The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies has published in June 2016 the first issue of Istishraf, the Annual Journal for Future Studies. With this new annual publication, the ACRPS responds to the pressing need for a rigorous academic publication devoted to forecasting and future studies in the Arab region. Thought forecasting and future studies have existed in the Arab region for decades, the corpus of material now published in the field allows for a critical, methodical approach to improve the quality of output. In addition to its academic function, Istishraf will further serve to promote development in the Arab states and strive toward better understanding of both internal and external factors affecting Arab development.
The issue includes nine Research Papers: Hugues de Jouvenel (Foresight and Politics); Walid Abdel Hay (The Complementarity of Quantitative and Qualitative: Methods in Future Studies); Kacem Hadjadj (The Importance of "Creating" Indicators in Strategic Foresight: Methodological-Cognitive Introduction); Nasir al-Tawil (Arab Futures Studies: The Effect of Methodologies on Scientific and Societal Results); Mohamed Khamis (Constructing Scenarios: Cognitive and Methodological: Options among Foresight Schools); Ilyas Belka (The Origins of Foresight: from an Islamic Perspective); Mazin al-Ramdhani (Future Studies: Problematics and Approaches for Use); Chamseddin Alkilani (The Project to Forecast the Future of the Arab Homeland: Between Foresight and Ideological Prediction); Yahya el-Yehyaoui (The 'Future' according to Mahdi Elmandjra). The issue also includes three research papers translated into Arabic from other languages: Mahdi Elmandjra (Fusion of Science and Culture: Key to the Twenty-First Century); Céline Guivarch and Julie Rozenberg (Producing Scenarios by Hundreds: How Statistical Methods Renew Futurological Approaches); Danish Energy Agency (Energy Scenarios for 2020, 2035 and 2050). The first Istishraf yearbook also carries a number of critical case studies devoted to evaluating the national forecasting attempts by various Arab countries.
