Social Protection Systems & Essential Services is the third instalment in DLR Projektträger's Strategic Foresight series for the future European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience (STR). It asks how Europe's welfare systems can stay adequate, fair, and resilient as demographic change, labour market fragmentation, climate pressures, and digitalisation reshape who needs support and how they receive it.

The foresight process started with 25 candidate trends drawn from desk research, anchored in the European Commission's The Future of Social Protection and of the Welfare State in the EU and a scoping study on welfare systems in societal and ecological transitions. Five expert interviews sharpened the trend landscape, and a survey of 138 experts across 24 countries narrowed the field to ten priority trends. A workshop with 33 participants from 15 countries then mapped the cascading effects of each trend using the Futures Wheel method.

The ten trends cover strain on pension and care systems from an ageing population, widening divides between secure and precarious work, rising mental health needs, unequal exposure to climate shocks and transition costs, and eroding trust in welfare institutions, alongside the risks and opportunities of digitalisation in service delivery.

The report's best-case scenario for 2040 rests on four pillars: income security and inclusive labour market participation that closes coverage gaps for people in non-standard work; shock-responsive and climate-fair social protection that shields low-income households from unequal transition costs; human-centred digitalisation that improves access without deepening inequality or eroding trust; and trustworthy, coordinated welfare governance that reduces administrative barriers and strengthens fairness.

Fostering Education and Skills Development is the second cycle in DLR Projektträger's Strategic Foresight series for the future European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience (STR), following the inaugural cycle on the future of work. It examines how Europe's education and skills systems can adapt to demographic decline, AI and digitalisation, and rising demands on learners' well-being over the next 10 to 15 years.

Desk research produced 26 initial trends, refined through expert interviews and then tested in an online survey of 132 experts across 22 countries, who prioritised the ten most significant developments. A workshop with 32 participants across Europe mapped the first-, second-, and third-order implications of each trend using the Futures Wheel method.

The ten trends include mounting teacher shortages (40% of EU teachers are already over 50, only 8% under 30), AI and digitalisation reshaping skill demands while widening existing gaps, declining student mental well-being, the twin transition deepening socioeconomic skill divides, the rising importance of social and emotional skills, and persistently low adult upskilling rates.

The report's best-case scenario for 2040 is structured around five pillars: a sustainable, empowered teaching workforce with competitive pay and manageable workloads; fair and responsible use of technology that closes rather than widens digital divides; well-being and social skills embedded as core parts of education, not add-ons; lifelong learning genuinely available to all age groups and backgrounds; and education systems resilient to demographic decline and the twin transition.

A Fair Transition Towards Climate Neutrality closes DLR Projektträger's four-part Strategic Foresight series for the future European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience (STR). The report examines Europe's path to climate neutrality with a focus on fairness: who bears the costs, who gains the benefits, and how governments keep public trust along the way.

The foresight process combined desk research with input from 168 experts across 22 countries, five in-depth interviews, and a workshop with 42 participants from 17 countries. Together these steps produced 24 trends, then narrowed the field to the ten with the strongest impact on fairness and legitimacy.

Top trends include accelerating climate impacts outpacing adaptation spending, uneven access to clean technology and mobility, and cultural narratives shaping public acceptance of transition policies. The report traces first- and second-order effects for each trend, from strained EU solidarity between regions to widening gaps in local implementation capacity.

Building on these findings, the report sets out a best-case scenario for 2040, built on four pillars: fairness embedded directly into climate governance and fiscal design, protection for households and communities against unequal transition costs, participatory and place-based decision-making, and an inclusive skills transformation keeping workers ready for the shift toward climate neutrality.

Shaping the Future of Work opens DLR Projektträger's Strategic Foresight series for the future European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience (STR). The report asks a direct question: how will AI, automation, an aging workforce, and shifting worker expectations reshape European labour markets over the next 10 to 15 years?

Desk research produced 34 candidate trends. An online survey then gathered responses from 187 experts across 29 countries, followed by interviews with four scholars from IZA, Stockholm University, Copenhagen Business School, and the University of Surrey. A workshop with 27 participants from 14 countries tested and expanded the ten highest-impact trends using the Futures Wheel method.

Top trends span AI governance and ethics at work, automation restructuring jobs and tasks, growing pressure for lifelong learning and digital training, workforce decline linked to aging populations, and rising demand for autonomy in where, when, and how people work. Each trend comes with first- and second-order implications, showing how a single shift, such as wider gig work, reaches into pay security, social protection, and mental health.

