Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

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Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (Instituttet for Fremtidsforskning) is an independent, non-profit futures think tank – founded in 1969.

We advise, we publish, we host, and we initiate.

05/06/2026

FRED P***K: HISTORY OF THE FUTURE 🎙️🇳🇱🌠

Writing in the ruins of post-war Europe, Dutch futurist Fred P***k argued that societies rise and fall based on the vitality of their images of the future. By that measure, he believed, Western civilization was headed for terminal decline.

In his 1953 masterwork The Image of the Future, P***k traced how magnetic visions of tomorrow, whether religious or revolutionary, had pulled history forward since the ancient Greeks. Without them, he warned, civilizations stagnate and collapse.

Who was Fred P***k, and how well does his sweeping and pessimistic diagnosis of the modern world stand the test of time?

Listen to the full episode 👉 Link in bio

Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen, August Leo Liljenberg, Tallulah Richards

20/05/2026

WHAT WILL BE OUR NEXT HIGH? 💊

From the utopian ideals of L*D in the sixties to the grunge-infused nihilism of he**in in the nineties, culture and intoxication seem to have always mirrored each other. Might uncovering the nebulous relationship between drug and zeitgeist help us predict what the drug of the future might be?

In this article, FARSIGHT Editor August Liljenberg speaks to cultural historians and pharmacologists, as well as draws from his own experience with inebriation, to investigate the future of intoxication.

“As a universal pillar of social and cultural life, everywhere and throughout all time, intoxication is one of the human activities that strongly reflects the values, anxieties and structures of society.” So writes Stuart Walton, author of A Cultural History of Intoxication. “Its role as a central category of experience reflects the ways in which people seek to amend, or entirely displace, their apprehension of reality.”
..

“If my fourteen-year-old self had been ahead of the curve, he would’ve chosen a drug of the future: a cocktail of Xanax, MDMA-lite, and Ozempic before a digital detox wellness retreat. Even so, the cultural zeitgeists I had identified with drugs of the past could not have been extrapolated into the future. Atomised doomscrollers do not create a homogenous culture, unfortunately, and when they do coalesce, it’s usually to lament the slow erasure of cultural novelty altogether.” - August Liljenberg

Read the full article 👉 Link in Bio

Author: August Liljenberg
Illustration: Juliana Toro

04/05/2026

Will speed replace sloth as a deadly sin?

Time and technology are inextricably linked. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, doing things slowly, inefficiently, and without precision looks existentially preferable.

Author: Caitlin van Bommel

Read the full article 👉 Link in bio

PIC 1: Acedia, by Hieronymous Wierix (in Ancient Greece a state of indifference or carelessness; by early Christian monks, defined as a spiritual state of listlessness)

PIC 2: Sun-dial illustrations

27/04/2026

HISTORY OF THE FUTURE: PIERRE WACK 🎙️🇫🇷🛢️

Mysticism meets Big Oil in FARSIGHT’s latest History of the Future episode on Pierre Wack, the eccentric French economist who brought scenario planning to the corporate world during the geopolitically turbulent 1970s.

Then, as today, a war in the Middle East upset global energy markets, showing the limitations of traditional forecasting.

Yet not everyone was equally unprepared.

Wack and his team of scenario planners at Royal Dutch Shell had highlighted the risks to Big Oil constituted by the rise of OPEC, public and political backlash to the industry, and other vulnerabilities ahead of the 1973 oil crisis.
The story of how Wack and Shell were able to use scenarios to navigate the global shake-up of capitalism has become the mythologised origin point of corporate foresight. Yet Wack’s obsession with the mystical dimensions of scenario writing – his “spiritual documents” – is often glossed over.

Listen to the podcast 👉Link in bio

27/03/2026

🎙️Technological Tipping-Points w/Professor Andrew Maynard

We are joined by Andrew Maynard, scientist, author, and Professor of Advanced Technology Transitions at Arizona State University, to discuss phase shifts, technological risk, and the accelerating LinkedInification of human expression.

