Stefan Bergheim is an economist by training. His work in the futures field began in 1995. He started with forecasting business cycles and central bank activity for major international banks and their customers. His dissertation is on “Long-Run Growth Forecasting”.
He added trend research and scenarios to his methods toolbox from 2001 at Deutsche Bank Research, where he also focused on demographics, education, and quality of life. His research reports carried titles such as “Live Long and Prosper”, “Measures of Wellbeing”, or “The Happy Variety of Capitalism”.
Stefan left the financial industry at the end of 2008 to focus fully on quality-of-life topics and futures in the newly created think tank “Center for Societal Progress”. There he led or advised quality-of-life processes such as “Positive Futures – Forum for Frankfurt”, “Quality of Life in the Digital Age”, or the German government’s “National Wellbeing Strategy”. They all included four steps: Dialogue, Visions, Indicators, Action.
His first report at the new think tank in 2009 was on government foresight, where he highlighted the need for inclusive processes of communication and collaboration in complex human systems. Thereafter he focused more and more on Futures Literacy as the broad competency to use the future for different reasons and with different methods. He contributed to the 2018 UNESCO book “Transforming the Future”, co-curated the 2019 “Futures Literacy Design Forum”, the 2020 “High-Level Futures Literacy Summit”, and the 2021 conference of the World Futures Studies Federation. Since 2019 he designs and facilitates Futures Literacy Laboratories online and onsite. He also speaks and writes about Futures Literacy in German and in English. His 2021 book is “Futures -Open to Variety”.
