Experimenting with the future
Enter a living garden of futures where Europe’s next chapters begin to sprout.
Futures Garden brings policymakers and society together to explore what the future may hold. Using speculative artefacts - tangible or visual tools that make possible futures concrete, spark imagination, evoke emotional responses, and inspire reflection - and cultivating a collaborative environment where questioning, imagining, and co-creating become possible.
Diverse perspectives converge here to envision bold possibilities and shape a vibrant, resilient, and inclusive future for Europe.
Proactively preparing for bold futures requires experimenting with new policy ideas and anticipating emerging challenges.
Futures Garden provides a dedicated environment for policymakers to explore and ‘provo-type’ (think proactive + prototype) these futures, allowing emerging ideas to be planted, tested on a small scale, nurtured, and refined before being scaled into full policies.
This iterative process fosters reflection, experimentation, and evidence-informed decision-making, enabling innovative solutions to take root, grow resilient, and blossom in response to complex societal challenges. Preparing adaptive policies that are ready to navigate uncertainty and shape the future with intention.
Futures Garden artefacts - glimpses of tomorrow
Artefacts from the future bring to life potential scenarios, offering tangible starting points for in-depth and critical discussions. These artefacts encourage us to reimagine everyday life and society.
Symbiotic is a short film, set in the Symbiocene era of the 2050s, about our interconnected humanity and our relationship to the ecosystems of planet Earth and all life.
Inwards is a series of animations where future citizens of Europe, disillusioned with the myth of economic growth, seek to regain agency through self reflection and emotional connection.
After Jubilee is a speculative radio show set in a future Europe, a after Jubilee; a mass erasure of debt, a new calendar system, and a restructuring of societal and economic priorities.
Coming of Age 20/40 is an immersive experience that dissolves the barrier between today and tomorrow, inviting participants to explore the emerging realities of youth in this future landscape.
Futures Garden experiments - 'provotyping' today
At Futures Garden, we pioneer future-inspired policy experiments to transform how policies are designed, tested, and implemented across Europe. These experiments provide a safe and creative space for innovation.
Nature Consultation is an ongoing EU Policy Lab exploration into how institutions might integrate the perspectives and agencies of non-human beings into policymaking.
What if the resistance we see to good policy isn't resistance at all - but memory?
How Futures Garden works
Each seed in the garden follows this journey to grow and flourish.
- Horizon Scanning: We dive into cutting-edge ideas and emerging trends, identifying opportunities that could shape Europe's future (Horizon Scanning - ESPAS)
- Speculative Design: Our creative process transforms abstract concepts into tangible, thought-provoking scenarios, making future possibilities more accessible and engaging
- Citizen Engagement: Through collective visioning with EU citizens, we explore the societal implications of these speculative scenarios and gather diverse perspectives.
- Policy Reflection: Through 'provotyping' i.e. proactive experimentation with these futures, the final step explores their potential impact on policymaking, helping ensure future EU policies are forward-thinking, inclusive, and impactful.
Context
How did it come about
To give some more context of why and with whom the project was initiated:
- Support future-oriented policymaking – in line with the Foresight and Innovative Policymaking Portfolio of the JRC.
- Engage in collective visioning – using speculative design to create artefacts that make futures tangible, imaginable, emotionally engaging, and easier to discuss.
- Provide policymakers dedicated spaces – to 'provo-type' with the future through experimentation and ideation, exploring emerging directions and possibilities.
Partners
We are grateful to our partners, supporting us at an early stage: Directorate General for Research and innovation and Foresight on Demand team (Institutul de Prospectiva, Austrian Institute of Technology, Fraunhofer ISI, Futures2all, Futurlab).
This is a collaborative effort and your involvement makes a difference.
Interested in contributing or have questions?
jrc-eu-policy-lab
ec [dot] europa [dot] eu (> Write to us)
What they say about Futures Garden
It is a bit edgy, but if we don’t do it, who will? I love how the artefacts are connected to the policy cycle.