Purpose – This essay aims to introduce horizon scanning as an approach fundamental to most foresight studies. Design/methodology/approach – The essay combines a general review of the topic with an overview of a range of horizon‐scanning approaches that are in use in the UK health system....

Cover -- Guest editorial -- Facing disaster: the great challenges framework -- Complexity, creeping normalcy and conceit: sexy and unsexy risks -- Long-term trajectories of human civilization -- There is plenty of time at the bottom: the economics, risk and ethics of time compression -- Islands...