The last decade has seen a proliferation of Foresight exercises across Europe. Focused upon, among other things, science and technology, sustainable development, industrial competitiveness, and development of regional identity / cohesion, these exercises constitute new distributed fora in which futures are contested and policy and investment decisions emerge. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of people are involved in these exercises, and are drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds, often within the same exercise. These individuals are looking to anticipate future changes in their living and working environments. Such changes may be apparent from extrapolation of already discernible trends and drivers. They may also become apparent through the Foresight process, as knowledge of other actors’ worldviews and future strategies come to be better understood. Through this increased strategic knowledge, participants in Foresight exercises hope to develop agility within an increasingly uncertain world. But this is only part of the picture, since Foresight is also ‘active’ in its future orientation, assuming that decisions taken today can be used to shape ‘desirable’ futures.