Integrating Backcasting & Decision Analytic Approaches to Policy Formulation: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Backcasting is a normative scenario method used to help decision makers deal with the inherent uncertainty of the distant future. While backcasting has been shown to be useful in identifying and characterising plausible yet structurally distinct alternative futures, it is often weakly linked to policy-making in the present. This paper argues for a methodological refinement to backcasting which addresses this weakness by integrating the value-focused thinking approach to decision-making into the final step of the backcasting process. While the proposed conceptual framework was designed to support a specific research endeavour, the Georgia Basin Futures Project, it is fully transferable to other backcasting applications with different problem contexts and participant profiles.