Technology Foresight watch at PolyFutures

Technology foresight  - like all foresight  - is often misunderstood as attempting to predict what is coming. While it will not tell you the future, it can do something powerful: provide a structured way to explore possible futures and actively shape them. At a recent interactive Technology Foresight Watch at the Polyfutures Conference, participants were invited to move beyond abstract speculation and into “foresight in action” — testing how anticipatory governance can turn early signals into policy-relevant insight. 

From signals to strategy

The session combined a concise introduction to technology foresight and some of our hallmark projects with a hands-on horizon-scanning and prioritisation exercise, drawing on the FUTURINNOV project, with the European Innovation Council (EIC). Participants worked with curated “signal cards” from FUTURINNOV representing emerging developments grounded in evidence such as scientific publications, projects, and trusted news sources. These signals included both incremental and disruptive technologies. AI tools were presented as useful accelerators for early-stage tasks like summarisation and triage, while human expertise remained central to interpretation and prioritisation. 

The workshop then put theory into practice. Participants selected signals that resonated with them and explained their relevance. Together, they mapped these signals onto a timeline-versus-impact matrix aligned with EU policy priorities such as sustainability, security and defense, strong social model, and future readiness. Through group voting, they identified priority technologies before moving into a “Futures Triangle” exercise, which explored drivers (pull), enablers (push), and barriers (weight). This step explicitly surfaced the policy, economic, and societal conditions shaping technological uptake. 

 “The exercise on evaluating and prioritising the emerging technologies made me feel hopeful and I appreciated seeing beautiful technologies.” 
Polyfutures participant feedback

A hopeful, collective lens 

Some participants described the session as “hopeful.” Rather than focusing on abstract risks stemming from emerging technologies or technological hype, the exercise grounded discussion in tangible possibilities and shared reasoning. Many noted the value of evaluating what one attendee called “beautiful technologies” through a collective intelligence process.  

Diversity of perspective revealed another key dynamic: technologies rarely operate in isolation. Instead, they combine and converge in different ways depending on their application. The same set of technologies can form entirely different “solutions” when aligned to specific goals. For instance, energy systems, digital infrastructure, and materials innovation may intersect to support sustainability, while those same components can be configured to strengthen strategic autonomy or security. What emerged is that policy relevance does not sit within a single technology, but in how technologies are assembled, framed, and applied. In this sense, convergence — not just individual innovation — is what shapes strategic value. 

From “cool tech” to real-world choices 

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the session was how quickly the conversation evolved. What began as an exploration of “cool technologies” rapidly shifted toward deeper questions of governance, implementation, and strategic autonomy. Technologies related to energy and semiconductors emerged as priorities not because they are traditionally seen as defence tools, but because they underpin economic resilience and independence. 

Participants also balanced optimism with realism. While the overall tone was hopeful, discussions openly addressed trade-offs:  from raw material dependencies to regulatory constraints.  Regulatory frameworks like the GDPR and the EU AI Act are often accused of "dampening" innovation, but for certain technologies, stopping quick escalation is essential to prevent misuse – current uses of genAI to measure, manage and manipulate human emotions is one such example. This combination of ambition and critical reflection is precisely what anticipatory governance requires. 

Ultimately, the session reinforced a simple but important insight: disruption alone does not determine outcomes. What matters is how technologies converge, combine, and are directed toward specific applications. Policy choices, framing, and collective action shape not only how individual technologies evolve, but how they are assembled into systems that deliver strategic value. Foresight, when done well, is therefore less about anticipating isolated innovations and more about understanding these points of convergence — and building the capacity to act on them before crises force decisions.