Gemeinsam tauchen wir ins Jahr 2056 ein, probieren Speisen aus der Zukunft, riechen die Düfte der Altstadt und lesen die Schlagzeilen von morgen – mithilfe von Geschichten und multisensorischen Objekten aus möglichen Zukünften.

Freu dich auf einen Spaziergang durch die Stadt, Zeit zum Nachdenken, gute Gespräche, ein gemeinsames Essen (), einen kreativen Workshop – und vielleicht auf einen neuen Blick auf das, was vor uns liegt.

📅 August 21
🕛 8h30-14h30
📍 Rennweg, Innsbruck (in der Nähe des ORF)
🔗 Mehr Infos & kostenlose Anmeldung hier: https://walkthefutures.org/innsbruck/

Du brauchst kein Vorwissen. Bring einfach deine Neugier mit.

Die Veranstaltung steht allen offen, die mindestens 18 Jahre alt sind, in Innsbruck leben oder arbeiten und keine Vollzeitstudierenden sind. Die Teilnahme ist kostenlos und findet im Rahmen einer Pilotstudie statt (endet im Oktober 2026).

Weitere Informationen:
Besuche www.walkthefutures.org oder schreib eine E-Mail an Zukunftsforscherin Suzanne Whitby unter hi@walkthefutures.org. 

Gemeinsam tauchen wir ins Jahr 2056 ein, probieren Speisen aus der Zukunft, riechen die Düfte der Altstadt und lesen die Schlagzeilen von morgen – mithilfe von Geschichten und multisensorischen Objekten aus möglichen Zukünften.

Freu dich auf einen Spaziergang durch die Stadt, Zeit zum Nachdenken, gute Gespräche, ein gemeinsames Essen (), einen kreativen Workshop – und vielleicht auf einen neuen Blick auf das, was vor uns liegt.

📅 September 8
🕛 8h30-14h30
📍 Rennweg, Innsbruck (in der Nähe des ORF)
🔗 Mehr Infos & kostenlose Anmeldung hier: https://walkthefutures.org/innsbruck/

Du brauchst kein Vorwissen. Bring einfach deine Neugier mit.

Die Veranstaltung steht allen offen, die mindestens 18 Jahre alt sind, in Innsbruck leben oder arbeiten und keine Vollzeitstudierenden sind. Die Teilnahme ist kostenlos und findet im Rahmen einer Pilotstudie statt (endet im Oktober 2026).

Weitere Informationen:
Besuche www.walkthefutures.org oder schreib eine E-Mail an Zukunftsforscherin Suzanne Whitby unter hi@walkthefutures.org .

HorizonX is an integrated consulting ecosystem, combining expertise in strategy, foresight, innovation and leadership. We bring together decades of execution excellence and forward-looking intelligence, helping organizations prepare for the future and accelerate transformation in a sustainable way.

From our hubs in Vienna, London, and Bucharest, we leverage the combined expertise of a multidisciplinary network operating in over 20 countries. With a legacy of over 25 years through our founding partners, we deliver complex, large-scale transformations across the EMEA region.

In 2025, the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) completed the project Synthetic Drugs 2050 to address increasing uncertainty surrounding the future production, distribution, and use of synthetic drugs in Europe up to 2050. Using horizon scanning, trend analysis, and sense-making approaches, the Foresight on Demand (FOD) project team and EUDA jointly developed four plausible scenarios to support EU-level and national stakeholders in anticipating emerging risks, identifying opportunities, and reinforcing the resilience of future policies.

The 2026 FOD–EUDA project marks the second phase of this foresight work and will focus on:

• Transforming the 2050 scenarios into interactive tools that foster strategic thinking
• Developing participatory formats that make complex foresight insights accessible and engaging
• Formulating recommendations for embedding foresight practices into EUDA’s strategic planning and policy development

The project will deliver:

• A Scenario Activation Toolkit with interactive resources
• Participatory testing and validation workshops with key stakeholders
• A final project report, including a toolkit manual and consolidated insights on the project’s outcomes
  

The European Union Drugs Agency’s (EUDA) project “Synthetic Drugs 2050” addressed the growing uncertainty surrounding the future availability, spread, and use of synthetic drugs in Europe up to 2050. Synthetic drugs represent a rapidly evolving and systemic challenge for Europe, affecting public health, security, social cohesion, productivity, and overall wellbeing. Accelerated technological change, globalised supply chains, digitalisation, and increasingly blurred boundaries between legal, illegal, controlled, and uncontrolled substances further amplify the complexity of this issue.

