This policy brief provides insights into the thematic areas addressed in the first five Eye of Europe workshops. It also informs about the upcoming workshops and the futures4europe platform, the online home of the European foresight community, where visitors can explore a rich collection of foresight projects, showcase their work, and discover foresight-related upcoming events.

We empower you to work with the future. 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.

Futures thinking is in our DNA. SAMI was created as the St Andrews Management Institute in 1989, as a joint venture between Shell, the pioneers in scenario planning, and St Andrews University. That powerful mix of academic rigour and practical delivery continues in work and with our people today: Experienced practitioners, world-renowned futures authors, and consultants with first-hand experience of the public sector and the challenges facing it.

SAMI was commissioned by the Government Office for Science to overhaul its Futures Toolkit. We have reviewed and re-written many of the core tools, adding new ones and advising on more advanced techniques.

SAMI Consulting Ltd are futures domain specialists. We have 30 years’ experience of working internationally, with the European Commission and with HM Government on futures projects. We understand the specific needs of Government in formulating and reaching decisions at both the policy and delivery levels. We have worked with the Cabinet Office, the Government Office for Science and HMG central departments; agencies; Local Government, Local Enterprise Partnerships, NDPBs, police forces and security agencies, universities and charities.

We work with you using a wide range of foresight tools including scenario planning. We identify
major drivers of change impacting your organisation, develop different futures and test alternative
strategies. This participative approach builds capability in your team, enabling them to become
more innovative and more able to react rapidly to unexpected change.

We offer the full range of Futures capability from gathering intelligence, to making sense of it, to
testing and developing your strategy, making decisions and taking action. We use the full range of
Futures and Foresight tools, conduct our own research and maintain our own knowledge acquisition
mechanisms. This means we can deliver a faster, tailored and more sophisticated response to your
needs and avoid ‘reinventing the wheel.’

SAMI’s experienced facilitators are adept at managing the unique challenges of futures workshops.
We enable participants to step outside their present-bias into a futures-mode of thinking

CARMINE’s overarching goal is to help the metropolitan communities become more climate resilient, by co-producing knowledge-based tools, strategies and plans for enhanced adaptation and mitigation actions addressing the Charter of the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change by 2030.

To achieve this goal, focusing on a 2030-2035 timeframe and with longer perspectives up to 2050, CARMINE aims to:

✅ Co-create and co-develop decision-support services and guidelines for enhanced resilience and adaptive capacity, including early warning and disaster risk management systems;

✅ Cooperate closely with local to regional communities (stakeholders and users), decision and policy-makers (local authorities) to co-develop cross-sectoral frameworks for adaptation and mitigation actions;

✅ Deliver science-based R&I roadmaps for multi-level climate governance supporting local adaptation assessments and plans.

Obj. 1. Review the available resources, tools, practices, policies, and methodologies, and identify the gaps, challenges and barriers that hamper the successful advance of the resilience pathways in the Metropolitan Regions of Europe.

Obj. 2. Develop high-resolution risk assessment models linking climate, earth system processes, and socio-economic drivers, for enriched data fusion and effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation actions in the Metropolitan Regions of Europe.

Obj. 3. Co-produce a climate adaptation and resilience framework combining Living Labs and Digital Twins approaches that supports decision making processes for resilience and disaster risk management in the Metropolitan Regions of Europe, including Nature-Based Solutions.

Obj. 4 Provide state-of-the-art Impact-based Decision Support Services blending climate and environmental data into socioeconomic impact and risk assessments, for user-friendly access to high spatially resolved modelling outputs in support of local adaptation assessments and plans.

Obj. 5 Conduct the participatory development of better coordinated and impactful modelling and risk assessment, in support of roadmaps of R&I priorities on adaptation, informed policies, and cross-sectoral plans towards the 2030-2035 timeframe and beyond (i.e., 2050).

CARMINE establishes synergies and complementarities with ongoing projects funded under the calls HORIZON-MISS-2021-CLIMA-02-03: ICARIA, MIRA CA, and R ISKADAPT, and HO RIZON-MISS-2021-CLIMA-02-01: CLIMAAX. 

Foresight seems to be on everyone’s lips these days – but what is it really and, more importantly, how can you use it in your own work? This “menu” is designed to help policymakers understand and leverage foresight for more effective strategy- building and decision-making.

Foresight is about thinking long-term to make smarter choices now. It is a collective effort to look beyond the present and consider what could happen in the future. Foresight isn’t about gazing into a crystal ball, but a way to methodically broaden our perspective and prepare for different possible futures scenarios.

There are many reasons and ways to engage in long-term thinking for policymaking. This menu showcases the various goals and approaches of foresight in policy contexts, featuring tools and processes that the EU Policy Lab can offer. 

