Too often, discussion of the Future Operational Environment (FOE) is filled with science fiction-inspired speculation of a world driven by the likes of quantum artificial intelligence (AI) and “self-constructing robotic ‘cyburgs’”

Water for People (WfP) is a Denver-based international NGO, whose purpose is to ensure that all people have sustainable access to safe water and sanitation. It currently operates in nine countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The Pardee Center used IFs to help WfP tell the story of its mission by providing estimates of the health and economic benefits that these countries can expect by accelerating the transition to universal access to safe water and sanitation. This work grew out of our earlier work in health and infrastructure forecasting.

Pardee Center personnel have contributed forecasting expertise to four U.S. National Intelligence Council’s quadrennial Global Trends reports. These are forward-looking documents prepared for delivery to the incoming or re-elected President and designed to aid policy makers by highlighting alternative futures for key geopolitical issues.

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is a non-partisan, independent institute of the U.S. government charged with promoting peace and resolving conflict. A Pardee Center project for the USIP prepared a study published by the institute reviewing a wide range of projects that assess what are variously called fragile, vulnerable, or failed states. That effort was a foundational piece in our own efforts to build upon such assessments of countries today and historically, so as to create a measure of performance risk and vulnerability to conflict prospectively.

The New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning (NJCTL) is a non-profit organization that strives to improve student achievement in STEM coursework through innovative educating. In the summer of 2015, the Pardee Institute undertook statistical analysis of this non-profit's programmatic data to better understand whether and how their approach to teaching these core STEM skills differed from other approaches, which yielded interesting results on their impact and student achievement.

The Millennium Project regularly computes a State of the Future Index (SOFI) using historical data.  The Pardee Center partnered with the MP and Ted Gordon, the developer of the SOFI, to compute a forecast version of the index within IFs.  In order to make that available widely we partnered with Ted Gordon to publish an article on the work in Technological Forecasting and Social Change. The Millennium Project also published forecasts using the capability in is 2008, 2010, and 2011 State of the Future volumes.  The web site of the Millennium Project also points visitors to the IFs system.

The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) is a leading institution in the global Chronic Poverty Advisory Network. The Pardee Center contributed to a publication of ODI in late 2013 on "The Geography of Poverty, Disasters, and Climate Extremes in 2030". IFs was the tool that ODI personnel used for poverty scenario development.

In October 2011 the Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA) organized a strategic conversation about the future of higher education in the region. The Pardee Center participated in this dialogue. Pardee personnel subsequently contributed a chapter also to a joint publication on Building Higher Education Scenarios 2025: A Strategic Agenda for Development and provided scenario analysis that was important to framing the larger effort.

Under sponsorship of the European Commission's Fifth Framework Programme (1998-2002) RAND Europe led a large consortium of partners in a long-term forecasting project called TERRA. The IFs team was invited to join the European members of that consortium and to provide the integrated, long-term modeling and forecasting foundation for it.

With ever-advancing medical technology, the prospect of achieving greatly increased lifespans during this century is becoming a real possibility. Whether one sees this development as a near certainty or a true wildcard, the implications of such an achievement could be massive. Thus it behooves us to try to better understand the implications of population aging and life extension. The SENS project involves the enhancement of the IFs model to handle longer lifespans and the refining of the forward linkages from age and health to the rest of the integrated IFs system. The enhancements are part of the Pardee Center’s efforts to provide scenario and policy analysis for the SENS Foundation.