A Review of the Application of Prospective Methods: A Systematic Review

Foresight is one of the most appropriate tools for moving on uncertainty waves. Choosing the suitable method is a key to lead successful foresight project. Having a clear picture of the various methods and awareness of their usage in previous projects is a way to achieve better results in foresight studies. Since the 1990s, several methods have been applied to carry out foresight projects. However, due to the complexity and multiplicity of methods and absence of any patterns for their proper application in different situations, a number of foresight projects have failed or suffered many problems and deficiencies. The main purpose of this article is to create a clear image of the use of foresight methods in practical projects. For this purpose, a systematic review methodology was conducted in three databases: Science Direct, Scopus and Emerald (maximum coverage and accessing more articles to produce more desirable and credible results is the reason of selecting theses databases) and after screening at different stages, 45 articles were analyzed. The results of the systematic review, show the diversity of using of prospective methods by 2017, countries’ inclination in the application of the foresight methods and the fields and scope of these methods. Also, the factors affecting the selection of foresight methods were extracted and the degree of their importance was determined. Furthermore, we tried to identify the knowledge gap existing in the fields related to future study to be used by the futurists, through reviewing applied researches.