Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
Nicklas Larsen serves as a Senior Advisor and Head of Arts & Culture at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies since September 2014, leading non-commercial initiatives and international partnerships. Current roles include UNESCO Co-Chair in Anticipatory Leadership & Futures Capabilities and member of the Network of Institutions and Leaders for Future Generations. Larsen is involved in academia as a faculty member at Parsons School of Design and as a Course Facilitator at Hyper Island, and has also lectured at IT-Universitetet i København and The Danish National School of Performing Arts. Previous experience includes serving as Senior Curator for the UNESCO Futures Literacy Summit and as a Steering Committee Member for MOTI New Planetary Narratives. Academic qualifications include a Master of Science in International Business & Marketing and a First Class Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Business Administration, Strategic Management.
Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (Instituttet for Fremtidsforskning) is an independent, non-profit futures think tank – founded in 1969. We help people and organisations imagine, work with, and shape their future. The Institute was founded in 1969 by former Danish Finance Minister and OECD-Secretary General, Professor Thorkil Kristensen, with the support of visionary public and private organisations, to better qualify decision-making through futures studies and to contribute to the betterment of our society. That is our purpose. The Institute is today a truly global entity working with public, private, philanthropic, and academic organisations around the world. We act as an advisory, a publisher, an event organiser, and as an initiator of various future orientated joint-venture initiatives. The Institute is also configured as a community of sorts, offering memberships for organisations and individuals. We believe that, as the Institute itself, the future belongs to no-one and yet to everyone. We are by decree here to contribute to the betterment of our society, meaning better for the largest possible number of stakeholders. Our own definition of better is based on our perception of our Nordic values firmly rooted in trust, equality, openness, integrity, and inclusiveness, and a society where critical decisions about the future are based on insights, not intuition. Our research within futures studies is essentially about spotting initial signals, identifying patterns, and convert analysis into insights about potential futures. The Institute does not predict the future, this is of course impossible, but instead we generate the best possibly qualified assumptions for potential futures. All of the Institute’s profits are allocated to further futures studies and to realising our purpose.