A Roadmap for Evaluating Foresight Initiatives

As strategic foresight evolves into a critical tool for facing uncertain and complex environments, the systematic evaluation of foresight activities has emerged as essential for building organizational resilience, credibility, and actionable impact. This study addresses this vital yet underexplored domain by developing a practical roadmap that transforms creative futures thinking into defensible, measurable knowledge trusted by decision-makers. Drawing on layered conceptual analysis, established frameworks from leading scholars and institutions, and practical insights across sectors, the research proposes specific, adaptable steps for evaluators to achieve robust outcomes. It effectively bridges the tension between imaginative exploration and empirical rigor while accommodating diverse cultural, sectoral, and stakeholder perspectives. Real-world vignettes from corporate transformations and public-sector initiatives vividly demonstrate how rigorous, context-sensitive evaluation legitimizes foresight investments, enhances adaptive capacity and agility, and seamlessly integrates futures thinking into core strategy formulation and execution. This study equips foresight practitioners, corporate leaders, policymakers, educators, and researchers with an overview of maturity models, readiness indexes, and mixed-method approaches to design, implement, and refine evaluation processes.