Institute for the Future (IFTF) is an independent nonprofit futures research and strategic foresight organization founded in 1968 by former researchers from the RAND Corporation with support from the Ford Foundation. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, IFTF helps organizations, governments, educators, and communities anticipate long-term change and prepare for emerging opportunities and risks.

The organization focuses on advancing the field of strategic foresight—the practice of examining signals of change, developing future scenarios, and helping leaders make better decisions today. Its work combines research, scenario planning, design methods, and practical tools that help corporations, public agencies, philanthropies, and nonprofit organizations around the world become future-ready. While based in the United States, its research and partnerships address global trends such as artificial intelligence, automation, future jobs, civic institutions, health systems, sustainability, social innovation, labor markets, climate shifts, demographic transitions, and technological transformation.

For higher education and learning systems, IFTF has produced work on the future of skills, lifelong learning, credentials, professional education, and human-machine collaboration. Examples include its Future Skills initiative, scenario projects on how learning and work may converge, and reports such as Knowledge Mobilization in 2032: Building Future-Ready Professional Education Networks. These resources are relevant to colleges, universities, workforce organizations, and policymakers seeking to redesign education for a more dynamic economy.

In March 2026, IFTF developed a social simulation of AI and the next era of learning, titled What If? Universities - AI Futures Simulations for Higher Education. The training initiative is based on the scenario that by 2036, AI will reshape higher education in ways that are already becoming visible today. What should the university become — and what could it become? In this social simulation, the IFTF works with teams to explore four possible futures and what each one demands of higher education institutions right now. The scenarios focus on four radically different universities, each built on a distinct philosophy of AI's role in learning:

• AI-Proof University — Protects the integrity of human learning at all costs
• AI-Augmented University — Teaches the next generation to learn and work with AI for a lifetime
• AI-Adjacent University — Explores the central question: what are humans for in this new era?
• AI-Directed University — Empowers AI to invent a unique learning and credentialing pathway for every individual

Resources

Institute for the Future. (n.d.). Institute for the Future. https://www.iftf.org/

Institute for the Future. (n.d.). Who we are. https://www.iftf.org/who-we-are/

Institute for the Future. (2011). Future work skills 2020. https://legacy.iftf.org/futureworkskills/

Institute for the Future. (2022). Knowledge mobilization in 2032: Building future-ready professional education networks. https://www.iftf.org/insights/knowledge-mobilization-in-2032-building-future-ready-professional-education-networks/

Institute for the Future. (n.d.). Insights and publications. https://www.iftf.org/insights/

Institute for the Future. (n.d.).  https://www.iftf.org/ten-year-forecastrecast/

Institute for the Future. (2026, March). What If? Universities - AI Futures Simulations for Higher Education.