A National Office for Strategic Foresight Anchored in Critical Science and Technologies

Bio: Amy Webb

Despite an abundance of technical experts across its agencies, the federal government lacks a centralized office charged with long-range, comprehensive, streamlined planning to address critical science and technology developments. The status quo risks misalignment between agencies and redundant strategic work. At the outset of the next presidential term, the President should create a new, centralized office championing strategic foresight. This will involve leadership in strategic processes using data-driven models to analyze plausible futures, continually evaluating macro sources of change, finding emerging trends, and mapping the trajectory and velocity of changes. Focused on providing authoritative, unbiased insights to the executive branch, it should facilitate forward-leaning research, knowledge dissemination and capabilities building via ongoing strategic conversations, experiential learning, and rigorous quantitative and qualitative proceedings that result in concrete actions.