The Importance of

Abstract

Tracking major and minor future trends in structural change within various human systems depends on diverse factors: from a set of a priori logical assumptions to accumulated experience, facts on the ground, reliable studies, scientific laws, methodological tools, statistical observatories, and workshops on strategic foresight. Such tracking also depends on the "indicators to measure change" adopted by futurologists and institutions devoted to foresight; these indicators are hugely diverse, and can be linked to myriad factors. Despite the academic and practical debate over the relative utility and suitability of these indicators to track the futures of a forecasted subjectparticularly since they are not free of cognitive, ideological, cultural, and interest-based bias-indicators nevertheless have supreme importance in strategic foresight workshops, and allow researchers to draw up future scenarios. Given the above, this paper attempts to understand the problematic of "indicator creation", its goals, and investigates how to both create and rely on indicators in order to carry out reliable strategic foresight workshops.