Frederik Lodewijk Polak (1907 Amsterdam - 17 September 1985, Wassenaar) was one of the Dutch founding fathers of futures studies, perhaps best known in the field for theorising the central role of images of the future in his classic work The Image of the Future. Polak was the son of Alexander Polak, violin builder and concertmaster of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Janet Kiek, who founded the first Home Economics Budget Bureau. He studied law and economics in Amsterdam and, before the Second World War, was a member of the Board of Directors of a large chain of stores in the Netherlands. In 1936 he married the poet Louise Moor. As a jew, Polak spent the war years in hiding and preparing a PhD thesis in philosophy.

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  • Frederik Lodewijk Polak (1907 Amsterdam - 17 September 1985, Wassenaar) was one of the Dutch founding fathers of futures studies, perhaps best known in the field for theorising the central role of images of the future in his classic work The Image of the Future. Polak was the son of Alexander Polak, violin builder and concertmaster of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Janet Kiek, who founded the first Home Economics Budget Bureau. He studied law and economics in Amsterdam and, before the Second World War, was a member of the Board of Directors of a large chain of stores in the Netherlands. In 1936 he married the poet Louise Moor. As a jew, Polak spent the war years in hiding and preparing a PhD thesis in philosophy. After the war he became a staff member and managing director of the Netherlands' Central Planning Bureau, personal advisor to the Minister of Education, advisor of the Dutch government for Full Employment, Professor of Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Managing Director of an industrial organization at Twente . Polak graduated cum laude in philosophy in 1946, and since his thesis and inaugural address in 1947 on the evolution of science and society of tomorrow, devoted himself continuously to the future of man and society. Author of many publications on futurology, Polak was recipient of Fellowships from UNESCO, the Ford Foundation, and the Council of Europe which awarded him a prize for the two-volume book The Image of the Future. He was the founder and first president of Teleac (Dutch television academy), co-founder and vice-president of the Erasmus Prize Foundation, scientific advisor for long term planning to numerous concerns in the Netherlands, and President of Mankind 2000 International. He was engaged in setting up an institute for long term future research and development in the Netherlands and was also Secretary-General of the International Society for Technology Assessment. A 2005 article by Ruud van der Helm states: "Among the founders of the futures studies field, the Dutch sociologist Fred Polak is one of the least known. Although he is still mentioned by several renowned futurists, very little has been written about the evolution of Polak’s ideas and as far as we have been able to trace back, no retrospective work has been published. Today, Polak is mostly known for his opus magnum ‘The Image of the Future’, an impressive cultural-historic study of the relation between images of the future and the dynamics of culture. He was an original thinker, but his work was remarkably uneven: his encyclopaedic and erudite style has led to both very deep and very shallow analyses. Especially his earlier contributions in the 1950s and 1960s still prove a very valuable resource, although many of his ideas should be handled with care. However, his later works in the 1970s are out of tune with the rise of a more critical approach to the study of the future." (en)
  • Fred L. Polak (1907 - 1985) is één van de aartsvaders van de Nederlandse futurologie. Hij studeerde rechten en economie in Amsterdam. Voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog maakte hij deel uit van de raad van bestuur van een grote winkelketen. Na de oorlog was hij van 1955–1957 directeur van het Centraal Planbureau. Hij was verder onder meer adviseur van de minister van onderwijs, Kunsten en Wetenschappen. In 1949 werd hij hoogleraar in de sociologie aan de Nederlandse Economische Hogeschool te Rotterdam. Polak behaalde in 1946 cum laude zijn doctoraal in de filosofie. Hij is auteur van vele publicaties op het gebied van de futurologie. In zijn inaugurele rede De wentelgang der wetenschap en de maatschappij van morgen voorzag hij dat door de ontwikkelingen van de techniek, met name ook door die van de computers, grote veranderingen in de maatschappij zouden optreden. Machines zouden steeds meer de plaats innemen van menselijke arbeiders. Pessimistisch toonde hij zich over de invloed die de techniek had op de cultuur. Menselijke waarden konden hierdoor in het gedrang komen. Polak kreeg onderzoeksopdrachten van de Unesco, de Ford Foundation en de Raad van Europa. Deze laatste organisatie bekroonde hem voor zijn tweedelige werk De toekomst is verleden tijd. Polak was oprichter en eerste voorzitter van Teleac. Verder was hij mede-stichter en ondervoorzitter van de Stichting Praemium Erasmiamum die de Erasmusprijs toekent. Polak was wetenschappelijk adviseur voor talrijke bedrijven op het gebied van de langetermijnplanning. Ook zette hij zich in voor het oprichten van een Centraal Bureau voor Toekomst-Onderzoek, als aanvulling op reeds bestaande instanties als het Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek en het Centraal Plan Bureau. Polak was ook voorzitter van Mankind 2000 International. En verder was hij secretaris-generaal van de International Society for Technology Assessment. (nl)
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  • Polak, Fred (en)
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  • 1985 (xsd:integer)
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  • Frederik Lodewijk Polak (1907 Amsterdam - 17 September 1985, Wassenaar) was one of the Dutch founding fathers of futures studies, perhaps best known in the field for theorising the central role of images of the future in his classic work The Image of the Future. Polak was the son of Alexander Polak, violin builder and concertmaster of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Janet Kiek, who founded the first Home Economics Budget Bureau. He studied law and economics in Amsterdam and, before the Second World War, was a member of the Board of Directors of a large chain of stores in the Netherlands. In 1936 he married the poet Louise Moor. As a jew, Polak spent the war years in hiding and preparing a PhD thesis in philosophy. (en)
  • Fred L. Polak (1907 - 1985) is één van de aartsvaders van de Nederlandse futurologie. (nl)
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  • Fred Polak (en)
  • Fred Polak (nl)
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