The future revisited: Looking back at The next 25 years by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) Patrick van der Duin a, * , Cornelius Hazeu b , Paul Rademaker c , Jan Schoonenboom b a Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 5, 2628BX Delft, The Netherlands b Scientific Council for Government Policy, The Hague, The Netherlands c Network on Future Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands Available online 22 August 2005 Abstract Looking back at futures studies in the past (past futures) is perhaps the second nature of futures researchers. In this article we look back at a study that was conducted by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy in 1977. We considered it interesting to assess its value 25 years later since many changes have taken place in technology, society, economy, and in the science of futures research as well. From our analysis we have drawn the following conclusions: (1) instead of giving every topic the same time horizon more diverse time horizons should be included because of the different dynamics, (2) more attention for people and opinions outside the mainstream discourse, (3) more attention for thinking in multiple futures instead of predicting just one future outcome, (4) do not only look at the (possible) future of a specific topic, but assess if this topic in its whole will be relevant in the future important (meta-forecast), and (5) more attention for integrating topics for futures studies, but not fulfilling the impossible ambition to link everything to everything. q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction ‘De komende vijfentwintig jaar. Een toekomstverkenning voor Nederland’ [11] was published by the Nederlandse Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid in 1977 (WRR—Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy, see Box 1). In English, Futures 38 (2006) 235–246 www.elsevier.com/locate/futures 0016-3287/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.futures.2005.07.004 * Corresponding author. Tel.: C31 15 2781146; fax: C31 15 2787155. E-mail address: p.vanderduin@tbm.tudelft.nl (P. van der Duin).