The project applied a participatory strategic foresight approach to explore possible futures of synthetic drugs in Europe, moving beyond short-term monitoring and reactive policy responses. By systematically analysing global and regional drivers of change, emerging trends, weak signals, and deep uncertainties, the project built a shared understanding of how synthetic drugs markets, uses, and impacts may evolve in the medium- and long-term.

Through horizon scanning, trend analysis, scenario building, and sense-making activities, Synthetic Drugs 2050 supports EU-level and national stakeholders in anticipating risks, identifying opportunities, and strengthening policy resilience. The project explicitly linked foresight insights to strategic reflection, policy options, and research priorities, while embedding capacity-building components to enhance futures literacy and long-term preparedness within the EU drug policy ecosystem.

Objectives

The Synthetic Drugs 2050 project encompassed:

• A comprehensive, methodologically robust foresight study on the future availability and use of synthetic drugs in Europe up to 2050, exploring systemic drivers, uncertainties, and disruptive developments across social, technological, economic, environmental, political, legal, and ethical dimensions.
• Development of multiple plausible future scenarios describing how synthetic drugs diffusion in Europe could evolve by 2050, challenging prevailing assumptions and highlighting non-obvious risks and opportunities.
• Mapping of first-, second-, and third-order implications of synthetic drugs diffusion across Europe, identifying cause–effect pathways, time-bound consequences, and cross-sectoral impacts on health, public safety, governance, and society.
• Support for strategic preparedness and policy resilience by co-developing policy responses, strategic options, and research and innovation priorities at EU and national levels.
• Further development of strengthened foresight capacity and futures literacy within EUDA and its stakeholder community through learning-by-doing, participatory engagement, and the development of reusable foresight tools and frameworks.

Outputs

• Horizon scanning and trend analysis reports
• A set of four future scenarios for synthetic drugs in Europe by 2050
• A mapped system of time-bound implications and cause–effect pathways
• Policy responses and strategic recommendations
• A foresight manual and horizon scanning framework for future use

Find more information here: https://www.euda.europa.eu/index_en

The Next Generation Foresight Practitioner (NGFP) Fellowship is an initiative of the School of International Futures (SOIF). The annual Fellowship is designed to help change the status quo and democratise the futures and foresight field with diverse perspectives from younger generations in under-represented geographies and communities.
In addition, the Next Generation Foresight Practitioner – Young Voices (NGFP-YV) Awards, in partnership with Teach the Future, showcases the emerging ideas of youth 12-17 years of age.

Over 6,000 expressions of interest were received this year, with 777 final submissions. Additionally, Young Voices Award partner organisation Teach the Future received 550 youth expressions of interest and 305 completed submissions.

A new initiative to support EU Member States in embedding long-term, anticipatory thinking into decision-making at every level—national, regional, and local. 

Future-Oriented Policymaking is an ongoing joint project by the European Commission Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM) and the EU Policy Lab of the Joint Research Centre. The project supports foresight capacity building in EU Member States and integrating future-oriented thinking into decision-making.

The project supports foresight capacity building in EU Member States and integrating future-oriented thinking into decision-making.

Get involved!
The success of the project depends on the active participation of policymakers, practitioners, and citizens. Whether you are an experienced foresight practitioner or entirely new to the concept, we welcome your insights.

Share ideas, take our survey*: Help us understand your needs and shape the final deliverables. What has worked well in your context? What challenges have you faced? How can we make foresight more relevant to your needs? > Survey

Join our beta testing group**: Be among the first to try out our new toolkit and training materials. Your feedback will help us refine and improve these resources for everyone (fill in the survey and click join beta testing group at the end).

* Preferably before 12 September 2025 to make full use of your ideas.

* *Places for beta testing are limited, and we are committed to working with a diverse range of partners. If you are interested, please fill in the survey by 5/09/2025 . We will confirm participation after that date. Institutionalising future-oriented policymaking is a collective journey, which requires commitment, curiosity, and courage: from leaders, civil servants, and citizens alike. Let’s work together to make foresight a cornerstone of European policymaking. 

Stay tuned for updates and don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like to contribute to this exciting initiative.

> Future-oriented Policymaking 

Harnessing Foresight for Future-Oriented Policymaking is an ongoing joint project by the European Commission Secretary General Reform and Investment Task Force (SG REFORM) and the EU Policy Lab of the Joint Research Centre .

The current world - defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), requires decisionmakers to sharpen their capacity to look ahead, think and work in a proactive, systemic and creative way, amongst others by using foresight.