Andrew Maynard writes the “future of being human” substack https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/ and co-hosts the Modem Futura podcast.

Listen to FARSIGHT wherever you get your podcasts!

21/03/2026

FARSIGHT #17 THE FUTURE OF VICE 🎰🚬🍾

A vice can take many forms: overindulgence, moral fault, depravity, among others. Many things once considered vices are now widely accepted. In the Western world: premarital s*x, usury, and apostasy, to name just a few.

Some vices have been embraced, only to later slide back into questionability. The question of what might be considered a vice in the future matters if we accept that novel vices – as well as shifting definitions of what does or does not count as a vice – are underappreciated indicators of the direction in which society is heading. Coffee rose to prominence in Britain’s Whiggish 17th-century coffee houses, with their excitable atmospheres and free flow of information. Psychedelics are associated with the 1960s and with ideals of expanded consciousness, universal togetherness, and world peace. Cocaine-sniffing yuppies fuelled the highs of financial capitalism in the 1980s, and so on.

But vice is not confined to drugs and inebriants. Habits and behaviours can also assume the role of a vice when deemed overindulgent or morally or ethically questionable. In this issue, we explore the future of vice – and what it reveals about our society and culture.

Grab a copy of the issue or subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member 👉 Link in bio

05/03/2026

What is the relationship between religion and technology?

Ideas about transcendence, agency, destiny and the end of the world all predate computing, yet they regularly surface in contemporary debates about machine intelligence. As AI grows more influential, people reach for familiar symbolic frames to explain what it means and where it might be taking us.

We sat down with Professor Beth Singler to explore the relationship between religion and technology. Professor Beth Singler is an Assistant Professor in Digital Religion(s) at the University of Zurich and co-Director of the university’s programme on Digital Religion(s), and her work looks at how religious concepts shape our hopes, fears and expectations about emerging technologies.

In this conversation, she reflects on why AI so often invites comparisons to gods, demons and messianic figures, how different traditions respond to technological change and what these reactions reveal about the way societies confront uncertainty.

Read the full article 👉 Link in bio

Images: Marco Schmid, Phillip Haslbauer, Aljosa Smolic, Peterskapelle, Luzern. (AI-Jesus confession booth)

28/02/2026

Behind-the-scenes of printing FARSIGHT 17! 🖨️

Can you guess what the theme is? Hint: 🍺🚬🎰…

18/02/2026

RAILS ACROSS EUROPE 🚝🇪🇺

Trains and rail once symbolised progress and in Europe modernity. Today, they have more-so come to represent ideas of social equity and public good – an unassuming but universally accessible means of transport. Could rail reclaim its lost significance and prestige – and if so, what would it take?

In this article, we interview Kaave Pour, founder of 21st Europe, a Copenhagen-based think-tank designing blueprints that spark conversations and inspire optimism and action for the continent’s next chapter.

One of these blueprints is Starline, an ambitious vision for a new European high-speed rail network - one that connects countries as seamlessly as city metro lines.

But is the plan actually feasible? Roger Vickerman, Professor of European Economics at the University of Kent, who believes the task of Europe wide rail interoperability is far harder than it seems.

Read the article 👉 Link in bio

Author: Casper Skovgaard Petersen
Illustration 1: .prieto.v
Illustration 2: 21st Europe, Starline

05/02/2026

THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF UTOPIA 💡

Since its invention in the sixteenth century, the idea of ‘Utopia’ has carried an inherent ambiguity. Suspended between reality and fiction, the emancipatory and the fatal, two conflicting meanings have clung to the word for centuries and continue to do so today, as visions of utopia are making a comeback among tech billionaires and Saudi Arabian royalty alike.

Read the article 👉 Link in bio

Author: Mads Vindaal

Picture: A woodcut by Ambrosius Holbein, illustrating a 1518 edition. In the lower left, Raphael describes the island Utopia.

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