Zhouying JIN, Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Theodore Gordon (1930-2014) began conducting future research in the 1960s. His future research work went from providing advice to the Rand Corporation to helping create the Future Research Institute, and then founded the Future Group (the first for-profit futurist think tank). He was one of the founders of the Future Research Institute (IFTF) in Silicon Valley in the 1960s and also a co-founder of the Millennium Project (MP).

He was once a consultant for RAND Corporation and one of the pioneers of the widely used “Delphi method” in future research. His research covers future research, space research (manager of the Apollo III rocket, director of biopharmaceuticals), scientific and technological development, and globalization issues. He has six works, including “The Future” (1965), “Thoughts in Conflict” (1966), and “Forward” (1972).

He is also the inventor of 10 future research techniques (Delphi, Cross Impact Analysis, Trend Impact Analysis, Technology Sequence Analysis, Interactive Scene Software, Decision Modeling, Substitution Analysis, Future Index, What/If Database, Future Headlines News, and Real Time Delphi) and has won the “Shaping Tomorrow Lifetime Achievement Award” And the World Future Association’s Ed Cornish Futurist of the Year Award. Ted Gordon’s contribution to future research methods exceeds any other method in history.