This issue of Xamk Beyond: Futures brings attention to the means that individuals, groups, organisations and higher education institutions have to make informed decisions and affect what lies ahead. This issue aims to provoke discussion by examining a variety of possible futures instead of simply envisioning a continuum of the present. Through research, education, and foresight, we at the Universities of Applied Sciences have the power to influence the paths we take and create new ways of thinking by looking beyond the present and the past.

In this issue of Xamk Beyond, our authors explore different education, research, and business cases that focus on five themes: thinking about futures, researching futures, educating futures, exploring futures, and creating futures. The authors examine value-based questions, seeking answers that empower us to challenge our assumptions about the future and create the desired outcomes by discovering our individual agency. By owning our agency, we can stand up for the values we share as a Finnish research and educational institution with our mission.