Strategic Foresight by Scenario Method, for Attracting Foreign Investment in Iran by 2041 

The attraction of foreign investment is one of the economic priorities in developing countries, including Iran. But increasing uncertainty in this field has led policy making toward new approaches such as strategic foresight. The main purpose of this study is to develop scenarios to attract foreign investment in Iran. The research method is scenario planning and in order to identify the "key drivers," the experts' opinions were gathered using open and closed questionnaires in two steps, and then were drawn in the Wilson matrix based on “agreement coefficient" and "arithmetic mean" indicators. The findings, based on different status of drivers and investigating their interaction using Scenario Wizard software, reveal the feasibility of five scenarios with internal consistency. In addition to its practical aspect, this research can be regarded as a new model for future researches on policy making to attract investment in Iran. Finally, based on the results of the research, some strategic recommendations have been presented to develop the foreign investment attraction in Iran.