---
id: people/roberto-poli
about:
  label: Roberto Poli
  description: >-
    Philosopher and sociologist at the University of Trento who holds the first
    UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Systems and edited the Handbook of
    Anticipation.
  tags:
    - anticipation
    - futures studies
    - social foresight
person:
  affiliation: University of Trento
  role: anticipation theorist
  homepage: 'https://webapps.unitn.it/du/en/Persona/PER0003173/Curriculum'
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: Roberto Poli | CV | University of Trento
      url: 'https://webapps.unitn.it/du/en/Persona/PER0003173/Curriculum'
    - title: Handbook of Anticipation | Springer
      url: 'https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-3-319-91554-8'
  created: '2026-11-02'
  reviewed: '2026-11-02'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
---
Roberto Poli is in the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the University of Trento, where he teaches social foresight and the epistemology of the social sciences.[^1] He took a BA in sociology at Trento in 1980 and a PhD in philosophy at Utrecht in 2001.[^1] He holds the UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Systems, the first of its kind, and heads a master's programme in social foresight.[^1,2] He is president of AFI, the Italian association of futurists, editor-in-chief of the journal Axiomathes, and editor of Springer's Anticipation Science series.[^1,2]

His research covers anticipatory systems, which he describes as systems able to take decisions according to their possible future development, set out in his Introduction to Anticipation Studies (Springer, 2017).[^2] He has published six books and edited or co-edited more than twenty.[^2]

He is the editor of the [Handbook of Anticipation](/media/handbook-of-anticipation/), and his chair at Trento is listed among the places where [foresight and anticipation](/terms/foresight-and-anticipation/) is taught.