The report closes with a best-case scenario for 2040, resting on four pillars: digital transformation guided by ethics and worker rights, learning systems open to everyone regardless of background or age, work models offering flexibility without trading away security, and an economy growing while investing in people and sustainability.

A new European Partnership is to be established as part of the European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, 'Horizon Europe': the 'European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience' (STR). To define this partnership's specific research and innovation priorities, the DLR Project Management Agency conducted four strategic foresight cycles on Supporting the modernisation of social protection systems; Shaping the future of work; Fostering education and skills development; Contributing to a fair transition towards climate neutrality. On this basis, the DLR-PT team elaborated a first draft of the Partnership's strategy for 2027-2033. 

As part of the project, the DLR-PT convened around 40 European experts for a backcasting workshop in Bonn on 28 and 29 January 2026. This two-day event, held under the title of "Towards a Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda for the STR Partnership", aimed to translate four best-case scenarios from previous foresight cycles into concrete research and innovation priorities for the future STR partnership's Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). In the workshop, the DLR-PT's strategic foresight team worked with the Humanities and Cultural Heritage Unit to use the backcasting method. Starting from a desirable target vision for 2040, participants identified key milestones (including those for 2033 and 2037), as well as necessary framework conditions, potential obstacles, and action steps, thinking backwards from the future to the present. Specifically, the participants first developed priority measures and then used these to define research and innovation priorities for the strategy. By the end of the workshop, the experts had developed up to six thematic priorities for each of the impact areas in the future Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda.

The European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience is currently being prepared and is expected to start in 2027. The Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, with its implementation-oriented research priorities, will serve members of the partnership as a basis for future calls for proposals.

The DLR Project Management Agency (DLR-PT) coordinated a study on digital citizen participation on behalf of the European Parliament's STOA Panel. Together with IQIB and DemocracyX, 94 digital participation tools were analysed and concrete recommendations for action were developed for the EU policy cycle.

The decline in political participation, coupled with the widespread perception among citizens that they are distant from the decision-making processes in Brussels, poses a significant challenge to EU institutions. Could digital tools and Artificial Intelligence help bridge the gap between citizens and European politics? This question was addressed in a study coordinated by the DLR Project Management Agency and co-authored by IQIB and DemocracyX. Completed in January 2026, the study was presented to the European Parliament's STOA Panel – the Panel for the Future of Science and Technology – on 12 March.

94 digital tools and 11 case studies compared
In order to obtain a comprehensive picture of the available participation landscape, the research team first analysed 94 digital participation tools from Europe and around the world using a three-phase approach, categorising them according to their functionalities. Building on this, eleven representative use cases were examined in detail, including the European Citizens' Initiative, the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) with the Decidim platform, and local participation processes in Austria, Denmark, and Canada. In a third phase, European experts validated the preliminary results in a foresight workshop and discussed possible development scenarios for the use of AI in democratic participation processes.

AI in citizen participation: potential with clear limits
The use of AI in digital participation tools is still in its infancy. The study shows that, so far, AI has primarily been used as a background technology, for example for the automatic transcription of deliberation processes, clustering contributions, and machine translation. The potential for multilingual participation processes at the EU level is promising. At the same time, however, the study highlights significant risks. A lack of transparency due to 'black box effects', algorithmic bias, and inadequate data protection could undermine the democratic legitimacy of participation processes. AI should therefore always be used as an accountable, supportive tool, with clearly assigned human responsibility at the institutional level.
A key finding of the study is that the success of digital participation tools depends more on the political and institutional framework conditions than on the technology itself. For citizen participation to be democratically effective, a clear mandate, transparent procedures and visible feedback are required: citizens must be able to understand how their contributions have been incorporated into political decisions. Without this feedback mechanism, digital participation risks being perceived as purely symbolic, which would further erode trust in EU institutions. The study recommends that the EU view digital citizen participation as a strategic building block for strengthening the democratic foundation of the Union, rather than as a technocratic tool.

Commissioned by the RCC, the DLR-PT study "Unleashing the Potential for Competitiveness: Trends in the Western Balkans". It presents trends that are likely to shape the region's competitiveness until 2035. It examines the potential impact on inclusive growth and provides examples that could be useful for the economies of the Western Balkans (WB). Based on desk research, expert interviews and an online trends workshop, the DLR-PT's Foresight team prepared the study in March and April 2023. It provides stakeholders with evidence-based insights to prepare for future developments and help formulate effective policy options and strategies. The study focuses on four key areas defined by the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report 2020: the enabling environment, human capital, markets and the innovation ecosystem. Through desk research, qualitative interviews and expert workshops, it identifies trends that provide a comprehensive view of the likely evolution of competitiveness over the next 12 years, enabling policymakers to anticipate future challenges. 

