In Poland this criticism was joined by additional criticism after 1989...

In Poland this criticism was joined by additional criticism after 1989, which was a result of reaction against central planning, dominating in the former system. This was expressed in the press in a wave of total criticism of the failures of predictions of this type. It questioned the scientific justification and the sense of prognoses of this type.

As an example one may mention a number of articles published in the press of mass circulation, with self-evident titles such as, for example, in “Polityka” - “The poverty of prognoses”[^10] and subsequently - “A prognosis cut short”[^11] , or in “Rzeczpospolita” - “Under the charm of false prophets”[^12] . In the effect of this criticism the concept of futurology took up pejorative features.

Today this still affects public opinion on that matter, despite the complete change of futures studies methodology, which took place after 1989. The main change which occurred during the decade of 1990-2000 was the shift from making prognosis according to the first model of the three described above, to the third one , i.e. from classic prognoses to strategic studies on the future of the new type. They answer completely different questions than the prognoses of the classic type.

In the futures studies conducted by the Polish Academy of Sciences today this trend is definitely a dominating one. The shift to the domination of strategic studies on that subject took place in a few stages. In the first stage after the breakthrough of 1989 the activities of the Committee until 1995 were dominated by the striving to justify in general the need to think about the future, which in this period, as mentioned above, was questioned.

The Futures Studies Committee devoted its main publications during this period to this subject[^13] . The work of Prof. Józef Pajestka [^14] , who became the main advocate of the need to think about the future, although in different forms than before 1989, was of particular importance here. The second stage began in 1995 with the publishing of the first Polish comprehensive concept of a long-term strategy, encompassing the period until the year 2010[^15] .

For the conditions of the time this was a pioneer work. The priority for education and human investment proposed in the strategy, was not adopted by the subsequent governments. However, the concept played an important opinion-making role.