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

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

Foresight on Demand (FOD) is a rapid foresight response mechanism organised in a framework contract, and aims at providing quick forward-looking inputs to policymaking by leveraging the best available foresight knowledge. It addresses the growing need for quicker and more responsive foresight to inform policymaking in an increasingly turbulent environment.

Representatives of all twenty FOD partner organisations and representatives of different client authorities met in person during a lunch-to-lunch meeting in Brussels taking place at IDEA consult premises from October 10 to October 11, 2024.

47 people participated in the meeting that focussed on getting to know all FOD partners, especially the new partner organisations of FOD II, gaining insights on expectations of client authorities, as well as on updating the FOD consortium on ongoing and upcoming requests and discussing the FOD service provision processes. The meeting offered the opportunity to exchange in group discussions, during the FOD partner art gallery, where partners presented their organisations and services through art pieces and creative work, and informally during lunch, coffee and at the social dinner.

The meeting revealed inspiring insights on lessons learned during FOD I (2019-2023), on promoting the FOD framework for potential projects, as well as on emerging topics potentially relevant to the current FOD II (2024-2028) period.

Futures Conference 2025 focuses on the futures of technologies, their development, importance, role and risks as a driver of social change. What are the effects of social and environmental changes on technological development and vice versa?

‘Futures of Technologies’ is the 25t h international Futures Conference of the Finland Futures Research Centre and Finland Futures Academy, University of Turku. It is organised together with the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd during 10–12 June 2025 in Turku, Finland.

Keynote Speakers
Ali Aslan Gümüşay is professor of Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Sustainability at LMU Munich and head of research group Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Society at the Humboldt Institute for Internet & Society Berlin. His research focuses on values, meaning and hybridity in entrepreneurship; grand challenges, sustainability and new forms of organizing; digitalization, management and innovation as well as impact, scholarship and futures.

Cynthia Selin is a pioneering social scientist and strategic foresight expert known for developing innovative methodologies to navigate complex change and advance the theoretical boundaries of anticipation. An Associate Fellow at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and core faculty in the Oxford Scenarios Programme, Dr. Selin also founded Scenaric, a consulting firm that equips organizations to tackle uncertainty and shape resilient futures.

Philip Brey is professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Technology at the University of Twente. He is member of the management team (and former chairman) of the 4TU Center for Ethics & Technology, a partnership of the universities of Twente, Delft, Eindhoven and Wageningen with more than 60 researchers.

Jerome C. Glenn co-founded and directs The Millennium Project, a leading global participatory think tank with over 70 Nodes around the world. He is assisting the UN Council of Presidents of the General Assembly on the UNGA’s role in governance of Artificial General Intelligence, author/editor forthcoming Global Governance of Artificial General Intelligence (De Gruyter), lead author State of the Future 20.0 and Future Work/Tech 2050: Scenarios and Actions and co-editor Futures Research Methodology 3.0 with Ted Gordon. Glenn has directed over 80 futures research projects and is a member of the IEEE SA P2863 Organizational Governance of AI working group.

Rohit Talwar (CEO, Fast Futures, UK) was recently in the top three in 'the Global Gurus Top 30 futuris' rankings for 2025. He is an inspirational futurist and the CEO of Fast Future, delivering award-winning keynote speeches, executive education, foresight, research, consultancy, and coaching. Rohit was delivered over 2000 speeches, workshops, and consulting assignments for clients in 80+ countries across six continents. He is the co-author and lead editor of nine books and over 50 reports on the emerging future and appears regularly on TV and in print media around the world. 

Read more about the Keynotes. 

Conference Newsletters

• Conference Newsletter #1 (4.11.2024)
• Conference Newsletter #2 (26.11.2024)  
• Conference Newsletter #3 (08.01.2025) 
• Conference Newsletter #4 (25.03.2025)    

Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC) is one of the largest academic institutions in the world for foresight and futures studies with a history dating back to 1992. FFRC provides both graduate and doctoral degrees in futures studies. In 2024, the institute celebrated the completion of its 100th M.Sc. in Futures Studies! 

FFRC is part of the Turku School of Economics at the University of Turku. 

FFRC also provides standing services to the Committee for the Future at the Parliament of Finland and takes part in numerous national and European research projects and foresight projects. For example, FFRC is a partner in the European consortium Foresight on Demand II with a foresight framework contract with DG Research and Innovation.

Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC) works with a transdisciplinary approach in an international environment. The cornerstones of our activities are on developing academic futures studies, critical interdisciplinary research, high quality education, strategic and business foresight and insightfully produced futures knowledge.

Learn more about our activities:
Research at Finland Futures Research Centre
Studying at the Finland Futures Research Centre
Collaboration
News from the Finland Futures Research Centre 

Each year, the Finland Futures Research Centre organises its annual conference, an invaluable opportunity for meeting, exchanging and debating current topics related in futures studies and foresight. With approximately 200–350 individual participants attending from all over the world, international researchers, organisational delegates, business people and students convene to the annual conferences in the spirit of futures-oriented information, research, analysis and collaboration. 

2025: Futures of Technologies – Mutual Shaping of Socio-Technical Transformations , 10–12 June 2025, Turku, Finland

The first Mutual Learning Event (MLE) took place on May 23, 2024 in Bratislava, Slovakia as part of the Horizon Europe project Eye of Europe, which aims to contribute to the maturing of a vibrant Research and Innovation (R&I) foresight community in Europe and to support the integration of foresight practices into R&I policy-making.

