Methods for Scenario-building: it’s importance for policy analysis

A scenario is a policy analysis tool that describes a possible set of future conditions. The most useful scenarios (for corporations, for policy decision makers) are those that display the conditions of important variables over time. In this approach, the quantitative underpinning enriches the narrative evolution of conditions or evolution of the variables; narratives describe the important events and developments that shape the variables. In terms of innovative methods for policy analysis, the foresight and scenario building methods can be an interesting reference for social sciences. Some examples of these exercises will be present in this paper, either related to vision in science and technology developments, social and technological futures, or related to aggregated indicators on human development. Two cases (Japan and Germany) are held on behalf the ministries of science and education (respectively, MEXT and BMBF), and another with the support of United Nations.