The library consists of several thousand fully catalogued items, including books, journal articles, reports and manuscript notebooks spanning a wide range of subjects – commodities, countries, psychology, cognition, attentiveness, and trends. It is known as ‘The Pierre Wack Memorial Library’.

Pierre Wack, who died in 1997, led the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies’ scenario team and largely designed and refined this business tool. Scenario planning alerted Shell in advance about some of the most confounding events of our times: the 1973 energy crisis, the collapse of the oil market in 1986, the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of Muslim radicalism, and the increasing pressure on companies to address environmental and social problems. The method has since become widely popular outside Shell, not just in corporations but in governments.

‘This is a unique asset,’ comments Rafael Ramírez, Fellow in Strategic Management. ‘Pierre Wack was the key intellectual figure in the form of futurising that we teach here, and his library will greatly enhance our capability in this field.’ Funding is being sought to properly catalogue the library and make it available for research activities.