The study provides a methodological overview of Strategic Foresight and delves into the trends within the identified pillars, providing a summary of findings and recommendations for future action. By highlighting the trajectory of competitiveness and its implications, the study provides policymakers with valuable insights to effectively navigate the evolving landscape and foster sustainable growth in the Western Balkans.

The second Mutual Learning Event (MLE) took place online on September 26, 2024, as part of Eye of Europe, a Horizon Europe project  which aims to enhance the integration of foresight practices into Research and Innovation (R&I) policy-making across Europe and to nurture a vibrant, cohesive R&I foresight community that contributes significantly, as a collective intelligence, to shaping and guiding policy decisions.

The online MLE brought together fifty participants from diverse stakeholder groups: Eye of Europe partner organizations, the European Commission, R&I funding agencies, representatives of governmental bodies. The event, organized by Technology Centre Prague (TC), focused on the topic of policy oriented communication of foresight results. Group and plenary discussions in three interactive sessions were framed by expert presentations showcasing diverse practices in the application and communication of foresight.

Presentations:

• Michal Pazour (TC Prague, Czech Republic) introduced the Eye of Europe project and the context of this second Mutual Learning Event.
• Moderator of the event Lenka Hebáková (TC Prague, Czech Republic) followed up with an introduction to the event’s aims and agenda.
• Mikko Dufva (SITRA, Finland) – “Communicating foresight. From knowing it all to empowering change”. The presentation included three case studies: SITRA’s decade long experience with megatrends as a platform for dialogue, their work on weak signals as an invitation to broaden futures thinking in a “what if?” spirit and, finally, their efforts to empower others to define futures bottom-up, through small funding to diverse teams across Finland.
• “Communicating foresight in the European Commission” presented by Maia Knutti and Teodora Garbovan (EU Policy Lab, European Commission) brought insights into how, in the European Commission context, foresight is employed and linked with the policy cycle. Examples covered foresight content (e.g. Strategic Foresight Reports) and engagement tools (e.g. megatrends hub, scenario exploration system) that are serving different stakeholder groups across multiple channels.
• Bianca Dragomir (Institutul de Prospectiva, Romania) discussed a case study on embedding foresight into policy making in the context of developing the Strategy for Fishing and Aquaculture 2035 in Romania. Moreover, she shared about embedding foresight into both policy making and societal conversation, discussing two Foresight on Demand projects: Scenarios on “Transhumanist Revolutions” and foresight-meets-speculative-design project “Futures Garden”.
• Totti Könnölä (Insight Foresight Institute, Spain) shared about the Foresight on Demand project "European R&I foresight and public engagement for Horizon Europe" that advanced several objectives: generating foresight intelligence, i.e. through forward-looking policy briefs; monitoring of foresight activities and providing support for exploitation (Horizon Futures Watch); laying the building blocks for a European foresight community supported by an online platform. 
• Marie Ségur (Futuribles, France) presented a case study on “Future of social work in France to 2035-2050” and the methods employed throughout the process: using surveys to motivate engagement with futures thinking, scenario building that may inform strategic choices and guide towards a vision and, finally, communicating outcomes in a synthetic manner, that may contribute to a wider discussion around the topic.
• Eye of Europe project coordinator Radu Gheorghiu (UEFISCDI, Romania) shared previews of the upcoming upgrade of the futures4europe.eu platform, with its new look and extended features.
  
  This event is the second in a series of five MLEs planned in the project; the following event will be held on January 21st 2025 also in an online format. 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.

Research and innovation (R&I) foresight in Europe is no longer a niche methodological practice. It is increasingly recognised as a governance capability for navigating polycrises and rapid technological change. Yet it remains unevenly institutionalised and therefore strategically underused. The revised Eye of Europe report, Showcasing Perspectives: A Stocktaking of R&I Foresight Practices in Europe, argues that the value of foresight depends less on the number of activities conducted than on mandates, timing, institutional anchoring and the conditions that enable uptake. 

