Fostering social foresight in the community sector

Slaughter's layered social foresight development model has played a central role in the Swinburne University Strategic Foresight Program's teaching and research since inception. The model formed the theoretical basis for a recent project to build foresight capacity with the Victorian community services sector. Following completion of the project, research was conducted into the effectiveness of the model and its prospects for enabling social foresight capacity. The application of the model and assessment of its outcomes in fostering social foresight form the subject of this paper. The prospects for a similar model to be applied more generally to the development of social innovation and entrepreneurship capacity are also considered briefly.