VSU holds workshop on Strategic Foresight and Futures Thinking for institutional readiness

To deepen understanding of strategic foresight and futures thinking, the Visayas State University (VSU) organized a four-day workshop titled “Shaping Tomorrow Today: Strategic Foresight and Futures Thinking for Visayas State University”, held on October 14-15 and October 21-22, 2025, at the VSU Smart Classroom. 

Designed to prepare the university for future possibilities, the activity gathered members of the University Administrative Council (UADCO) to explore how foresight and futures thinking can be embedded in the university’s systems, programs, and policies.

The workshop serves also as a venue for the university leaders to design strategies that ensure long-term institutional resilience and relevance, a call to shift to proactive leadership by anticipating change before it arrives.

“This initiative encourages every one of us to look beyond the present and imagine what VSU could become in the next few years. It empowers us, university leaders, to shape the future with informed decisions today”, shared VSU President Dr. Prose Ivy G. Yepes.

To lead the sessions, the Instruction and Evaluation Office (IEO) and VSU’s Go Green Project, the workshop lead organizer, invited Dr. Ma. Oliva Z. Domingo, Senior Fellow of the Philippine Futures Thinking Society; Dr. Reginald Ugaddan, Director of the Center for Local and Regional Governance at UP-NCPAG; and Mr. Lui Joshua N. Cuadra, Program Manager at UP-NCPAG, as resource persons.

Throughout the four day workshop, participants engaged in blended learning sessions through virtual and face-to-face activities, group consultations, interactive lectures, and mentoring series to allow for deeper analysis.

Further, they looked at how global trends like the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Education 5.0, and Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations affect higher education institutions, which guides VSU to develop foresight research proposals and strategic action plans.

In 2020, VSU became a part of the Futures Thinking project launched by Senator Pia Cayetano. This program focuses on planning and decision making in the present while anticipating the opportunities and challenges in the next ten, twenty, or fifty years.

One of its projects under this program in VSU was to future-proof the root crop industry’s preparedness for the post-pandemic era, securing a 5-million peso grant to execute the project.  

The latest workshop expands the application of Futures Thinking beyond research and innovation. It now includes administration, governance, and leadership.

This initiative aims to make VSU ready for the future by ensuring that policies, plans, and programs adapt and remain relevant in the future. 

This article is aligned with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4: Quality Education.

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