Source: European Commission - Knowledge for policy  

About

The LifeFactFuture (LFF) project combines world class-excellence of Finnish life science companies, technology companies and academic researchers. It seeks to enhance advanced pharmaceutical and life science manufacturing in Finland.

The LFF consortium includes research teams at the University of Turku and the University of Helsinki, as well as some of Finland’s leading life science manufacturers, data and technology companies. The goal of the project collaboration is to speed up the introduction of digital solutions and more efficient utilization of data and to make Finland the most attractive place in the world for investments in data-driven life science manufacturing.

Current global vendors for pharmaceutical manufacturing are not able to provide the critical future data capabilities already identified by the sector in Finland. The data-driven capabilities offered by life science manufacturing vendors are assessed as less mature than similar solutions for other manufacturing sectors such as the automotive industry.

If Finland becomes the lighthouse for exploiting new data-driven capabilities in advanced life sciences manufacturing, new billion-euro export opportunities are on the horizon. The export potential is considerable within the life science sector itself as well as within technology industry companies supplying the life science sector with data-driven capabilities.

LFF is designed to fulfill the following objectives:

World-class, interdisciplinary research published in high-level journals.
Map the transformative potential of data-driven capabilities in pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Facilitate the design and adoption of regulatory practices in favor of agile/adaptive manufacturing.
Support the development of technology Proofs of Concept advancing data-driven life science manufacturing.
Progress made in developing sustainable business competencies in digital production environment.


The consortium is led by the Finland Futures Research Centre, University of Turku and
funded by Business Finland during 2024–2026.

FutureCraft project aims to foster entrepreneurial mindsets and enhance the capacity of ecosystem enablers while promoting futures literacy and global collaboration.

The project aspires to cultivate innovative thinking, provide effective guidance to entrepreneurs, and increase awareness of future trends and sustainability challenges. Ultimately, the goal is to drive economic growth by developing vibrant and sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems, fostering prosperity and innovation.

The project is funded by EU program Erasmus+ during 12/2024–11/2026.

https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/2024-1-TR01-KA220-ADU-000251939

The stages of the implemented process were as follows:

1. Shared understanding of the current situation in the mountain areas
The discussions within the working groups started from a set of summarized information from the extensive analyses previously conducted, structured by strengths and weaknesses, along with additional synthetic data on the tourism, agriculture, forestry, and wood industry sectors.

2. Selection of the drivers of change
The working groups explored and enriched a list of factors/trends that influence the contextual change toward the 2035 horizon, across various dimensions: social, technological, economic, ecological, geopolitical, and values-based factors.

3. Scenario projection for 2035
Based on thematically grouped change drivers, the working groups envisioned and described the state of mountain areas in 2035 under the influence of these drivers, in the absence of strategic corrective interventions.

4. Identification of aspirations – key values, opportunities, best practices
The groups proposed and debated a series of values and aspirations for the future of mountain areas by 2035, including inspiration from best practices in other countries.

5. Consolidation of aspirations into clear directions for transforming mountain areas
This stage involved grouping aspirations by thematic areas, more clearly articulating the transformation vector, and partially exploring concrete actions that would enable these transformations. The sum of these transformation directions forms the **Vision for mountain areas by 2035**.

6. Roadmapping - includes the set of actions that support progress toward the desirable transformation of the mountain areas, across multiple levels.

7. Priority directions
Participants in the workshops identified the actions perceived as the most impactful and/or urgent in transforming mountain areas.

The project relies on a foresight methodology that involves a number of co-creation workshops with stakeholders in the sector. The workshops engaged participants in a step-by-step process, as follows:

1. Building a common understanding of the current societal/consumer behaviors and attitudes (level of fish and seafood consumption, types of products consumed, preference for local products, expectations regarding traceability, environmental concerns etc.);
2. Assessing the evolution of societal/consumer expectations by 2035 (on the same parameters as above);
3. Mapping the current fishing and aquaculture system, in terms if strengths and weaknesses;
4. Sketching the inertial future scenario of the fishing and aquaculture sector in Romania, meaning the likely scenario for 2035 in the absence of corrective policy interventions;
5. Identifying future opportunities that would allow the system to progress towards more desirable scenarios than the inertial scenario;
6. Collaboratively developing normative scenarios, capitalizing on selected opportunities;
7. Based on the normative scenarios, extracting the main pillars of a future vision for 2035;
8. Describing, in more depth, the vision components;
9. Identifying the areas of transformation that enble achieving the vision;
10. Calibrating strategic objectives for 2030, taking into account the pace of transformation;
11. Identifying governance principles.
    

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. 

With this project, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) aims to systematically integrate fundamental rights into EU foresight processes and activities. The project explores reference scenarios for fundamental rights and considers how different drivers of change could impact on fundamental rights in the period up until 2040. The scenarios will form the basis for a set of foresight policy briefs for selected megatrends. The project builds on the reference foresight scenarios developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, with a view to complement them with fundamental rights considerations.

