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Futures Garden is an experimental project of the Joint Research Centre’s EU Policy Lab to generate new policy ideas with citizens and policymakers to help shape a better future for Europe. We are now proud to announce the public launch of two innovative ‘artefacts from the future’.

Our regular readers may remember the launch of our ambitious design and behavioural insights projects aiming to Harmonising waste sorting labels across the EU (europa.eu). And we’ have been busy.

In the 100,000 years since we have existed as a species, it took us 90,000 years to develop agriculture, 10,000 years to industrialise, 200 years to develop nuclear power, 50 years to develop computers – and the pace of human innovation continues to increase at unprecedented speed.

The EU Policy Lab Water Resilience Experiment is a design-driven participatory initiative aiming to integrate scientific evidence and knowledge from citizens, the media, stakeholders, and local initiatives related to water to inform innovative policymaking at the European Commission.

Are humans using artificial intelligence better at making unbiased choices? Is it enough to have humans oversee AI decisions to ensure fair and balanced decisions are being made? If yes, how? What does it take for systems to be trustworthy and fair?

The EU Policy Lab is paying close attention at misinformation – especially from a behavioural point of view.

In an era marked by increasing interaction between human beings and AI, a question arises - what if we could not only connect to AI but also to other non-human forms of intelligence like plants, insects and animals? What would they teach us?

The EU Policy Lab, recognising the need to make research facilities more energy efficient, uses the JRC’s laboratories as a real-world blueprint to ignite a wave of sustainable research practices across the EU.

Horizon scanning provides awareness of what is new or changing. The goal is to identify risks, as well as opportunities, that these signal of change can create. It also allows early reflection on the intended and unintended effects of these developments.