This report explains the inputs, processes and outputs of the StrategyNZ workshop held in March 2011. The aim was to encourage a conversation about our long-term future. Consensus emerged that New Zealand should work to ‘create a place where talent wants to live’. See Report 12 and the workshop booklet.

The purpose of this report is to learn lessons from the past and present a useful model for emerging initiatives in the future; to provide greater access to the existing knowledge established by these initiatives (so that earlier contributions can be built on); and to provide a repository for this information.

New Zealanders have always understood the need for long-term thinking. This report describes eighteen future-thinking initiatives since 1936, many of which were undertaken by groups in civil society. Given such a background, this report puts forward a number of lessons.