---
title: Futures terminology
description: 'What is this work we do with futures, and what do we call it? We seem
  not to be able to agree even on the most basic definition and labelling: foresight,
  futurology, futures studies or research, futur'
doc_version: '1.0'
last_updated: 21-Feb-26
canonical_url: https://garden.johanneskleske.com/futures-terminology
---

What is this work we do with futures, and what do we call it? We seem not to be able to agree even on the most basic definition and labelling: foresight, futurology, futures studies or research, futures thinking. What do we call ourselves as practitioners? Futurists, futurologists, futures researchers?

## How would I define these terms?
I generally separate between the academic field and the applied practice in organisations. I'm not sure there is a difference between futures studies and *futures research* for academia.[^1] There are also additional fields like *anticipatory studies*. Need to find some helpful literature to distinguish more between those. 

*Foresight*, in my mind, is the most common term for applied futures methodology in organisations, sometimes specified as *corporate foresight* or *strategic foresight*. It deals with questions about planning and strategy and uses methods like scenarios to find answers. If I remember it correctly, *futurology* is the term used by Flechtsheim and is basically a predecessor to foresight, which is not really used anymore today.[^2] 

To my knowledge, *futures thinking* is a more recent term that might have emerged due to *design thinking*. Even if that's not the case, I think it's helpful to use it in a similar manner and define it as a set of methods aligned in a process to use futures. A much broader definition would be to have it mean the general way to think about futures in the plural, making it the brackets that hold all of this. 

## How do we self-identify?
The term *futurist* has gotten a bad rap due to what I would call technology evangelists using it. I'd argue that nobody who stands on stage and proclaims, “This is the future (and it's inevitable)!” can call themself a futurist; lots of people doing actual futures work don't want to be associated with this category.[^3]

In academia, I think futures researcher works pretty well but can feel too scientific in a foresight context. So yeah, this is still an open discussion. 

*Please let me know if you know of any helpful literature to define these terms more precisely.* 

---
[^1]: I would like to see more of a “futures science” investigating the concept of the future itself (from a sociological and psychological perspective, for example).
[^2]: Although the translation tool DeepL always tries to translate the German Zukunftsforschung to futurology. 
[^3]: I sometimes like to use the identity as a trojan horse and surprise an audience by being more critical and reflective than they expected from the association.

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