Profile of Professor Richard A Slaughter 

Richard A Slaughter is Director of Foresight International, Brisbane. During 1999 to 2004 he was Foundation Professor of Foresight at the Australian Foresight Institute, Swinburne University (Melbourne) and a consulting futurist who has worked with a wide range of organisations in many countries and at all educational levels. He completed a PhD in futures studies at the University of Lancaster in 1982. He has since built an international reputation through futures scholarship, educational innovation, strategic and social foresight and the identification of a knowledge base for futures studies. He is a fellow of the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF) and a professional member of the World Future Society (WFS). During 2001 - 2005 he was President of the WFSF.  

He is a prolific writer and holds several editorial positions. These include: board member of Futures (Oxford, UK), Foresight (UK), the Journal of Futures Studies (Tamkang University, Taiwan) and series editor of The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies (FI, Brisbane). He is co-author of Education for the 21st Century (Routledge, 1993), author of The Foresight Principle - Cultural Recovery in the 21st Century (Praeger 1995) editor of New Thinking for a New Millennium (Routledge 1996) and co-editor with David Hicks of the World Yearbook of Education 1998: Futures Education (Kogan Page, London 1998). He has published a series of futures resource books and an edited volume of essays: Futures for the Third Millennium: Enabling the Forward View (Prospect, Sydney, 1999) as well as a collection of papers by various authors from The ABN Report entitled: Gone Today, Here Tomorrow: Millennium Previews (Prospect, Sydney, 2000). Several of these publications have been revised and re-issued on a series of CD-ROMs, beginning with the Knowledge Base of Futures Studies vols 1-4, Millennium Edition (Foresight International 2001). His latest books are Futures Beyond Dystopia: Creating Social Foresight (Routledge, London, 2004) and Futures Thinking for Social Foresight (Foresight International/Tamkang University, Taiwan, 2006).

 His research interests include: the use of futures concepts and methods in education, business and government; the development of critical futures methodologies; the knowledge base of futures studies and the social implementation of foresight. With the support of the Pratt Foundation he initiated a research program to support the development of a national foresight strategy for Australia. His main aim is to facilitate the emergence of a society and culture that is not merely driven by the past but also responsive to the emerging near-future context. The latter, he believes, is far more challenging than is commonly realised. There are, however, many innovative paths out of the trap that humanity has collectively created for itself.

 Since 2 000 he has applied integral thinking, integral methods, to Futures Studies and applied foresight, and increasingly explored the potential (and the reality) of post-conventional approaches to futures. Two of his most recent projects are the Knowledge Base of Futures Studies: Professional Edition and Towards a Wise Culture: Four 'Classic' Futures Texts, both available from Foresight International on CD-ROM.

Contact information
 

PO Box 793, Indooroopilly, Qld 4068, Australia     

Web:  http://www.foresightinternational.com.au