Foresight Masterclass CLA – Milan, June 30th

Following the 2024 masterclass in Naples, Sohail Inayatullah and Ivana Milojevic return to Italy for a new masterclass dedicated to the in-depth study and application of the CLA-Causal Layered Analysis method, to understand and transform the structure of the future.

An event in partnership with The Millennium Project Italia.

What is CLA?

CLA assumes four levels of reality, each of equal importance: the litany, i.e., the everyday reality we take for granted, made up of news and data; the systemic level, which looks at the social causes of the present and the megatrends that produce it; the worldview, i.e., the grand narratives underlying different perspectives and positions; and the deepest level of myth and metaphor from which culture originates and long-term processes operate.

By moving toward deeper levels of causality, new solutions to problems can emerge. Furthermore, new understandings of the problem can emerge from in-depth analysis. By articulating these four levels, solutions tend to be integrative and more durable, as they are multidimensional and multi-perspective. Finally, CLA is used as a tool to help individuals understand their own story—their own narrative—about the future and their role in the forecasting process. This is critical to helping people gain agency, i.e., to understand, manage, and shape their own future.

Developed in the late 1990s based on Sohail Inayatullah’s studies on macrohistory, it is now used worldwide to develop more inclusive policy solutions and innovative strategies, to broaden traditional corporate and managerial strategic thinking, as a research tool to understand social dynamics, and to develop new visions of the future. Applications of the CLA method have been implemented in projects involving international politics, counterterrorism, the future of education, urban planning, corporate strategies, and national governments.

Target

The masterclass is aimed at futurists and foresight practioners, researchers, business consultants, coaches, trainers, managers, representatives of non-profit organizations and institutions who aim to add an effective method of analyzing the present and transforming the future to their toolbox.