The project includes horizon scanning, retrofitting scenarios, visioning, developing future pathways and policy options stress-testing. In all the activities, the project utilizes FRA’s draft guidance on inclusive, non-discriminatory and participatory foresight. Outputs comprise of a set of fundamental rights scenarios, foresight policy briefs and a guidance on embedding fundamental rights into foresight.

This project and the foresight knowledge it generates will enable FRA and other stakeholders to support EU institutions and Member States in addressing future challenges by creating a foresight framework that incorporates a fundamental rights perspective and ensures that policies remain inclusive, forward-looking and in line with the EU's core values.

The Twinning Light project (2023-2024) redefined the future role of the Albanian Agency for Scientific Research and Innovation (NASRI) in the research and innovation ecosystem. The foresight component addressed the following questions What will a future research and innovation ecosystem in Albania look like and what role will NASRI play in it? How can NASRI position itself in this dynamic environment? What concrete steps are needed to achieve NASRI's goals? Together, project experts, NASRI staff and stakeholders developed a roadmap outlining concrete actions and milestones for the strategic reorientation of the agency. The developed roadmap includes recommendations for positioning NASRI in a dynamic environment as well as steps for implementing these goals - with the involvement of relevant partners in the ecosystem. 

The activities reported in this foresight brief reflect the foresight knowledge in support of the Mission Board and its strategies towards a consolidated mission within the broader goal to fight cancer in the European Union. The support of the FOD Cancer project team consisted of several interactive events with the Mission Board, horizon scanning, and the provision of three specific reports. This synthesis report gives a concise overview of the deliverables, which are provided in full as annexes.

Based on the “Scoping Paper” (Annex I) this synthesis report demonstrates the challenges for future cancer research. It summarises some major aspects behind the urgency of the cancer topic – not only medical aspects but a broader spectrum that includes prevention, prediction, care, diagnosis and treatment as well as other economic and social aspects. The report is the result of a targeted literature review of recent documents where the future of the fight against cancer is discussed. The main goal of the review was to identify and assess both consolidated trends and drivers, and other phenomena at the periphery that are likely to have impacts on the future of cancer. Mission Board members revised the report and gave additional inputs online (since an onsite scoping meeting had to be sacrificed to meet the COVID-19 containment measures).

Building on the outcome of the revised Scoping Paper, two scenarios were developed discussing diverging directions of cancer development and the measures to fight cancer (Annex II). The two future health scenarios were based on scenarios from an earlier EU-funded project entitled "FRESHER - FoResight and Modelling for European HEalth Policy and Regulation", which aimed to identify future research policies to effectively address the burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCD) using emerging health scenarios with a time horizon up to 2050. 

Within the online scenario workshop with members from the Mission Board on ‘Fighting Cancer’ and members from the European Commission, the two FRESHER scenarios were discussed, revised and feedback for desirable futures with regard to fighting cancer was collected. The two scenarios are briefly presented in this report as well. Under the impression of the two scenarios, the Mission Board members and EC representatives were guided by the FOD Cancer team to discuss online in five focus groups - in parallel - different stakeholder perspectives with regard to desirable milestones that may be achieved in the future to make prevention, diagnosis, treatment and survival of cancer more effective. These stakeholder perspectives comprised “Members of the European Parliament against Cancer”, “General Practitioners”, “Pharmaceutical Companies”, “Patient Organisations”, and “Survivors”. Out of these discussions, the FOD team developed three roadmaps (Annex III): milestones for prevention, milestones for diagnosis and treatment, and milestones for survivorship. The roadmaps are also briefly summarised.

Millions of travellers cross the EU’s external borders every year and their numbers will likely increase even further. Thus, border checks will need to undergo significant transformations in the coming years, both to effectively safeguard the EU’s external borders and to improve the border crossing experience for travellers. Biometrics is one of the fields expected to significantly contribute to the attainment of these goals.

In light of the above, Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency delivered a Technology Foresight Research Study on Biometrics for the Future of Travel. The main objective of this research was the delivery of a study on the future of biometrics for its implementation in border control systems that may benefit the work of the European Border and Coast Guard (EBCG) community in a short (1-5 years), medium (5-10 years) and long term (10+ years) perspective. In particular, this research was to produce a research study that includes the prioritization and roadmapping of emerging relevant biometric technologies with the strongest potential to influence the strategic components of Integrated Border Management and the work of Border Guards themselves. The research study also produced comprehensive tailored technology foresight methodology and supporting tools, properly adapted to Frontex capabilities and organization. Furthermore, it delivered a technology taxonomy for biometrics and biometrics-enabled technological systems.


