The Millennium Project

The American Council for the United Nations University is a U.S. NGO that provides a point of contact between Americans and the primary research organ of the UN - the United Nations University (UNU)- which focuses intellectual resources from all nations on world problems.

The Millennium Project of the American Council for the United Nations University is a global participatory futures research think tank of futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers who work for international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs, and universities. The Millennium Project manages a coherent and cumulative process that collects and assesses judgements from its several hundred participants to produce the annual "State of the Future", "Futures Research Methodology" series, and special studies such as the State of the Future Index, Future Scenarios for Africa, Lessons of History, Environmental Security, Applications of Futures Research to Policy, and a 550+ annotated scenarios bibliography.

The Project's central objective is to provide information to decision makers and training materials to add focus to important issues, clarify choices and improve the quality of decisions by making future opportunities and dangers more explicit. The Project is not a one-time study of the future, but provides an on-going capacity for global research and collaboration.

Following three years of feasibility study, the Project is now in it's third operational year. Under the auspices of the American Council for the United Nations University, the project is financially supported by a unique group of multinational corporations, foundations, and governmental organisations. An international group of cooperating "Nodes" work with the project, translating its questionnaires, conducting interviews, reflecting local views to a global audience and global views to the local audiences, and pursuing the project's objectives in Moscow, Buenos Aires, Sidney and Lismore (Australia), London, Teheran, Beijing, Cairo, Madurai (India) and Olomouc (Czechia and Slovakia). Educational programmes based on the Project's work have been initiated in many institutions and countries.