Future Problem Solving Program

Future Problem Solving Program International (FPSPI) organizes academic competitions in which students apply critical thinking and problem-solving skills to hypothetical future situations. The program looks at current technological, geopolitical, and societal trends and projects those trends 20–30 years into the future in order to train students to develop solutions to the challenges they may face as adults. FPSPI was founded by creativity researcher Ellis Paul Torrance in 1974. Today, thousands of students from over a dozen countries participate in the program each year. The program is open to students who are in the equivalent of the U.S. grade level range of 4 through 12.

FPSPI is a federation of state- or nationwide organizations called affiliates. Each affiliate is responsible for conducting the competitions which take place in its own geographic area.

Students begin preparing for competition at the start of each school year. Depending on the affiliate and the type of competition, there may be regional, state, or national levels of competition that take place during the year. Only the winners of any given competition qualify to proceed to the next level. The highest level of competition takes place at the annual International Conference (IC), which is held in May or June, at the end of the United States school year. The IC is held at the campus of a public university in the United States (the country with the largest number of competitors), with a new location being chosen every two years.

Global Issues Problem Solving (GIPS) is the main FPSPI competition on which the others are based. Students are grouped by grade level and may compete as individuals or as teams of four.

Prior to each competition, FPSPI announces the competition topic (such as "Artificial Intelligence" or "Immigration") and provides a list of suggested readings. Students spend 1–2 months researching the topic with an eye to potential future challenges and solutions. FPSPI has conducted competitions on dozens of topics over the years, covering a wide gamut of subject matter in the natural and social sciences.

At the beginning of the two-hour-long competition, students are given a Future Scene (FS), a one- to two-page document that describes the hypothetical future situation having to do with the pre-announced topic. Competitors then proceed according to the six-step Future Problem Solving process:

After completing the six-step process in two hours, students immediately begin work on a second competition called "Presentation of Action Plan" in which they illustrate their final solution by preparing and performing a skit.

Community Problem Solving (CmPS) is the "present-day" variant of Future Problem Solving. In CmPS competitions, students are evaluated on how well they apply the six-step problem-solving process to present-day problems in their own community.

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