    Posted on: 28/05/2025

    Last Edited: a month ago

    Dr. Matthew J. Spaniol1

    Senior Researcher at Roskilde University

    Posted on: 28/05/2025

    Last Edited: a month ago

    montse olles roig1

    Posted on: 25/05/2025

    Last Edited: a month ago

    Foresight Cube1

    Posted on: 12/05/2025

    Last Edited: 2 months ago

    Agustín ALEMÁN GONZÁLEZ1

    Think exponentially, act incrementally.

    Posted on: 09/05/2025

    Last Edited: 2 months ago

    MERYEM LAGHMARI1

    Anthropologist & Foresight Researcher

    Posted on: 12/04/2025

    Last Edited: 3 months ago

    The Applied Research and Communications Fund1

    Building bridges between science and business

    Supports the economic growth in South-East Europe by promoting innovative solutions and facilitating the transfer of technologies and know-how. 

    The first organization in the South- East region to implement foresight methods to shape public policy.

    Posted on: 19/03/2025

    Last Edited: 4 months ago

    Oscar O'Mara1

    Posted on: 08/03/2025

    Last Edited: 5 months ago

    Niina Kolehmainen1

    Posted on: 05/02/2025

    Last Edited: 6 months ago

    Amos Taylor1

    Posted on: 03/01/2025

    Last Edited: 6 months ago

    Birthe Menke1

    Posted on: 13/12/2024

    Last Edited: 7 months ago

    UNATC1

    National University of Theatre and Film

    The I. L. Caragiale National University of Theatre and Film is a public university in Bucharest, Romania, founded in 1954. It is named in honour of playwright Ion Luca Caragiale

    Posted on: 03/12/2024

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    Last Edited: a year ago

    ESPAS Global Trends Report 2024

    Choosing Europe’s Future

    Following the publishing of the Fourth Global Trends ESPAS report in April 2024, Futures4Europe had the pleasure of interviewing the editor and two co-authors of the report about their reflections and key trend insights throughout the foresight research and writing process. ESPAS, or the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System, unites nine EU institutions and bodies to collaboratively identify and analyze medium- and long-term trends affecting the EU, informing policy-makers about their implications.

    Posted on: 03/06/2024

    Last Edited: 7 months ago

    Alexandre Reznikow1

    Posted on: 18/11/2024

    Last Edited: 7 months ago

    Marcin Maciejewski1

    Posted on: 18/11/2024

    Last Edited: 7 months ago

    Susanna Bottaro1

    Posted on: 18/11/2024

    Last Edited: 7 months ago

    Rosa Berndt1

    Posted on: 18/11/2024

    Last Edited: 7 months ago

    Rene von Schomberg1

    Posted on: 18/11/2024

    Last Edited: 7 months ago

    Jan Arpe1

    Posted on: 18/11/2024