The project supports foresight capacity building in EU Member States and integrating future-oriented thinking into decision-making. 

It underpins the implementation of the ComPAct - Enhancing the European Administrative Space and its ʺPublic Administration Skills Agendaʺ pillar. Through this pillar the Commission aims to support EU Member States in their efforts to build resilient, attractive, transparent, and high performing public administrations by equipping them with a wide range of tools to upskill and reskill their workforce.

Future-oriented Policymaking - project actions

• Create tools for capacity building of Member States’ public administrations at national, regional and local levels for future-oriented policymaking
• Stimulate dynamic, enhanced cooperation among public administrations on integrating foresight in policymaking
• Promote a future-oriented policymaking culture in the EU and its Member State

What to expect
By the end of the project, policymakers and public servants across Europe can expect a suite of resources designed to make future-oriented policymaking accessible and actionable: 

- Online training series for policymakers in EU Member States 

- Adap table pathways toolkit to embed foresight in policymaking

- Community building elements

How can you get involved?
The success of the project depends on the active participation of policymakers, practitioners, and citizens. Whether you are an experienced foresight practitioner or entirely new to the concept, we welcome your insights.

Take our survey: Help us under stand your needs and shape the final deliverables.

Join our beta-testing group: Be among the first to try out our new toolkit and training materials (fill in the survey and click join beta testing group at the end).

Read more on this blogpost
Stay updated and follow the project page.   

In a rapidly evolving world it is essential to learn how to deal with uncertain and ever-changing futures. Let’s prepare our next generations with these skills in the classroom!

Since 2015, we help teach futures-thinking skills to students and educators around the world and to inspire them to influence their futures.

Imagination, in common discourse, is often relegated to a secondary domain of thought – a frivolous, playful, and unreliable mental activity confined to childhood, the arts, or, at best, applied creativity. A “magic box” that opens only when logical rigor relaxes, when attention drifts toward invention and fantasy. Yet this view, however seductive, is ultimately reductive – if not misleading.

When examined through the lens of contemporary cognitive science, imagination instead reveals itself as a profound and complex cognitive function. Not only does it actively participate in processes of knowing, but it also constitutes one of their foundational dimensions. It is the mental faculty through which we construct alternative worlds, test hypothetical scenarios, and explore the unknown without needing to experience it directly. Far from being a mere appendage to rational thought, it serves as one of its key structural supports.

Even more striking is what emerges from recent scientific research: imagination possesses a metacognitive character. This means it does not merely generate mental content that diverges from reality, but is also capable of reflecting on itself – monitoring and adjusting its own trajectories, becoming the object of awareness and intentional regulation. In other words, imagining is not just about conjuring what is absent from the world, but also about knowing one is imagining, directing that act toward specific goals, and assessing its quality, limitations, and implications.

This represents a genuine epistemological shift – recasting imagination not as a passive or automatic process, but as a strategic ally of thought. Within this framework, imagination emerges as a faculty that weaves together multiple dimensions of our cognitive experience:

• perception, which provides sensory input;
• intuition, which enables rapid, non-linear associations;
• intentionality, which channels imaginative effort toward a purpose;
• and self-awareness, which allows us to revise and reinterpret what has been imagined, imbuing it with meaning and value.

It is within this layered and dynamic space that imagination assumes a renewed role: no longer a retreat into the unreal, but a critical tool for probing the possible. It becomes the lens through which we may observe not only what is, but what could be – and, through this, reconfigure our relationship with the present.

It enables us to anticipate without predicting, and to plan without constraining.

In educational, professional, and social contexts – and even more so within the fields of Futures Thinking and Foresight – this reconceptualization of imagination as a metacognitive skill proves to be strategically essential. To anticipate the future is not to guess what will occur, but to cultivate a gaze that can recognize alternatives, navigate uncertainties, and imagine trajectories not yet in existence. Doing so requires more than creativity; it demands a deep literacy in conscious imagination.

To rediscover imagination through a metacognitive lens is to restore its dignity as an epistemic, transformative, and educational faculty. A faculty not only capable of generating visions, but also of sustaining, interrogating, and refining them. A power to be reintegrated into our intellectual and civic formation – so that it may help us not only to imagine different worlds, but to understand the conditions that make them possible.