The obtained findings were to support Frontex in identifying specific research and innovation initiatives which could accelerate the integration of novel biometrics-enabled technological solutions for border checks. This study provides knowledge on how to maximize future benefits of biometrics technology in the border management environment while minimizing its risks and ensuring full compliance with the existing legal, ethical and technological constraints.

The research study consisted of five phases, which all produced their own set of insights intended to support the EBCG community in decision-making processes, compiled in the main report available here . 

The chemical industry is a significant contributor to the EU economy. It is simultaneously instrumental to the green and digital transition and exposed to its effects. A steady supply of (green) create reusable and recyclable consumer goods. On the other hand, chemical synthesis is an energy-intensive process inherently dependent on carbon-based feedstock (currently derived almost exclusively from fossil fuels). In addition, chemistry is a global industry with international value chains, where the EU both collaborates and competes with other countries for materials, knowledge and skills.

Transforming the European chemical industry into a sustainable motor for the green and digital transition will require investments in infrastructure, assets and skills. Focus should be placed on chemicals that are crucial to this Twin Transition, , or both. The long lead time required for the deployment of infrastructure and the development of skills means that such investments must be made now to achieve targets set for 2050.

In connection with these issues, the report at hand aims to give insights into a number of value chains that are strategic to EU economy. It considers which chemicals and innovations are vital to transforming these value chains as well as rendering them more resilient and future-fit. To this end, a participatory workshop-based foresight approach was implemented to provide a unique set of insights from stakeholders and translate them into actions and policy recommendations.
Chapter 1 provides a general introduction into foresight and an overview of the project, the definitions used, the methodology applied and the approach to project implementation.

Chapter 2 details the 20 Critical Chemicals and 10 key Future Innovations, needed to secure the four Strategic Value Chains under consideration: Batteries, Connected Clean & Autonomous Vehicles, Hydrogen Technologies & Systems, and Microelectronics & Industrial IoT. These value chains were selected as highly dependent on chemicals and non-overlapping with other EC research initiatives. Those Critical Chemicals and Future Innovations are listed in the tables below.

Chapter 3 presents In addition, each so-called factsheet contains roadmaps of actions needed to increase those value chains resilience as well as describes chemicals and the implementation of innovations. Thus, the roadmaps enable the identification and assessment of potential future actions.

Chapter 4 contains a set of key policy recommendations addressed to policy stakeholders. They focus on accelerating the digital and green transformation of the entire chemical industry, and were collected from experts throughout the project.

Finally, the Annex details methodologies and underlying analyses.

Chem4EU Foresight for chemicals : final report 

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.

The report outlines three scenarios of possible futures for Research and Innovation (R&I) policies in the Western Balkans in 2035. Using a Strategic Foresight approach, the report supports policy makers in creating an enabling environment for R&I policies to thrive and in deciding on priorities for strategic investments for the future. 

The scenarios in the report are based on an extensive co-creation process with more than 700 R&I experts from the Western Balkans, representing academia, civil society, the private sector, international organisations, and central and sub-national governments. To provide inspiration for the implementation of future-proof R&I policies, the report also includes initial roadmaps. 

These are designed to inspire decision-makers by setting targets and the actions needed to develop their R&I systems for the benefit of all citizens in the Western Balkans. The project was launched in July 2020 and the final study was presented at the EU-WB Ministerial Meeting in October 2021.

Established by the European Commission, Foresight-on-Demand is a mechanism to respond to the demand for quick inputs to policy-making by drawing on the best available foresight knowledge.

FoD aims at offering the European Commission services with timely and effective support related to crisis situations, emerging risks, and policy challenges.

Road-STEAMer attempts to develop a STEAM Roadmap for Science Education in Horizon Europe and in educational policy across the continent in order to: 

• To produce better knowledge and shared understanding of Europe’s particular educational needs and how STEAM can address them.
  
• To explore the opportunities arising through STEAM for integrated science learning approaches and synergies.
  
• To study those policy deficiencies that hinter the impactful adoption of STEAM approaches in Europe’s science education landscape.
  

Institutul de Prospectiva is a research organisation (NGO) with the mission to stimulate future-awareness aimed at addressing the challenges of contemporary societies. To this end, we implement tailored foresight exercises supporting strategic orientation in the public sector, with a focus on foresight for R&I policy at European and national level.

Prospectiva is part of the Foresight-on-Demand (FOD) consortium, tasked with advising the European Commission and fourteen other EU organisations on science and technology policy programming for a period of four years (April 2024 – March 2028).
This is an extension of the previous successful cooperation within the Foresight on Demand framework contract (2019-2023); during this period Prospectiva has contributed to numerous projects, on components related to horizon scanning, large scale Delphi consultations, scenario building, co-creation workshops, speculative design, and the elaboration of various briefs, in-depth case studies and reports. These projects addressed a range of themes, among which the future of food, of retail, of ecosystems’ flourishing, and even of the human condition.