Sohail Inayatullah is a Pakistani-born Australian academic, futures studies researcher and a professor at the Graduate Institute of Futures Studies at Tamkang University in Taipei, Taiwan.
Early life
Born in 1958 in Lahore, Pakistan, to a father who worked as a researcher for the United Nations and a Sufi mother, he grew up in numerous countries including the United States, Switzerland and Malaysia. His main influences include James Dator, Johan Galtung, William Irwin Thompson and in particular P. R. Sarkar.
Academic contributions
Inayatullah is most famous for introducing and pioneering the futures technique of causal layered analysis, that uses a four-layered approach to bring about transformative change. He introduced the idea in a widely cited paper for Futures. He also edited and wrote the introductory chapter for the Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) Reader. He has described the idea for a popular audience in an article for The Futurist and a TEDx talk.
Inayatullah's work on CLA was examined in a book by Jose W. Ramos in 2003. He also invented the method known as, the Futures Triangle, the Integrated Scenario Method, and with Ivana Milojevic, the Change Progression Scenario Method. Inayatullah is ranked in the top two% of the worlds scientists based on citation impact
Academic positions
In addition to his role at Tamkang University, Inayatullah is the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies at the Sejahtera Centre for Sustainability and Humanity, IIUM, Malaysia From 2016 to 2021, he was the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies at USIM, Malaysia. He was also an adjunct professor at the Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism, Macquarie University, Sydney, from 2011 to 2014 and adjunct professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast (Faculty of Social Sciences and the Arts) from 2001 to 2020.
↑José M. Ramos, From Critique to Cultural Recovery: Critical Futures Studies and Causal Layered Analysis, Australian Foresight Institute, Swinburne University of Technology, 2003, p. 34
