Tamkang University’s achievements in advancing futures studies continue to attract international attention. Following the presentation of an individual award to Tamkang University Chairperson Flora Chia-I Chang last year, the 12th Asia Pacific Futures Network Conference (APFN12) this year presented the “APFN Award 2026” in the category of “Individual Contributions in an Institution Enhancing Futures Thinking in the Asia-Pacific Community” to Kuo-Hua Chen, Dean of the College of Education at Tamkang University. The award recognizes his long-standing efforts to promote futures thinking education, integrate foresight into the university’s overall curriculum, and contribute to the development of the futures studies community across the Asia-Pacific region.

This year’s conference was held on September 3 and 4 at the Sasin School of Management, Chulalongkorn University, in Bangkok, Thailand. Under the theme “Asia Pacific Futures—Powering People, Planet, Prosperity, and Peace,” the event brought together futures researchers, practitioners, policymakers, academics, and business leaders to explore future challenges related to people, the planet, prosperity, and peace. More than 244 participants from 40 countries attended. According to APFN, Chen has not only remained deeply engaged in academic research and educational practice related to futures thinking, but has also played a key role in Tamkang University’s development as an important global hub for foresight education.

One of the major sessions at this year’s conference was the special dialogue “Asia Pacific Futures—Advancing People, Planet, Prosperity, and Peace,” featuring Sohail Inayatullah, Visiting Researcher in Tamkang University’s Department of Education and Futures Design, and internationally renowned strategic futurist Professor Richard Hames. Inayatullah, the inaugural UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies, is ranked among the world’s top 2% most-cited scientists and originator of influential futures methodologies such as Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) and the Futures Triangle. He has long been dedicated to futures teaching, research, and curriculum development at Tamkang University. Richard Hames is a strategic futurist, author, and senior adviser whose work focuses on deep systemic change, organizational strategy, and civilizational transformation. Their dialogue centered on how societies can move beyond merely reacting to global change and instead actively shape a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable future for the Asia-Pacific region. They also explored the role of regional foresight in responding to complex systems and high levels of uncertainty. The session further highlighted Tamkang University’s strong ties with the international futures studies community.

The Tamkang University delegation from the College of Education included three faculty members who served in different capacities as session chairs, facilitators, and research presenters. Dean Kuo-Hua Chen chaired the academic session “Tamkang University PhD Students Research Presentations,” guiding doctoral students as they shared their latest research and exchanged views with international scholars.

Associate Professor Nur Anisah Binti Abdullah of the Department of Education and Futures Design co-facilitated the workshop “Feminist Futures Mosaic: From Seeds to Possibilities” with international futures scholars. Using a simplified form of CLA, the workshop guided participants to begin with personal experiences and micro-narratives and explore issues involving care, power, voice, knowledge, justice, and transformation.

Assistant Professor Chun-Ta Chiu of the Department of Education and Futures Design presented “Curating Public Futures: Local Knowledge, Cultural Sustainability, and Anticipatory Governance—a Case of the Futures City Museum Project” in the academic track on futures-oriented research in the Asia-Pacific region. From the perspectives of curatorial practice and local engagement, he explained how local knowledge, cultural sustainability, and anticipatory governance can be brought together to create spaces in which society can collectively imagine public futures.

Six doctoral students from the Department of Education and Futures Design also represented Tamkang at the conference: Ricardo Schnug, Edward Niedbalski, Po-Ta Chen, An-Ting Kuo, Fang-Chun Liao, and Pohung Tseng. They presented their work in the “Academic Track: Tamkang University PhD Students Research Presentations,” which showcased the latest research by doctoral students and emerging scholars. Topics ranged from declining global school enrollment and weak signals in education, extreme weather and labor protection, open-source collaboration and paperless futures, the deconstruction and reconstruction of work through human-AI collaboration, to family narratives and subjectivity. Together, the presentations demonstrated the diverse ways in which Tamkang doctoral students apply futures theories and methods to issues in education, technology, the environment, and society.

Kuo-Hua Chen said that by having faculty members take part in academic moderation, participatory workshops, and research presentations, while doctoral students shared their work in a dedicated session, Tamkang faculty and students were able to exchange perspectives with futures scholars from a wide range of cultural and professional backgrounds. This also allowed them to reexamine their research within broader Asia-Pacific and global contexts. He noted that the university’s participation not only enhanced the international visibility of Tamkang’s futures studies research, but also demonstrated the results of its long-term commitment to cultivating talent in foresight thinking and interdisciplinary research, while continuing to deepen connections between Tamkang’s futures studies community and international academic networks.