The Knowledge of our Civilizations in 2040 — a foresight workshop hosted by the Foresight Team of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI — took place on 20–21 November 2025 at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, as part of the project Eye of Europe.

At the heart of the two-day workshop was the open question of how future civilizations might define, create, harness,
value, share, embed and apply knowledge. The workshop’s aim was to explore both conceivable and desirable alternative
futures for the knowledge of our civilization in Europe by the year 2040 by letting participants explore the theme of the
knowledge of our civilization through a facilitated process consisting of three main stages.

Across four working groups, participants started off by identifying different key domains of trouble in the current state of knowledge, with the notion of trouble being interpreted in a positive way as an area of investigation and exploration where things are in deep flux.

To delve into these areas of trouble, participants then applied the Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) framework twice: first, to critically examine the present by unpacking common narratives, systemic structures, shared worldviews and deep cultural metaphors; and then again, in a creative turn, to imagine desirable alternative futures. This second phase involved reconstructing alternative metaphors, beliefs, and systemic designs, eventually boiling down to a transformed litany.

The workshop set out to explore how future civilizations might define, create, value, and apply knowledge in 2040. Across four “troubles of knowledge,” participants showed that debates about knowledge are never purely technical but deeply political, ethical and cultural. The discussions revealed that today’s knowledge regimes are under pressure, making transformation both necessary and imaginable.

A first major theme concerned power and hierarchy. Many groups described current knowledge systems as exclusionary, dominated by majority viewpoints, elite institutions, economic logics and narrow validation mechanisms. Knowledge was seen as concentrated in authorities, shaped by growth paradigms and entangled with private or geopolitical interests. Declining trust and ideological polarization further destabilize what counts as shared truth. The central question recurring across groups was: Who defines knowledge, and for whom?

A second controversy focused on the purpose of knowledge. Is it primarily a tool for efficiency and competition, or a foundation for collective well‑being and long‑term responsibility? Several groups criticized current reward systems, the reduction of humans to “resources” and the dominance of problem‑solving logic over ethical and relational dimensions. The tension lies between knowledge as power and knowledge as care.

In the reconstruction phase, however, a shared horizon of hope emerged. Knowledge in 2040 was reimagined as relational, processual and co-created. Groups used metaphors such as mycelium networks, symphonies, assemblies, rivers and verbs to describe knowledge as something circulating, regenerative and sustained through relationships. Uncertainty, discomfort and failure were reframed as essential to meaningful knowledge creation.

Participants also envisioned new valuation systems: rewarding intrinsic motivation, collective achievement and planetary well‑being rather than market success. Ideas ranged from re‑commoning knowledge and revising metrics of excellence to fostering transdisciplinarity, citizen participation and relational education.

While the groups differed in where they anchored transformation - epistemic critique, moral renewal, valuation systems or institutional reform - they converged on a broader reorientation: from knowledge as possession to knowledge as relationship; from authority to dialogue; from scarcity to regenerative abundance.

Ultimately, the knowledge of our civilization in 2040 is imagined as being less about mastering complexity than about inhabiting it responsibly. It emphasizes shared meaning over information production and stewardship over competition. Whether such a transformation unfolds will depend not only on institutional reforms, but on the metaphors that guide our imagination. As the workshop demonstrated, changing how we speak about knowledge may be one of the most powerful steps toward changing how we imagine and eventually live it.

World Futures Day is a unique 24-hour global conversation on possible futures, pioneered by The Millennium Project in 2014, two years after Humanity+ proposed the idea of a global Future Day. This innovative and participatory futures method is unlike any other: it enables futurists, researchers, innovators, and the general public to engage in an open, worldwide dialogue that moves across time zones — from New Zealand to Hawaii.

📅 March 1st, 2026, will mark the 13th anniversary of World Futures Day. The event is sponsored by The Millennium Project, in collaboration with leading international organizations including the Association of Professional Futurists, Humanity+, Lifeboat Foundation, World Academy of Art and Science, and the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF).

⏱️The event will officially launch at 12:00 noon in New Zealand and will continue hour by hour around the planet, concluding at 12:00 noon in Hawaii.
📌To register as a participant, click here.

Young people should also have a real voice in conversations about the future!

March 1st, 2026 also marks the celebration of the 6th annual World Futures Day – Young Voices (WFD-YV) led by Teach the Future, taking place alongside the 13th World Futures Day convened by the Millennium Project, serving as a reminder that youth-led futures thinking is part of a much longer, shared global effort. During this 24-hour global event, educators, students, schools, activists, and futurists explore collective futures with intergenerational voices from around the world, while remaining committed to ensuring youth perspectives are central to the dialogue.

📌Register here. 

Visit Teach the Future for an overview of the event’s evolution over the years, and explore this playlist featuring conversations from 2025.

Democracy, its principles, as well as societal challenges and public debates are increasingly influenced by new and emerging technologies. To strengthen democratic principles, participation, public engagement, and citizens’ understanding of technology-related policies and strategies, it is necessary to deepen research into the interactions between technology and society. This also requires examining potential health, environmental, ethical, and other risks associated with new technological applications, as well as their impacts on different societal groups (for example, age groups, women and men, and social groups).

