The task of the discourse project "Futur - The German Research Dialogue" was to support the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the strategic orientation of research policy through a process of topic generation and strategy definition. FUTUR thus complemented the BMBF's internal technology foresight activities by identifying needs-led, socially justified tasks that incorporate both technological and socio-economic aspects.

From 2001, a "circle of actors" of up to 1,500 experts from all areas of science, business and society was established and involved in workshops, conferences and internet surveys. For interested members of the public, the Futur-Website Information and results made available. By mid-2002, the first four guiding visions for the future (including generally understandable scenarios) were developed with the help of focus groups and have since been implemented in funding programmes and projects at the BMBF. Five additional candidates for guiding visions that had not yet been decided by the BMBF were developed in two further rounds in 2004 and 2005. At the end of 2004, the process was evaluated internationally for the second time and a "Panorama of the questions of the future" opened" on the web.

In addition to scientific and methodological process consulting, the IZT's particular focus within FUTUR was on scenario construction and the organisation of future workshops and scenario workshops. To this end, the IZT cooperated in a consortium with the Institute for Organisational Communication (IFOK), the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) and the VDI/VDE Technology Centre for Information Technology (VDI/VDE-IT).

The IZT Workshop Report 55 by Gaßner and Steinmüller on Futur: "How should the future become? Five future workshops for the German Futur research dialogue" and twelve journal articles and book contributions to date on the IZT's FUTUR scenarios and/or their methodology. The BMBF published the brochures "Futur: Der deutsche Forschungsdialog. An initial assessment." (including contributions from the IZT) and "Thinking about tomorrow today - Futur Congress on 8 June 2004 in Berlin".