The 2009 State of the Future comes in two parts: a 100-page print executive summary and an attached CD containing about 6,700 pages of research behind the print edition and the Millennium Project's 13 years of cumulative research and methods. Some unique features not available in other global assessments include: International assessment of 35 economic elements of the next economic system that could help improve the human condition over the next 20 years; 15 Global Challenges Prospects, Strategies, Insights; State of the Future Index with and without the world recession; Emerging international environmental security issues; applications of the Real-Time Delphi technique; 750 annotated scenario sets; and much more futures intelligence on technology, environment, governance, and the human condition. This ''report card on the future'' distills the collective intelligence of over 2,700 leading scientists, futurists, scholars, and policy advisers who work for governments, corporations, non-governmental organizations, universities, and international organizations. It is produced by the Millennium Project with its 32 Nodes (groups of futurists and organizations) around the world, which collects, feeds back, and assesses insights from creative and knowledgeable people on emerging crises, opportunities, strategic priorities, and the feasibility of actions.
Although the future has been getting better for most of the world over the past 20 years, the global recession has lowered the State of the Future Index for the next 10 years. The global financial crisis and climate change planning may be helping humanity to re-think its assumptions and move from its often self-centered adolescence to a more globally responsible adulthood, states the report. This year s annual State of the Future is an extraordinarily rich distillation of information for those who care about the world and its future. It describes in non-technical language what the educated person should know about the world and what to do to improve it'' says co-author and Millennium Project Director Jerome C. Glenn.
If you think too much has changed too radically lately, read the State of the Future and think again! says Olcay Unver, Coordinator, United Nations World Water Assessment Programme.