The report, drafted by the DLR Project Management Agency (DLR-PT) is based on a mixed-methods design combining desk research, an online survey, and qualitative interviews. It identifies 181 organisations involved in R&I foresight and analyses a portfolio of 69 recent projects submitted by 51 organisations from 21 European Research Area (ERA) countries. Taken together, these cases show how foresight is applied at the intersection of science, innovation and policy. This includes agenda-setting at national and regional levels, addressing mission-oriented challenges such as climate change and health, and anticipating the impact of digitalisation and emerging technologies. This demonstrates that foresight is already being applied in situations involving both high levels of uncertainty and significant political implications.

A central finding concerns a governance gap in the way foresight is used. In some contexts, foresight is supported by institutional routines and longstanding project experiences. In others, however, it remains disconnected from budget cycles, regulatory windows, and key decision points. This results in ad hoc exercises, which lower their impact. foresight generates policy value when it is embedded in governance cycles where decisions are taken and backed by clear administrative or political mandates. When senior decision-makers are engaged from the outset and remain committed, foresight can inform strategies, influence funding priorities and contribute to formal policy instruments. However, when it is poorly timed or treated as a standalone initiative (as it is in the case of some of the 69 cases), it tends to remain advisory rather than impactful. 

Process and participation matter

This is also why the study considers the foresight process itself to be significant. Across the 69 cases, co-creation and participatory engagement generated long-lasting benefits, such as trust-building and enhanced futures literacy, which often outlast the written output such as yet another foresight report. These learning effects strengthen anticipatory capacity by shaping how institutions interpret signals, assess risk and negotiate trade-offs in uncertain conditions. Furthermore, the report indicates that the participation of decision makers is associated with higher uptake than expert-only approaches.

The report also identifies structural weaknesses that limit the political legitimacy of foresight, and consequently its strategic impact. Participation patterns remain strongly centred on experts and the political administration: scientists and experts, as well as public bodies, are involved in the vast majority of projects (93% and 90%, respectively), while citizens and business representatives are integrated less systematically (30% and 40%, respectively). This choice of participants influences which futures are considered plausible and which risks are prioritised. For mission-oriented and transformative R&I agendas, where implementation depends on social acceptance and behavioural change, broader participation is not simply a box-ticking exercise but appears to be an important condition for the development of robust policies that are socially acceptable.
Methodologically, the report highlights a continued focus on exploratory tools. Scenarios, trend analysis and horizon scanning dominate (64%, 52% and 48% respectively), while methods that connect more directly to implementation and robustness, such as policy stress-testing (7%), backcasting (20%) and futures literacy formats (10%), remain underused. This has both technical and political implications. While the prevailing method mix supports exploration, it often fails to translate long-term insight into robust decision-making under short-term political incentives, budget constraints and organisational routines. In this context, broadening the methodological repertoire is about strengthening the capacity of institutions to connect long-term perspectives to actionable pathways that can withstand electoral, administrative, and fiscal pressures. 

When it comes to communicating results, the study highlights a tendency to rely too heavily on written outputs, which can restrict visibility and sustained engagement. In contrast, more immersive, visual or experiential formats can extend interaction beyond the immediate project cycle. This determines whether foresight is perceived as just another report in the bookshelf or as an active reference point in debates on public policy. 

Capacity was identified as the overarching constraint in the assessed cases. Almost all respondents (96%) identified capacity-building needs relating to methods, facilitation, data analysis, communication, policy translation and staffing. When foresight is added to existing roles as an additional task, continuity and quality tend to deteriorate and institutionalisation stalls. Therefore, the synthesis treats capacity building as a prerequisite for transitioning from project-based experimentation to routine governance functions embedded in organisational practice and decision-making cycles.

Looking ahead, the report identifies emerging practices of political significance. AI-supported horizon scanning and data-driven anticipation offer greater speed and scope, while experiential and speculative formats increase engagement and deliberation. At the same time, the report emphasises the need for critical reflection on transparency and bias. It highlights a growing focus on representation (including future generations and nature), debiasing techniques, and human-centred, sustainability-oriented futures. These developments signal a shift away from technology- or growth-centred narratives, towards approaches that more explicitly address values, legitimacy and intergenerational justice as these issues are gaining importance in European debates on the direction of R&I policy.

The findings raise a broader question for the European foresight community: what would it take for foresight to move from project-based experimentation to a routine governance capability across Europe? Addressing this question requires attention not only to methods, but to mandates, institutional design, participation and capacity. How these elements are strengthened will shape the role foresight can play in guiding Europe’s R&I policy in the years ahead. 

For more information, please contact the author, Simon Winter, at Simon.Winter@dlr.de.