This report offers an in-depth foresight assessment that critically evaluates and questions the foundational assumptions of European environmental policies related to the Green Deal. To enhance the resilience of these frameworks, the two-year study utilises a comprehensive set of methods, including impact wheel analysis, Ishikawa diagrams, cross-impact analysis, semi-structured interviews, and causal layered analysis. This approach reveals the cascading effects, entrenched cognitive biases, and intricate interdependencies present in policy design. These techniques facilitate a detailed examination of specific policy areas while providing a systemic perspective on how the connections among circular economy, bioeconomy, clean air and health, and the decarbonisation of transport impact overall sustainability results. By harnessing these diverse foresight techniques, the assessment reveals that conventional policy narratives are often oversimplified, obscuring risks and trade-offs that, if unchallenged, may impede a successful transition to a sustainable Europe. The impact wheel and Ishikawa diagrams facilitate the structured identification of primary and secondary effects, while the cross-impact analysis maps the interactive dynamics between assumptions. Semi-structured interviews provide nuanced stakeholder perspectives that uncover underlying worldviews and metaphors shaping policy discourse when synthesised via causal layered analysis. The study offers actionable recommendations for enhancing policy resilience, promoting integrated governance, and fostering adaptive strategies capable of addressing the multipronged challenges posed by environmental uncertainty.

Source: Eionet - ETCs- ETC Sustainability transitions (ETC ST) - Products  

As part of ‘the Eye of Europe’ Horizon Europe Project, Insight Foresight Institute organised an in-person stakeholder workshop on ‘Geopolitical & industrial decarbonisation scenarios to identify R&I opportunities for the EU’ on 10-11 April 2025 in Madrid, Spain. This workshop gathered experts specialised in different areas related to circular economy, decarbonisation, sustainability, innovation, geopolitics etc. 

The workshop consisted of debating around a primary issue on the EU’s agenda: how to navigate geopolitical issues to keep decarbonising the continent towards sustainable and competitive sectors. 

For that matter, strategic alliances, resistant supply chains, and proactive management in global trade and diplomacy were needed. Several issues were identified, clustered in four themes:
- Geopolitical and Regional Alliances (relation with the EU)
- Industrial Competitiveness
- Energy Security and Supply
- Supply Chains (Raw Materials)
- Supply Chains (Manufacturing)

Participants were invited to attend this two day workshops starting with introductory presentations. Once participants were put into context, the common scenario work began. An interactive session was held in the plenary and then in small groups. The second day, the key visions shared the day before were gathered and an introduction was made to roadmapping on R&I needs and emerging areas. Roadmapping on specific themes for emerging R&I were discussed in small groups. The findings were shared in the plenary.

Date: 10 & 11/04/2025
Location: Calle Orense, 34, Madrid, Spain
Format: In-person
Participants: Experts on industrial decarbonisation, geopolitics, circular economy, sustainability, R&I, technology, European Union etc.

For more information, please contact totti.konnola@if-institute.org

The project aims to establish an interdisciplinary research center, providing long-term expert capacity for socioeconomic environmental research. The center will develop methods for policy impact evaluation, foresight, and behavioral research and provide support to the MoE and public authorities in policy-making elaborating on the European Green Deal (GD) based on the research of current and expected impacts on the environment, the economy and society. The Center consists of 12 research institutions and universities with broad expertise.
Technology Centre Prague is respnsible for developing of foresight methods to identify new trends in the form of development scenarios to map transformation processes in society, research and technologies, constituting assumptions for the identification of current and future socioeconomic and environmental challenges and their impacts.

Project INNOPATHS explores different forward-looking scenarios leading to a completely decarbonised Europe by 2050. How attainable are these pathways and what are the skills in demand?

The Eye of Europe (EoE) project has reached an important milestone: Using an interactive approach, the members of the consortium came up with eleven exciting topics that will be addressed in Foresight Workshops with experts, citizens, entrepreneurs, scientists, policymakers, journalists and many other stakeholder groups within the coming 16 months. In the workshops, Eye of Europe partners will apply both established and novel Foresight approaches to dive deep into topics of common interest to stakeholders across the European Research Area. These workshops will take place in cities such as Madrid, Prague, Berlin, Bucharest, Paris and Thessaloniki, as well as online.

The final set of topics for EoE pilot workshops is as follows:

• Democracy – a long term Project: This online workshop will gather domain experts to shed light on a large spectrum of future challenges to democracy.
• The Knowledge of our Civilisation(s) in 2040: In this two-day Berlin based workshop participants with diverse domain expertise will explore the future of knowledge in human civilisation in the face of multiple drivers of change.
• European Industrial Decarbonisation: This two-day workshop in Madrid will gather diverse stakeholders to debate alternative pathways of industrial decarbonisation for Europe in the face of different geopolitical scenarios.
• Emotion Ecosystems: This Bucharest based two-day workshop will investigate the impact of technologies like affective computing and brain-machine interface on individuals and collectives with different stakeholder groups.
• Democracy and Technology: In this workshop citizens in Prague will jointly reflect on democratic approaches to risks connected with new technologies and their impacts on various societal groups.
• Aging and Assisted Living Technologies: This workshop in Berlin with international research and policy actors is dedicated to future ways of integrating smart and digital technologies into assisted living and care for older adults.
• Fashion Futures: In two Thessaloniki based workshops citizens and domain experts will explore the future of sustainable fashion in interaction with values and identities both with a regional and international perspective.
• Public Policy and Change of Diets: In this workshop in Paris a diverse group of citizens will reflect on policy inroads into future pathways towards healthy and sustainable diets.
• Science and Conflicts: In this online workshop, experts and actors of the science system will jointly dive into possible implications of growing geopolitical tensions for science.
• Future of Knowledge and Emotions: This futures survey will provide input for the two interrelated topics the future of knowledge and the future of emotion ecosystems that will feed the respective workshops.
  
  
  These Eye of Europe Foresight pilot workshops have a twofold purpose.
  
  First of all, the workshops serve the project’s aspirations expressed by Eye of Europe coordinator, Radu Gheorghiu, namely to nurture the “vibrant community of individuals engaging in a conversation about our collective future” and to fuel the “continuous loop of dialogue, learning and inspiration”.
  
  Secondly, by addressing topics of common interest to R&I actors across ERA and major R&I challenges, they aim to mobilise collective anticipatory intelligence. In particular, we hope to shed light on the evolution of research and innovation and its contribution to a wide range of important future questions.
  
  How did the team arrive at these topics?
  
  The topic generation process involved three major elements:
  
• Analysis of R&I strategy documents from a range of different EU countries
• interviews with R&I actors from different positions in ERA’s research and innovation ecosystem,
• and interactive discourse among EoE partner organisations.
  
  It was important to the topic identification team, led by Pier Francesco Moretti from CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche in Italy, not to remain at the surface of the challenges that are expressed in key documents but to dive deeper into underlying root causes and dynamics. So when in the document analysis, topics like energy, artificial intelligence, digitalisation, health and security emerged at top positions, we strived to identify crosscutting underlying aspects.