Envisioning Intergenerational Fairness: how future snapshots are inspiring EU strategy

If there’s one thing the last year has taught us at the EU Policy Lab, it’s the extraordinary potential of collective imagination. As the EU moves forward on its pledge to put Intergenerational Fairness (IGF) at the heart of its policymaking, the visioning phase of our year-long process has become an inspiring journey, filled with creative aspiration, honest dialogue and the practical tools we’ll need to build a Europe where every generation thrives.

Learning to see beyond today: what the visioning phase has taught us 

The IGF journey started with fundamental questions on balancing the interests of present and future generations, following a scoping phase that revealed core challenges like short-term political focus, entrenched inequalities, and weakening intergenerational solidarity.  

The visioning phase created a participatory space where multiple futures were imagined as diverse “snapshots” developed through citizen storytelling, expert coalitions, and the Intergenerational Council. These engaged Europeans across ages and backgrounds to share hopes, fears, and ideas, with three guiding themes emerging: inspiration to foster long-term thinking, connection to bridge generational divides, and care to protect the most vulnerable. This pluralistic, narrative-driven approach grounded the strategy in lived realities and collective aspirations, equipping policymakers with rich, adaptable visions that reflect both urgent challenges and transformative possibilities. Here are some of the snapshots that stand out: 

• Long-term governance where governments incorporate foresight, intergenerational councils, and participatory budgeting to ensure laws are stress-tested for fairness across age groups and decades.
• Communities by design envision flexible, multigenerational housing and welfare systems fostering reciprocal support, with youth assisting elders on digital skills and elders mentoring younger workers and migrants amongst others.
• Lifelong and intergenerational education breaks down rigid age-separated schooling into adaptable hubs promoting key skills like digital literacy and emotional intelligence, designed jointly by teachers and elders.
• Restoring care and social resilience reframes care as a collective, multi-generational enterprise, blending neighbourhood groups, flexible retirement, and tailored support throughout life stages to build societal resilience. 

Consider these as provocations for policy: reminders that our daily decisions can open (or close!) the door to better futures.  

Explore the Snapshots 

What we’ll take forward: from vision to strategy 

The visioning phase of the IGF track was both creative and a rigorous, participatory process designed to ground the EU’s intergenerational fairness strategy in real aspirations, practical needs, and collective intelligence. Our aim was to move beyond static scenarios and instead build a dynamic policy compass that can adapt as Europe itself changes. 

The core activity was participatory, blending citizen contributions, coalition expertise, and deliberation within a pioneering Intergenerational Council. Citizens across Europe submitted over 4,000 future-oriented stories, via the OurFutures website, with 700 selected because of a strong connection with the topic, for in-depth analysis, sharing what they hoped a fairer Europe might look like in 2040. These visions were complemented by the work of thematic coalitions (groups of Commission staff, experts, and external stakeholders) who produced, amongst others, actionable visions and “what if?” questions for key policy areas such as long-term governance, social resilience, ecological integrity, digital inclusion, housing, and care systems. 

A hallmark of this phase was the use of the Three Horizons foresight methodology, guiding coalitions to anchor their work in present-day challenges (“Horizon 1”), spot emerging seeds for change (“Horizon 2”), and collectively imagine systemic transformation (“Horizon 3”). One key insight was that policy needs to transition from short-term “firefighting” to systemic, anticipatory approaches. Policymakers widely recognised the benefits of embedding foresight, cross-generational representation, and long-term accountability as standards in EU governance. 

The Intergenerational Council [see blog] was a true innovation: a forum bringing together Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen Z, “future proxies” and even advocates for non-human life. Their discussions sharpened the vision for how Europe’s democracy, climate policy, care, digital access, and housing can be reshaped by participatory, cross-generational governance. The call for institutional structures like permanent intergenerational citizens’ panels and ministries for the future was a standout recommendation. 

 Looking ahead, the next steps for the IGF strategy are clear

In the third phase of the process, we have been translating these collective visions into specific policy clusters (on long-term governance, equitable prosperity, ecological integrity, inclusive communities, innovation, and resilience). We will share a separate blogpost on this soon. 

The Citizens’ Panel on Intergenerational Fairness, the fourth and final phase, which has just concluded in mid-November 2025 continued this work, where participants imagined their visions together to also pinpoint priorities and actionable recommendations, which we will reflect on on how to take them onboard.

As our role as initiators and facilitators of the process behind the creation of the future EU Strategy on IGF approaches its end, we look forward to seeing this input and reflections translated into policy across the board. We now have a vibrant map of what Europeans want for their future and a set of diverse pathways to get there – come back for our next newsletter, next year where we will be sharing more from our journey.