The future is yours.
At Near & Next, we use strategic foresight and futures thinking to navigate complexity, unlock emerging opportunities, anticipate change and risks before they happen, envision transformative futures, and design resilient, future-ready strategies for a world shaped by uncertainty and transformation.
Futures matter. The way we imagine tomorrow shapes how we act today. Different visions of the future unlock new possibilities, reinterpret the present, and expand our agency.
All strategies and policies are, by nature, bets on the future — so let’s make them informed ones.
More than just a toolset, Futures and Foresight is a way of thinking, in which it:
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Brings new knowledge
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Reshapes decision-making - from short-term impacts to long-term thinking
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Builds cognitive flexibility
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Strengthens resilience in crises
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Aligns leadership on long-term priorities
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
ABOUT
Futures science is a multidisciplinary practice.
Near & Next is led by Sylvain Cottong, an economist with over 25 years of experience advising national and international organizations 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 and systems thinking, and empathy — enabling us to make sense of complexity and shape meaningful, future-ready outcomes and decisions.
Near & Next is a brand of strategybuilders sàrl, a Luxembourg-based limited company. Trade register: B231601
CONTACT
Let’s Work Together