COURSE OVERVIEW

Futures thinking is invaluable for informing and shaping policy delivery in fields including education, social change, health, sustainable development and technology. It allows policy makers to anticipate future challenges and opportunities, and to develop policies over different time horizons. By considering multiple futures and engaging decision makers in the process, futures thinking contributes to effective, sustainable and dynamic policy outcomes. 

This course helps public sector leaders, decision makers and policy advisers make the link between two disciplines that have too often worked separately. Future.Ctrl allows attendees to identify future scenarios, threats and opportunities and then design, implement and track policies. The course is an internationally unique offering, drawing together best-practice from international futures, policy and implementation research. The course is delivered by Sam Douglas-Bate and Gavin Moore, two futures and policy experts who have worked with international governments and companies, the European Union and NATO. 

Facilitator

Sam is a policy and government affairs leader who has worked for the European Union and the UK’s Cabinet Office, Brexit Department and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. He has spent time in the House of Commons, led high profile accounts for a leading public affairs firm and was in the last tranche of British EU Civil Servants working for the institutions in Brussels. During his career he has delivered policy and project work for a range of public and private sector clients including the Government Digital Service (GDS), the Cabinet Secretariat, members of both the UK and European Parliaments, NATO and companies including Siemens, Zurich, Arla Foods and Laing O’Rourke. Sam is an accredited Microsoft data analyst and holds a degree in politics from the University of Bristol.

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Co-Facilitator

Gavin was the lead adviser for a large political grouping in the European Parliament on the EU’s budget. More recently he has led teams at the UK’s Treasury on tariff and trade legislation and on both the transfer of EU financial services and cryptocurrency regulation at the Financial Conduct Authority. He has a deep understanding of government and international funding mechanisms and has advised MEPs, Lords, UK ministers and senior civil servants on parliamentary and budgetary procedure. He has an extensive stakeholder network in Brussels and Whitehall, and previously worked for an MEP and in the Northern Ireland Assembly. He holds a BA in International Politics, MAs in Comparative Ethnic Conflict and Legislative Studies from Queen’s University Belfast, with published works in academic journals and the Northern Ireland Assembly library.