Yesterday I was sent a link to the Stanford Center for Critical Foresight, at Stanford University in California. Not sure when the centre was established, but the impression I have is that this is quite a recent initiative. Given that the critical futures and foresight discourse is a central thread in the lineage of practice that all of us here belong to, this immediately drew my attention.
There isn't a great deal of information on the Center's website, but from what is available, I have to admit to being a little confused by the name...there just doesn't seem much here to indicate a critical orientation. The emphasis seems to be slanted towards design innovation and technology foresight (Center Director Dr William Cockanye's PhD is in mechanical engineering; Doctoral Student Micah Lande's PhD work has a Mechanical Engineering and Design orientation). Now, we here at Futuristics all know that mechanical engineering and critical futures are not mutually exclusive domains (although it did take my friends a while to warm to the idea - thanks guys for letting me play), but in this case the emphasis does seem to be further towards the design side than the critical side.
If anyone knows about the Center and has any insight into how the critical foresight angle fits in, it would be interesting to hear other views on this.