FFI’s method for long-term foresight and forecasting
FFI-Report
2026
This publication is only available in Norwegian
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Report number
26/017
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1.4 MB
Language
Norwegian
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This report describes a new method for strategic foresight and forecasting, which will be applied by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) in forthcoming studies.
The method’s objective is to strengthen Norwegian national security and defence policies and defence plans by taking a broader and longer-term perspective of the future strategic environ-ment than normal. In contrast to other foresight methods, the ambition of FFI’s new method is not only to analyse what may happen, but also to assess which developments are most likely.
The method therefore consists of two steps:
1) In the first step (mapping), the objective is to identify the range of possible develop-ments in Norway’s strategic environment in the long term (15–25 years). The mapping draws primarily on workshops and interviews with experts on selected topics of particu-lar importance to Norwegian security, such as Russia, the United States, China, and specific technologies. The results are systematised using morphological analysis, which produces a matrix depicting the full space of possible developments within each topic. Finally, a set of scenarios is also derived for each topic, describing fundamentally differ-ent futures of relevance to Norwegian security.
2) In the second step (forecasting), the purpose is to assess which of the identified devel-opments are most likely in the short to medium term (0–5 years). Predictions are col-lected through a forecasting tournament, in which the probability estimates of the most accurate participants are aggregated. This step builds on FFI’s experience from a previ-ous tournament (2017–2020), which demonstrated that certain individuals consistently outperform most others, even when forecasting months and years ahead.
The method is unique in an international context. Some organisations, such as RAND, have developed approaches that combine scenarios and forecasting. However, these methods focus on more specific policy-relevant questions where forecasts can be updated on a daily basis. In contrast, FFI’s new method focuses on broader issues with longer time horizons, which are more relevant to long-term defence planning and annual threat assessments.
The method’s objective is to strengthen Norwegian national security and defence policies and defence plans by taking a broader and longer-term perspective of the future strategic environ-ment than normal. In contrast to other foresight methods, the ambition of FFI’s new method is not only to analyse what may happen, but also to assess which developments are most likely.
The method therefore consists of two steps:
1) In the first step (mapping), the objective is to identify the range of possible develop-ments in Norway’s strategic environment in the long term (15–25 years). The mapping draws primarily on workshops and interviews with experts on selected topics of particu-lar importance to Norwegian security, such as Russia, the United States, China, and specific technologies. The results are systematised using morphological analysis, which produces a matrix depicting the full space of possible developments within each topic. Finally, a set of scenarios is also derived for each topic, describing fundamentally differ-ent futures of relevance to Norwegian security.
2) In the second step (forecasting), the purpose is to assess which of the identified devel-opments are most likely in the short to medium term (0–5 years). Predictions are col-lected through a forecasting tournament, in which the probability estimates of the most accurate participants are aggregated. This step builds on FFI’s experience from a previ-ous tournament (2017–2020), which demonstrated that certain individuals consistently outperform most others, even when forecasting months and years ahead.
The method is unique in an international context. Some organisations, such as RAND, have developed approaches that combine scenarios and forecasting. However, these methods focus on more specific policy-relevant questions where forecasts can be updated on a daily basis. In contrast, FFI’s new method focuses on broader issues with longer time horizons, which are more relevant to long-term defence planning and annual threat assessments.
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