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.

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.

Imagination, in common discourse, is often relegated to a secondary domain of thought – a frivolous, playful, and unreliable mental activity confined to childhood, the arts, or, at best, applied creativity. A “magic box” that opens only when logical rigor relaxes, when attention drifts toward invention and fantasy. Yet this view, however seductive, is ultimately reductive – if not misleading.

When examined through the lens of contemporary cognitive science, imagination instead reveals itself as a profound and complex cognitive function. Not only does it actively participate in processes of knowing, but it also constitutes one of their foundational dimensions. It is the mental faculty through which we construct alternative worlds, test hypothetical scenarios, and explore the unknown without needing to experience it directly. Far from being a mere appendage to rational thought, it serves as one of its key structural supports.

Even more striking is what emerges from recent scientific research: imagination possesses a metacognitive character. This means it does not merely generate mental content that diverges from reality, but is also capable of reflecting on itself – monitoring and adjusting its own trajectories, becoming the object of awareness and intentional regulation. In other words, imagining is not just about conjuring what is absent from the world, but also about knowing one is imagining, directing that act toward specific goals, and assessing its quality, limitations, and implications.

This represents a genuine epistemological shift – recasting imagination not as a passive or automatic process, but as a strategic ally of thought. Within this framework, imagination emerges as a faculty that weaves together multiple dimensions of our cognitive experience:

• perception, which provides sensory input;
• intuition, which enables rapid, non-linear associations;
• intentionality, which channels imaginative effort toward a purpose;
• and self-awareness, which allows us to revise and reinterpret what has been imagined, imbuing it with meaning and value.

It is within this layered and dynamic space that imagination assumes a renewed role: no longer a retreat into the unreal, but a critical tool for probing the possible. It becomes the lens through which we may observe not only what is, but what could be – and, through this, reconfigure our relationship with the present.

It enables us to anticipate without predicting, and to plan without constraining.

In educational, professional, and social contexts – and even more so within the fields of Futures Thinking and Foresight – this reconceptualization of imagination as a metacognitive skill proves to be strategically essential. To anticipate the future is not to guess what will occur, but to cultivate a gaze that can recognize alternatives, navigate uncertainties, and imagine trajectories not yet in existence. Doing so requires more than creativity; it demands a deep literacy in conscious imagination.

To rediscover imagination through a metacognitive lens is to restore its dignity as an epistemic, transformative, and educational faculty. A faculty not only capable of generating visions, but also of sustaining, interrogating, and refining them. A power to be reintegrated into our intellectual and civic formation – so that it may help us not only to imagine different worlds, but to understand the conditions that make them possible.

Following the publishing of the Fourth Global Trends ESPAS report in April 2024, Futures4Europe had the pleasure of interviewing the editor and two co-authors of the report about their reflections and key trend insights throughout the foresight research and writing process. ESPAS, or the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System, unites nine EU institutions and bodies to collaboratively identify and analyze medium- and long-term trends affecting the EU, informing policy-makers about their implications.