The Board of State Advisors advises the national government on spatial quality and advocates long-term thinking. Not in search of beautiful vistas, but to reason backwards: what do we have to do now? Broad-based design workshops form the basis for this. Design as a way to explore the many possible futures and to examine how we should deal with them now. Design, in short, as a way of thinking and acting. Design thinking expands the playing field in time and space, formulates uncomfortable questions, challenges frames, offers solutions and vistas.

In 2022, the College launched the Future Academy. To learn 'future thinking' with each other (designers, researchers, creative thinkers). The Future Academy consists of a series of lectures with working sessions on methods of future thinking. We describe those methods in this manual. Step by step, so you can get started yourself.

This manual contributes to ways of working together on the future. For this it is important to adopt an open design attitude and to work together constructively. Learning together. This manual could not have come about without the open attitude of all those working on the future of the Netherlands.