We empower you to work with the futures. Our ideas show organizations how to deal with terms like weak signals, trends or white spots, and at the same time energizing to position themselves. We like discussing new developments and trends, with their respective effects on the organization, in order to design frameworks for actions and strenghten the matching future-attitude and accompanying measures.Schaltzeit has successfully provided consulting and operational services within the areas of foresight, ideation, experiences, software and design, to organizations in sectors such as telecommunication, automotive, biotechnology, software development, medicine, cosmetics and others.
We ignite and accompany you on your way to success.
Schaltzeit fills gaps, optimizes processes and forms the link between actors and processes in order to make results transparent and usable and sustainably establishes future-oriented thinking and acting.

WE HAVE A SOCIAL MISSION: TO STIMULATE CRITICAL THINKING ABOUT EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES.
We focus on Futures & Foresight (Futures Thinking / Futures Studies & Strategic Foresight), with a specialization in Technology Foresight and ETS, Emerging Technologies Scanning. We are also dedicated to Futures Literacy, which involves the theoretical and practical literacy of Futures Studies and Futures Thinking. Through a Slow Journalism model, we disseminate and promote knowledge of emerging technologies, analyzing their potential impacts on our possible and alternative futures.

We help people and organisations imagine, work with, and shape their future. 

CIFS is one of the worlds oldest think tanks exclusively focusing on foresight. CIFS teach very popular courses in foresight, gives key notes and launch various initiatives and do research projects. CIFS is a self-owned think tank, completely independent of special interests. 

This video introduces viewers to the Delphi method, a tool of futures research and foresight. Although it gets its name from the ancient Greek oracle, the modern incarnations of the method are powered by technology. Even so, the difficulties of reaching consensus and the influence of group dynamics on rational argumentation remain. If you are participating in a Delphi process, this video is an essential introduction to the method.

This video is third part of a series of videos introducing foresight workshop methods for the Eye of Europe project funded by the EU.

This document provides guidance on how to conduct a structured horizon scanning process to identify emerging developments that could have potential impact in the future, and in particular on the environment. It starts with an overview of the guide (Chapter 1) and an introduction to horizon scanning (Chapter 2) in connection with the concept of futures literacy. It then provides a step-by-step approach for conducting a structured horizon scanning process (Chapter 3), including a variety
of diverse sources for spotting signals, different frameworks for signal scanning and several options to unpack and analyse the collected signals and patterns of change through creative methods and exercises. It also proposes a few different and complementary ways of communicating the findings to relevant stakeholders, networks and communities. Lastly, it suggests some tools (Chapter 4) that can be used to strengthen the scanning process. The annexes offer a detailed comparison of such tools and a glossary of terms related to futures literacy.

FCT, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management and the European Commission (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation) promoted, on December 5, a workshop with the active participation of representatives from all sectors of the National Research and Innovation System (R&I), and representatives of European states participating in this MLE-Mutual Learning Exercise, in order to discuss and agree on possible guidelines and joint work with a view to an institutionalization of capabilities and the creation of foresight communities in this system.

The following day, December 6th, FCT hosted the meeting of this network that has, besides Portugal, representatives from Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Norway, Romania and Slovenia.   

4CF The Futures Literacy Company is a consultancy entirely focused on strategic foresight and long-term strategies. For nearly two decades, 4CF has been on the mission to help its clients prepare for an uncertain tomorrow. The Company has executed hundreds of projects for private companies, public institutions and international entities, including the European Commission and its agencies (EUDA, ENISA), FAO, UNFCCC, UNESCO, UNEP and UNDP. 4CF is at the forefront of global innovation, and actively contributes to the development of cutting-edge foresight tools, including 4CF HalnyX (Delphi platform), 4CF Sprawlr, 4CF FLEx.

A new series of 'Foresight Starter Sets' is an an essential part of Finland Futures Research Centre's (FFRC) contribution to the Eye of Europe project. One starter set component is a set of short videos. The videos introduce and clarify futures thinking and foresight, what to expect from a foresight workshop, and a variety of foresight workshop methods. The videos could serve as promotional material but also help organizers calibrate participants expectations prior to their participation in a foresight workshop.

Finland Futures Research Centre is developing the video series to help participants prepare to participate in foresight workshops. The videos immediate use is related to the Eye of Europe Pilot Foresight Activities which will run through 2025 and 2026, but the videos will be freely available as a useful resource for foresight organizers outside the scope, and beyond the lifetime, of the project. 

