Future studies using formative scenario analysis, a framework to integrate science and practice

Scenario planning is a powerful and effective tool for foresight. In recent years, research on scenario techniques has made substantial contributions in the form of methodological frameworks. The main goal of scenario development is to stimulate thinking about possible events, assumptions related to these events, opportunities and possible threats and methods of implementation. Scenario analysts create a set of narratives about the long-term future through corporate and collaborative processes. One challenge of scenario construction is integrating the knowledge of both science and practice for a better understanding of the complex interactions between impact factors in a region, so the objective of this research is to introduce a format for integrating knowledge for a collaborative scenario analysis in the context of regional development, which requires the participation of heterogeneous actors from the science and practice. In this study future scenarios of urban systems in the Zanjan province have been identified using Formative Scenario Analysis, which finally led to the constructing four plausible scenarios. Cross Impact analysis was used to analyze data sets. The findings show the geographical location and transport infrastructure has the highest impact on the transformation of urban system in Zanjan province. The analyses of urban system reveal that none of the impact factors are absolutely passive and impact factors with low activity scores, strongly influence other system elements.