This face-to-face workshop with citizens will focus on assessing the impacts of new technologies on society and democracy as a whole. With a group of 30–50 participants, various long-term scenarios and their key drivers will be discussed and developed through group discussions. The workshop will use the Manoa foresight method, which explores long-term impacts and their interconnections by considering current weak signals, trends, and ongoing changes. The method incorporates cultural, environmental, and other assumptions, not only technological or economic factors. The outcomes may include surprising or even radical scenarios, encouraging participants to expand their imagination and test strategies under extreme conditions.

The workshop is open to the general public. Participation requires being at least 18 years old, having completed primary education, and ensuring gender balance among participants. Everyone who wishes to contribute to the topic is welcome, drawing on their own experience as citizens who use modern technologies daily and live in democratic societies that are increasingly challenged by geopolitical changes.

The workshop is part of a series of “Eye of Europe” pilot activities taking place during 2026, aimed at exploring possible futures and their implications for research and innovation (R&I) policy.

Date: 13/03/2026
Location: Ve Struhách 27, Prague 6, Czech Republic
Format: In-person
Language: Czech

For more information and registration, please contact: vacatkova@tc.cz

The Knowledge of our Civilizations in 2040 — a foresight workshop hosted by the Foresight Team of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI — took place on 20–21 November 2025 at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

The workshop brought together 28 people from a wide range of academic disciplines as well as artists and futurists from across Europe.

At the heart of the workshop was the open question of how future civilizations might define, create, harness, value, share, embed and apply knowledge. Our aim was to explore both conceivable and desirable alternative futures for the knowledge of our civilization in Europe by the year 2040.

This report presents an analysis on the topic of resilience of the stories selected from the #OurFutures initiative. These stories — envisioning life in 2040 — provide unique insights into how people across the EU perceive Europe's capacity to remain resilient amid multiple transformative challenges.
This thematic analysis supports the European Commission’s 2025 Strategic Foresight Report on resilience . It therefore focuses on stories that explicitly reference the role and position of Europe, its institutions, and its collective future.

The report identifies eight major challenge areas shaping perceptions of Europe's resilience, with climate and democracy emerging as particularly cross-cutting themes. The analysis also explores the optimistic and pessimistic visions citizens express about Europe’s future – on the one hand those describing a Europe that has responded to its challenges through transformation, and on the other, those that foresee institutional collapse, authoritarian drift, climate catastrophe, and social fragmentation. Five key tensions structure the debates within the stories, revealing the difficult trade-offs that Europe must navigate to remain resilient. Potential shocks that citizens anticipate underscore where citizens feel Europe is most vulnerable and where resilience must be strengthened.

Despite their concerns, storytellers propose a wide range of concrete strategies to enhance European resilience, many of them emphasizing systemic reform and long-term thinking. The report synthesizes citizens’ views on Europe’s role in the world.

📣 YouthDecide 2040 is looking for participants to join our regional workshops and co-create the future of European democracy!

Be part of a one-and-a-half-day immersive workshop where diverse voices come together to imagine and shape resilient, thriving European democracies.

🗣️💬 Through creative, participatory foresight activities, we will explore different visions of democracy in 2040—your perspective matters!

🧭 The wider, the better
Are you a European resident over 18? This call is for you!
We're fostering intergenerational discussions on the future of European democracy, centring youth voices (18-34).

🔓 The call for applications will remain open through May 2025. 

What if education wasn’t controlled by institutions but shaped by learners, communities, and technology? Using backcasting, I explored a future where learning is decentralized, open, and driven by collaboration—and mapped the steps to get there.

This vision is inspired by discussions between Sara Skvirsky (IFTF Research Director) and Katherine Prince (VP of Foresight & Strategy, KnowledgeWorks), as well as the 2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning - a report that, even today, feels like a glimpse into what’s coming.

🔹 How do we get there?

- From institutional control to collective intelligence
- From passive learning to a culture of creation
- From centralized credentials to peer-validated knowledge
- From rigid curriculums to dynamic, adaptive education

🎥 Watch the short film exploring this future!

A journey in participatory democracy through challenges (and opportunities) of future-thinking approaches.

What will Europe look like in 2040? How will we travel, how will our society be organised, how will our schools function and what kind of jobs will people have? These are just some of the questions we have been asking Europeans to reflect on as part of the #OurFutures project launched by the EU Policy Lab. Through it, we collect EU citizens' images through a narrative inquiry method.

We recently did this in Greece, in close collaboration with foresight experts in the Greek government by reaching out to Greek citizens to gain insights into how people in this part of Europe would like the future to look like.

We have spoken to Epaminondas Christophilopoulos (UNESCO chair on Futures research at the Foundation for Research and Technology) and Vivian Efthimiopoulou (communication expert), focusing on some of their findings which demonstrate the value of citizen-generated future images for developing people-centric policies at both national and EU level.