Forty participants from partner organizations and external representatives of ministries, governmental bodies, R&I funding agencies and the European institutions gathered in the premises of the Government Office of the Slovak Republic.

This MLE, organized by Technology Centre Prague (TC), focused on the identification of emerging needs and approaches in the practice of foresight for research and innovation. To this end, the MLE in Bratislava was structured along the following phases:

• Eye of Europe’s vision and main building blocks, presented by project coordinator Radu Gheorghiu
• The context and role of this MLE, and a brief overview of other mutual learning events that took place since 2020, presented by Michal Pazour 
• Showcasing preliminary results of the Stocktaking of the organisation of R&I Foresight activities in the European Research Area (ERA), by Simone Weske. The presentation highlighted key benefits of the R&I foresight activities, constraints and bottlenecks, as perceived by the survey respondents.
• Four country studies - Slovakia, Finland, Austria and Sweden - have brought interesting insights and comparisons related to R&I foresight uptake and potential for improvement:
  Slovakia: Research and Innovation System and the potential for R&I Foresight |Michal Habrman, Government Office of the Slovak Republic
  Finland: Finnish national foresight ecosystem | Juha Kaskinen, FFRC University of Turku Finland
  Sweden: Leading from the Future in Sweden | Joakim Skog, Vinnova Sweden
  Austria: R&I foresight | Christian Naczinsky, Austrian Ministry of Education
• Discussions in four participant groups on emerging functions and approaches of R&I foresight. Overall, the group discussions touched on the dynamics of R&I foresight demand and supply and on the diversification of tools and methods for establishing dialogue with policy-making.
  
  This video created by the event host, Výskumná a inovačná autorita (VAIA), offers a glimpse into the spirit of both the MLE and the R&I foresight masterclass that preceded it. The detailed outputs of the MLE will be published in a dedicated report.
  
  
  ***
  Five MLEs are planned in the project, with the following one being held online in September 2024. All Eye of Europe MLEs are organized by Technology Centre Prague (TC), Eye of Europe partner and key Czech national think tank and academia based NGO with a rich experience with knowledge-based policy making support and (participatory as well as expert based) foresight activities.
  

As a Coordination and Support Action, project “Eye of Europe” aims to enhance the integration of foresight practices into Research and Innovation (R&I) policy making across Europe. Ultimately, the project envisions a more cohesive and influential R&I foresight community that contributes significantly, as a collective intelligence, to shaping and guiding policy decisions.

To this end, Eye of Europe builds on existing initiatives and experiences to foster knowledge-sharing between foresight practitioners and policy makers, attract domain experts in foresight endeavours, and engage a broader audience in futures thinking. Nurturing futures4europe.eu as the online home for the community and running various face-to-face events with different stakeholders will underpin these ambitions.
Methodologically, the project relies on the following building blocks:

• futures4europe.eu as the online hub for the R&I foresight community in Europe: The platform accommodates the interests of various stakeholders such as foresight experts, beneficiaries, domain experts, and an active audience. It operates on multiple integration levels, from mapping organizations and experts to sharing foresight results and capabilities. Moreover, it acts as the communication gateway for ongoing foresight activities, events, educational and inspirational materials.
  
  
• Sharing of practices: This entails mapping institutions engaged in R&I foresight activities, promoting mutual learning through interactive formats, developing shared visions for the future of foresight in R&I policy within the European Research Area (ERA), fostering exchanges among the foresight in R&I policy community through conferences, encouraging dialogues between futurist/expert communities, academics and policy practitioners.
  Key figures: 5 mutual learning events (MLE): 2 online, 3 face-to-face events; 1 vision building event for the Future of R&I Foresight in ERA; 2 conferences
  
  
• Running foresight pilots: Conducting a series of pilot workshops and online consultations with diverse formats, methodologies, and participants. This involves identifying topics of common interest within the European Research Area (ERA), where foresight perspectives offer added value, designing and implementing tailored pilot foresight activities involving various stakeholders, harnessing lessons learnt and feeding them into the platform and other dissemination channels.
  Key figures: 11 Foresight pilot processes: 3 exclusively with citizens, 4 mainly with experts and researchers tackling specific R&I topics, 4 involving a bespoke group of participants. Out of the 11 events, 8 will be face-to-face events, and 3 pilots will take place online
  
  
• Boosting futures literacy: The project encourages meaningful engagement with diverse audiences, from foresight professionals, researchers, policy-makers to various futures sensitive profiles (e.g. entrepreneurs, journalists, artists) and the wider civil society. The project will provide guides, methodology toolboxes, and training modules for R&I foresight and futures literacy, incorporating written and multimedia content.
  Key figures: 5-10 short training sets for participants in foresight exercises; 1 training module for foresight beneficiaries; 1 foresight training for early career researchers, 1 Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on R&I foresight; 12 conversational podcasts; 6-8 Short videos and/or animated materials showcasing foresight processes and outcomes
  
  
• Fueling the public discourse around futures: Promoting the project and fostering the foresight community via the online platform futures4europe.eu and complementary channels such as social media and a dedicated newsletter. In addition to highlighting the project's own initiatives, Eye of Europe will also aim to promote foresight content developed in other projects, showcasing a diverse range of perspectives and insights within the foresight field. The quarterly newsletter will feature various content types like interviews, project updates, and foresight-related articles. Social media, particularly Futures4Europe's LinkedIn page, will be used to engage professional communities and wider audiences, with a focus on sharing project activities and fostering discussions.