Designing Futures

This chapter considers the role of strategic foresight and adaptive leadership in transforming higher education to be more sustainable, inclusive and future-oriented. It presents the “Designing Futures” model, a framework that combines foresight, systems thinking, and adaptive leadership to reconceptualize universities as living, learning ecosystems. The chapter uses comparative global examples to demonstrate the value and impact of foresight-driven practices in helping institutions manage and embrace uncertainty, diversity, and co-creating value over time. It focuses on the needs of cultivating institutional resilience through futures literacy, collaborative governance, and ethical imagination. The conclusion advocates for a cultural shift in higher education that positions Futures thinking as a fundamental principle of the system and transforms higher education from a system that responds to change to one that purposefully designs its future toward a more equitable and adaptive global future.