Navigating Uncertainty. Designing Better Futures.
In a world shaped by polycrises and accelerating disruption — from technological breakthroughs and geopolitical shifts to environmental threats, socio-political instability, market realignments, and demographic transitions — Foresight and Futures Thinking have never been more essential.
At Near & Next, we help you move beyond short-termism and reactive strategies. Our frameworks and methods empower leaders, teams, and institutions to build future-fit strategies and policies with confidence, creativity, and clarity.
Latest Blogposts
See Beyond the Horizon: What Foresight Makes Possible
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Anticipate change and reveal blind spots by spotting emerging issues and early signals before they unfold.
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Explore multiple plausible futures to uncover hidden opportunities and surface latent risks.
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Strengthen resilience by bringing new knowledge and making informed decisions in the face of complexity and ambiguity.
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Surface the hard questions no one wants to ask—but everyone needs to confront
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Envision bold transformations and design purposeful pathways to get there.
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Stress-test your strategies and policies against diverse future scenarios — for business, public policy, or organisational development.
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Challenge assumptions and cultivate a culture of long-term, systems-level thinking.
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Familiarise yourself with cognitive biases and cultivate cognitive flexibility.
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Understand ripple effects across interconnected systems and domains.
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Foster agency by equipping teams with the mindset and tools to shape the future.
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Embed foresight in your organisational DNA through anticipatory governance and futures literacy.
If you are new to foresight, please read 'Why Foresight & Futures Literacy Are No Longer Optional'
WHAT WE DO
Using futures in multiple ways
MANIFESTO
The Near & Next approach
What Happens Between Near and Next
The future doesn't arrive fully formed — it emerges, layer by layer. What’s near carries the signals of what’s next. What’s next depends on the decisions made today.
At Near & Next, we help organizations navigate this unfolding edge. We map the shifts already shaping the horizon, make sense of them, and translate what we see into choices that matter and resonate.
We believe that futures are not abstract concepts; they are constructed through daily decisions, collective imagination, and intentional design.
Our work lives in the tension between proximity and possibility — between what is near and what comes next.
What We Stand For
Proximity: Staying close to emerging signals and what’s already unfolding.
Resonance: Identifying what will echo across time, not just what is novel.
Foresight with Impact: Turning anticipation into actionable strategies.
Dialogue Over Prediction: Co-creating futures through collaboration, imagination and inquiry.
Decision as Design: Seeing each decision as a design act that shapes what’s next.
How We Work
We don’t predict futures. We prepare for them.
We don’t impose scenarios. We co-create them.
We don’t offer certainty. We help organisations thrive in uncertainty.
Thereby, we strengthen imagination in many ways:
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Sensory imagination – to feel what you cannot yet articulate
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Strategic imagination – to envision possibilities beyond current constraints
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Social imagination – to understand the human systems no algorithm can map
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Creative imagination – to generate the genuinely novel rather than recycle the merely new
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Emotional imagination – to navigate the landscape of feeling that drives all decision-making
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Scientific imagination – to see patterns in complexity that data alone cannot reveal
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Contemplative imagination – to find meaning where others see merely metrics
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Transformative imagination – to reimagine entire systems rather than merely optimize them
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ABOUT
Futures science is a multidisciplinary practice.
Near & Next is led by Sylvain Cottong, an economist with almost 30 years of experience advising national and international organisations and companies across public, non-profit, and private sectors in various areas of expertise.
Futures thinking is inherently multidisciplinary — crossing boundaries between management, leadership, economics, technology, society, politics, science, the environment, psychology, and beyond.
It thrives on curiosity, critical thinking, systems thinking, creativity, and empathy — enabling us to make sense of complexity and shape meaningful, future-ready outcomes and decisions.
Near & Next is a brand of StratgeyBuilders sàrl a Luxembourg-based limited liability company. Trade register: B231601
Discover more of our work and futures thinking by connecting with Sylvain on LinkedIn
LANGUAGES & GLOBAL REACH
We work fluently in English, French, German, and Luxembourgish.
Thanks to virtual collaboration tools like videoconferencing, digital whiteboards (Miro, Mural), and other online platforms, we successfully manage projects worldwide. Our only requirement: using one of these four languages as the working language.
CONTACT
Let’s Work Together