Think Tank That Charted Future Now a Thing of the Past

There’s not much future in the future these days--at least as far as the USC Center for Futures Research is concerned.

The center, which was launched in 1971 to help corporations plan for the vagaries of what’s to come, closed on July 1 for lack of funds.

“It’s the Center for Past Research,” quipped Selwyn Enzer, former associate director. “It was a financial problem--that was the bottom line.” Enzer now directs research on the Pacific Basin at USC.

“It was getting more difficult to attract support” from corporate sponsors that read like a Who’s Who of the Fortune 100, he said. The university, forced to supply more of the once self-sufficient center’s $300,000 to $500,000 annual budget, decided to close the think tank.

“As corporations become leaner and meaner, they become less interested in anything that doesn’t affect next quarter’s profits,” he said. “It highlights the shortsightedness of American companies, and I think we’re paying for it.”