Reaching target audiences with foresight beyond text

As the Work Package lead of Eye of Europe, the FFRC targets two unofficial ambitions underpinning all project activities: First, lowering the bar for organizing and participating in foresight workshops. Second, moving foresight beyond text. That is, finding new audiences via new formats compared to the classic domain of long text-based foresight reports. The set of Foresight Starter Videos aims to achieve both of these premises, as it uses a format of short videos (3-8 minutes per video) to introduce foresight, futures thinking, and futures methods to new audiences with a playful and welcoming tone. 

The video set has two introductory videos that can be used in advance of any foresight workshop, while the ambition for the following videos relate to specific methods and approaches. The presumed use case is that foresight organizers can provide links to the introductory videos for foresight workshop participants in advance of their participation. We have found at the FFRC that sometimes people, even if they are domain experts in other fields, can be apprehensive prior to foresight workshops, as this may be unfamiliar territory for them (and for people used to being experts, unfamiliar can mean uncomfortable). 

Launching the videos

The series of videos are developed by Martyn Richards and Zainab Yasin at the Finland Futures Research Centre. The videos are hosted on Futures4Europe's YouTube Channel.

The first video on Untangling Futures and Foresight - An Essential Guide provides a brief introduction to the world of foresight. This video is recommended viewing for anyone approaching the topic for the first time - and can with good results be used by foresight specialists seeking to familiarize their audiences with the topic

Collaborative research on the human capacity to understand, anticipate, prepare for, and embrace the future.

About Futures Consciousness

The futures consciousness concept and scale has been developed by researchers at the Finland Futures Research Centre (University of Turku) and University of Geneva, with help from other contributors. Teach the Future received a grant from the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF) and the Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University (PMU) to adapt the Scale for use by young people, ages 12-18. The results of that grant are being submitted for publication by the partners. After that, the Scale will be available for use by schools and other organizations that work with youth. The details will be published on this page shortly.
Take the test.
The Five Dimensions of Futures Consciousness are:

• time perspective; the ability to be aware of the past, present and future, as well as the way events follow each other over time
• agency beliefs; basic sense of confidence that an individual has in their own ability to influence the external world
• openness to alternatives; abilities used to critically question commonly accepted ideas and influences an individual’s willingness to consider alternative ways of being and doing
• systems perception; the ability to recognize human and natural systems around us including groups, societies and ecosystems
• concern for others; relates to the degree to which an individual pursues favourable futures for a group beyond themselves
  

Our partners

Teach the Future collaborates with the University of Turku in Finland, the Finland Futures Research Centre and Digital Futures to research and promote the work in the context of education and (young) students. Sanna Ahvenharju, Matti Minkkinen and Fanny Lalot are the research experts that developed the futures consciousness concept and scale. 

Our activities

Teach the Future supports the de velopment of a scale matching the language and level of young people. This project is in collaboration with schools in the Netherlands, Italy, Turkiye, United States, and United Kingdom. And we thank our sponsor the Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd, Center for Futuristic Studies.
Next to this we support the testing. Erica Bol has wo rked with Martin de Wolf of the Master Learning and Innovation at the Fontys University of Applied Sciene. She designed a futures lesson program supporting the Master program and tested if the students futures consciousness improved. The students did a test before and after the lessons program. A paper on the project and results are published in FUTURES issue 12-2022.

It would be short-sighted to assume that we, as humanity, have reached such a level of maturity that our descendants will not find some aspects of our – apparently civilised – everyday life repulsive and sad.
So we asked 60 futurists from around the world: “What will we disgust our descendants with?”
Many of the submitted ideas are already present in public discourse and confirm areas in which we need to change. But we were especially interested in novel barbarisms that humanity is still largely oblivious to.
The resulting infographic shows the futurists’ answers grouped into 93 contemporary barbarisms ranked in a public vote according to how eye-opening they are.

4CF The Futures Literacy Company 

This is the first episode of Futures4Europe conversations, initiated by the Eye of Europe project – a series of dialogues between Bianca Dragomir and professionals from all over the world, who engage in work that is future sensitive.

About this episode - On engaging meaningfully with futures

Often framed as a professional activity essential for 'planning', guiding 'decision making' or 'orienting strategies', futures studies could be more generously placed in the realm of humanities where, along other human capacities, imagination and anticipation should be nurtured and celebrated.

In this light, futures education is more like a tending a garden. Like doing the soil work that turns it into the fertile ground for seeds to grow into 'flowers' such as human creativity, a heightened awareness of the mechanisms of change, agency coupled with humility, a sense of taking part into shaping something yet non-existent.

Peter Bishop, founder of Teach the Future, argues that this garden should be welcoming everyone, including young people, or perhaps especially them.