Involving Citizens in Foresight – The Missing Link

Abstract While citizen engagement is widely acknowledged as crucial for building inclusive and future-ready public policies, it is still often overlooked in strategic foresight. Emerging literature highlights key challenges-such as limited diversity in participation, weak integration with other methods, and a lack of sustained impact-that hinder the full potential of applying citizen-driven foresight. This presentation explores how participatory approaches can help address these challenges through a case study estimating future health risks linked to aflatoxin contamination in maize in France. The study brings together citizens and stakeholders to uncover additional drivers influencing food safety under climate change. These insights feed into the co-creation of richer future scenarios, which combine qualitative inputs with predictive health and climate models. By grounding foresight in real-world concerns and lived experience, this work shows how citizen engagement can strengthen scenario relevance, broaden system perspectives, and support more equitable health planning.