Who We Are

The Centre for Strategic Futures (CSF) is a think tank and foresight unit in the Strategy Group of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO-SG).

Vision

CSF’s vision is to build a strategically agile public service ready to manage a complex and fast-changing environment.

Mission

CSF’s mission is to position the Singapore government to navigate emerging strategic challenges and harness potential opportunities by:

1. building capacities, mindsets, expertise and tools for strategic anticipation and risk management;

2. developing insights into future trends, discontinuities and strategic surprises; and

3. communicating insights to decision-makers for informed policy planning.

A Short History of Futures Work in the Singapore Government

Singapore began its future planning efforts as an experiment in the Ministry of Defence in the late 1980s. In 1995, the Government set up the Scenario Planning Office in the Prime Minister’s Office to develop scenarios from a whole-of-government perspective. The office was renamed the Strategic Policy Office (SPO) in 2003 to reflect the strengthened links between foresight work and strategy formulation.

In 2009, the Centre for Strategic Futures (CSF) was established as a futures think tank within SPO to focus on issues that may be blind-spot areas, pursue open-ended long-term futures research, and experiment with new foresight methodologies.

More recently, various Government agencies have recognised the value of foresight work and begun to set up their own foresight teams, which conduct more domain-specific horizon scanning and futures research.

On 1 July 2015, CSF became part of the new Strategy Group in the Prime Minister's Office, which was set up to focus on whole-of-government strategic planning and prioritisation, whole-of-government coordination and development and to incubate and catalyse new capabilities in the Singapore Public Service.

Leadership

Mr Peter HO, Senior Advisor, Centre for Strategic Futures

Peter Ho is the Senior Advisor to the Centre for Strategic Futures and a Senior Fellow in the Civil Service College.

Peter Ho is Chairman of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Chairman of the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) Governing Council, Chairman of the Office for Space Technology & Industry (OSTIn) Board, Chairman of PRECIsion Health Research, SingaporE (PRECISE) Board Oversight Committee, Chairman of the National Gallery Singapore (NGS), and Chairman of the Institute for Intelligent Functional Materials (I-FIM) Governing Board. He is also a member of the Board of Governors of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), and of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP).

When he retired from the Singapore Administrative Service in 2010 after a career in the Public Service stretching more than 34 years, he was Head, Civil Service, concurrent with his other appointments of Permanent Secretary (Foreign Affairs), Permanent Secretary (National Security & Intelligence Coordination), and Permanent Secretary (Special Duties) in the Prime Minister’s Office. Before that, he was Permanent Secretary (Defence). He was also the inaugural Chairman of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.

Mr Terence POON, Head, Centre for Strategic Futures

Terence is the Head of the Centre for Strategic Futures in the Prime Minister’s Office in Singapore .

Since 2013, Terence has been working on foresight, first with the CSF, then the Ministry of Trade & Industry and the National University of Singapore.

Before foresight, Terence spent seven years in Beijing. He reported on the Chinese economy and arranged training for Chinese government officials to learn about EU trade and economic regulation during the Euro crisis.

Terence loves thinking beyond the confines of his messy desk, a symbol of our complicated and sometimes complex world.

Mr LEE Chor Pharn, Principal Foresight Analyst, Centre for Strategic Futures

Chor Pharn has extensive public service experience helming strategic and business development roles. In his current post as Principal Foresight Analyst, he supports and advises on CSF’s foresight research agenda, and translation into strategy at various government platforms. He has also served in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, overseeing strategic foresight and futures thinking to support economic policy analysis, and in a business development role at the China office of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore. Chor Pharn has a Masters of Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Distinguished Fellows and Fellows of the CSF

The CSF’s Distinguished Fellows and Fellows are long-time friends of the Centre who support and amplify the Centre’s work by providing expert input to our practice of foresight, and by expanding the Centre’s networks.

CSF currently has four Distinguished Fellows:

• Dr Khong Cho-Oon, Associate Fellow, Said Business School, University of Oxford

• Ken Liu, Author of speculative fiction, winner of the Nebula, Hugo and World Fantasy awards and Futurist

• Peter Schwartz, Chief Futures Officer and Advisor to the Office of the CEO, Salesforce.com

• Prof Adam Tooze, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History, Columbia University

We also have two CSF Fellows:

• Dr Aaron Maniam, Fellow of Practice and Director of Digital Transformation Education, University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government

• Prof Vaughn Tan, Honorary Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, University College London’s School of Management