Futures Lab Academy

A foundation course with Dr Jose Ramos

The tools aren't the hard part. 

Walk into an auto repair shop and you'll see hundreds of tools on the wall. Most of us wouldn't know what a single one is for. The mechanic does, not because they've memorised the tools, but because they carry a framework in their head. Hydraulics, drivetrain, engine, electrics. The framework is what tells them which tool, and for what.

Futures and foresight work is the same. There's no shortage of methods, and AI will now hand you any of them on request. What's scarce is the thinking that tells you which one the situation in front of you is actually asking for.

That judgement is what this course is about.

Five frameworks, five different problems

Over twenty-five years of practice: with UNDP, the ILO, government agencies, universities and community organisations across more than fifty contexts, I've found that futures challenges tend to take many shapes that require carefully crafted responses. 

5 Modes of Foresight — for when you're designing a futures project or research inquiry and need to know what has to be in it. A historical synthesis of the field, built as a design aid.

Anticipatory Experimentation — for connecting action to a preferred future. What small experiment brings an aspect of that future into the present in a way that can scale?

Mutant Futures — for the quietest problem: alignment between your own intuition and purpose and the work you actually do. I don't believe in cookie-cutter approaches. This is about how you hybridise, adapt and mutate methods so they're genuinely yours.

Participatory Futures — for engaging citizens, communities and publics. Drawn from documenting over 300 examples worldwide with the Participatory Futures Global Swarm, and from designing things like a public game on climate and health with IDRC.

Triple A Governance — for organisations trying to stay responsive when the ground keeps moving. Anticipation, adaptation and agility, and what it takes to connect them. Developed through work with UNDP and the ILO.

What this course is and isn't

It's a foundation course. It gives you breadth rather than depth in any single method. If you want one framework taught exhaustively, this isn't it.

What you get instead is footing: the key concepts that let you recognise what kind of problem you're facing and choose your approach with confidence.

I'm not trying to turn you into a futurist. Futures work is meant to be combined, hybridised and adapted to contexts I'll never see. What interests me is who you become as a practitioner, and how these frameworks land in your own professional journey.

How it works

Five live two-hour and 15 min sessions, capped at 20 participants so the group work stays real. Each session runs a depth presentation with case studies, pair and small-group action learning, whole-group discussion, and reflection time on how the framework meets your own work.

You'll have unlimited access through the Futures Lab Academy platform: session recordings, slide decks, readings and exercises. A pop-up WhatsApp group runs alongside the cohort.

Can't make a session? Recordings go up, though the live sessions are where most of the value is.

Why now

AI hasn't changed the need for depth futures thinking. If anything it's raised the stakes: AI is only as useful as the thinking that drives the prompting and the inquiry strategy. Without depth in futures concepts and frameworks, our use of it is limited or quietly biased. With that depth, it becomes a force multiplier. We're the wetware, and that part still matters.

The future isn't given. It's being shaped by someone. The question is whether we participate in that shaping.

Practical details

US$190. Discounts for early birds, previous Futures Lab participants, and students, low-income or developing-country participants — just email me.

Optional certification (US$100): apply at least two frameworks to a real project or problem, written up in 2,000–3,000 words or delivered as a presentation. Includes two extra one-hour sessions, one to set up and one to deliver. You can decide during the course.