Foresight

On 21 September, the EU Policy Lab had the honour of hosting an event on the topic of Risks on the Horizon at the UN Summit of the Future in New York. The event focused on the role of foresight in the field of risk management.

In a world where the only constant is change, policymakers are faced with an accelerating pace of global shifts, uncertainty and unforeseen events that make long-term planning impossible.

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’.

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.

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?

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.

How can futures thinking boost Europe’s innovation in deep tech? This is the question at the heart of the yearlong collaboration between the Joint Research Centre’s EU Policy Lab and the European Innovation Council, which has now reached its conclusion.

How can EU policymakers ensure that their efforts today are futureproof and adapted to the constantly changing realities of our world?

What does the future hold for farmers and rural communities? What will agriculture look like in 2040? More importantly, how can we ensure that rural communities reap the benefits of digital technologies, while staying true to their values and needs?