Examples of this trend are the works of the Club of Rome or...

Examples of this trend are the works of the Club of Rome or the subsequent reports signed by the Meadows. The methodology, similarly as in the former case, is classic, routine methods of making prognoses. In contrast to the prognoses of the first trend, the more the projections of the warning prognosis are avoided, i.e. the more the reality favourably departs from these prognoses, the better it is. The third current of futures studies may be called “adapting-preparative”.

It was developed most extensively and consistently by the Japanese[^8] . In this trend the main function of futures studies is seen not in the answer to the question what will the future be like, but how to act in order to prepare oneself for this future in the best possible way and in its various possible options. Hence the key role in this trend is played by the works on the formulation of a long-term strategy of development, which reaches far into the future.

To this end it uses mainly the methods of system analysis and a scenario approach. In the light of the three main currents of futures studies in the world, as described above, the works conducted in this field before 1989 at the Polish Academy of Sciences were closest to the first one. For they were dominated by the attempts to answer the question what will the future be like.

This trend had a number of important achievements in Poland, concerning both the methodology and the subject matter, particularly in the area of social studies, which during that period dominated the works of the Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences. One of the important examples is Poland’s contribution in the area of prognoses concerning education and the role of Prof.

Bogdan Suchodolski , who for many years has actively worked also in the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), to mention the least. The top achievement of this period is the development of the prognosis “Polish society on the brink of the 20th century and the 21st century”[^9] in 1982. Many predictions included in that work turned out to be valid. However, at the same time this trend experienced many failures in predicting the future, both in Poland and in the world.

In particular it was not able to predict the fundamental changes in the political system of the world, following the fall of the Soviet Union. Today this is the main subject and direction of criticism of this trend.