What we do

What does a good future look like when young Europeans describe it themselves? Across 670 stories written by 12-25-year-olds a clear message emerges: young people are hopeful about the futures they can build, while remaining deeply concerned about the pressures shaping their lives.

A fairer society. Healthier communities. Clean energy. Technology that serves people. Peace, cooperation and a sense that no one is left behind. This is the future described by thousands of people across Europe through Our Futures.

What might Europe look like in 2040? For some citizens, Europe in 2040 is greener, more united and democratic: able to harness technology while protecting people and the planet. For others, it is a continent facing climate disruption, widening inequalities, institutional distrust...

The Labelling Knowledge project is an internal organisational transformation initiative by the EU Policy Lab to support the development and implementation of labels as policy instruments and to create a space for critical thinking on their use.

As part of the Labelling knowledge project, the EU Policy Lab conducted an exploratory literature review to better understand the state of evidence-based information design on labels. 

How can democracy cope with the combined pressures of digitalisation, AI, shifting citizen expectations and changing institutions? These are some of the questions at the heart of a new foresight study on the future of democracy.

Time is not a neutral backdrop to policymaking – questions of pace, timing and horizons have become central to what we govern. Learn more about our conversation at PolyFutures.

Our idea for this "off-site day" was simple: to bring those shaping EU policies and institutional processes into the same room as design experts working in innovation, human-centred transformation, and futures thinking.

How can policymaking become more rooted in how people think and decide? This was the starting point for the Discover Behavioural Insights for Policymaking workshop at the PolyFutures conference.

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.