The IFP was created in 1990 to conduct foresight activities, by exploring potential emerging sectors or future domains of interest that could or should become of interest to OECD member economies. The IFP built on a long experience in forward-looking, multidisciplinary activities starting in the late 1970s that helped to lay the groundwork for many of today’s OECD activities. By organising international conferences and projects – with government, business and civil society participation – it had the means and opportunity to track a wide range of future trends on an ongoing basis. The IFP explored such themes as long-term prospects for the world economy, the future of international air transport, OECD societies in transition, 21st century technologies, risk management, global future shocks, the future of families, the emergence of space applications in citizens’s daily lives (e.g. GPS, meteorology), and the growing importance of ocean economic activities for our common future. An archive of the IFP's reports can be found below. See current OECD work on innovation policies for space and oceans.

 

Space

• The Space Economy at a Glance, 3rd edition (2014)
   
• OECD Handbook on Measuring the Space Economy (2012)
   
• The Space Economy at a Glance, 2nd edition (2011)
   
• Space Technologies and Climate Change: Implications for Water Management, Marine Resources and Maritime Transport (2008)
   
• The Space Economy at a Glance, 1st edition (2007)
   
• Space 2030: Tackling Society's Challenges (2005)
   
• Space 2030: Exploring the Future of Space Applications (2004)

 

Risk management

• Future Global Shocks: Improving Risk Governance (2011)
   
• OECD Reviews of Risk Management Policies
  • Bassin de la Loire, France (2010)
  • Review of the Italian National Civil Protection System (2010)
  • Large Scale Floods and Earthquakes in Japan (2009)
• Innovation in Country Risk Management (2009)
   
• OECD Studies in Risk Management (2006)
  • Denmark: Vulnerability Assessment of Critical Infrastructures 
  • France: Preventing and Compensating Flood-related Damage (also available in French) 
  • Italy: Industrial Hazards Triggered by Floods 
  • Japan: Earthquakes 
  • Japan: Floods 
  • Norway: Information Security 
  • Norway: Tunnel Safety 
  • Sweden: Safety of the Elderly 
  • United States: Disaster Information Needs of Ethnic Minorities 

 

Other publications

• Strategic Transport Infrastructure Needs to 2030 (2012)
   
• The Future of Families to 2030 (2012)
   
• The Bioeconomy to 2030: Designing a Policy Agenda (2009)
   
• Infrastructure to 2030 (vol. 2): Mapping Policy for Electricity, Water and Transport (2007)
   
• Infrastructure to 2030: Telecom, Land Transport, Water and Electricity (2006)
   
• Regional Integration in the Asia-Pacific (2005)
   
• The Security Economy  (2004)
   
• Large-Scale Disasters: Lessons Learned (2004)
   
• Emerging Risks in the 21st Century: An Agenda for Action (2003)
   
• The Future of Money (2002)
   
• EXPO 2000 Publications: Published in the framework of the EXPO 2000 (the World Exposition in Hanover, Germany). A series of conferences organised around the theme of "People, Nature an Technology: Sustainable Societies in the 21st Century" were organised considering the four key areas of human activity: technology, economy, society and government.

• 21st Century Governance  (2001)
• The Creative Society in the 21st Century (2000)
• The Future of Global Economy: Towards a Long Boom? (1999)
• 21st Century Technologies (1998)
• Energy: The Next Fifty Years (1999)
   
• The Future of Food (1998)
   
• Societal Cohesion and the Globalising Economy (1997)
   
• The Future of International Air Transport: Responding to Global Change (1997)
   
• China in the 21st Century: Long-Term Global Implications (1996) 
   
• Future Global Capital Shortages: Real Threat or Pure Fiction? (1996) 
   
• OECD Societies in Transition: The Future of Work & Leisure (1994)
   
• Infrastructure Policies for the 1990s (1993)
   
• International Air Transport: The Challenges Ahead (1993)
   
• Long-Term Prospects for the World Economy (1992)
   
• Strategic Industries in a Global Economy: Policy Issues for the 1990s (1991)
   
• Trade Investment and Technology in the 1990s (1991) 
   
• Interdependence and Co-operation in Tomorrow's World: A Symposium Marking the 25th Anniversary of the OECD (1987) 
   
• INTERFUTURES: The OECD INTERFUTURES Project, launched in 1976 on the initiative of the Japanese government, was the Organisation's first major exercise involving a more global approach to the longer-term future. The purpose of the Project was "to provide OECD Member governments with an assessment of alternative patterns of longer-term world economic development in order to clarify their implications for the strategic policy choices open to them in the management of their own economies, in relationships among them, and in their relationships with developing countries".

• Interfutures: Facing the Future (1979)