Gemeinsam tauchen wir ins Jahr 2056 ein, probieren Speisen aus der Zukunft, riechen die Düfte der Altstadt und lesen die Schlagzeilen von morgen – mithilfe von Geschichten und multisensorischen Objekten aus möglichen Zukünften.

Freu dich auf einen Spaziergang durch die Stadt, Zeit zum Nachdenken, gute Gespräche, ein gemeinsames Essen (), einen kreativen Workshop – und vielleicht auf einen neuen Blick auf das, was vor uns liegt.

📅 August 21
🕛 8h30-14h30
📍 Rennweg, Innsbruck (in der Nähe des ORF)
🔗 Mehr Infos & kostenlose Anmeldung hier: https://walkthefutures.org/innsbruck/

Du brauchst kein Vorwissen. Bring einfach deine Neugier mit.

Die Veranstaltung steht allen offen, die mindestens 18 Jahre alt sind, in Innsbruck leben oder arbeiten und keine Vollzeitstudierenden sind. Die Teilnahme ist kostenlos und findet im Rahmen einer Pilotstudie statt (endet im Oktober 2026).

Weitere Informationen:
Besuche www.walkthefutures.org oder schreib eine E-Mail an Zukunftsforscherin Suzanne Whitby unter hi@walkthefutures.org. 

Gemeinsam tauchen wir ins Jahr 2056 ein, probieren Speisen aus der Zukunft, riechen die Düfte der Altstadt und lesen die Schlagzeilen von morgen – mithilfe von Geschichten und multisensorischen Objekten aus möglichen Zukünften.

Freu dich auf einen Spaziergang durch die Stadt, Zeit zum Nachdenken, gute Gespräche, ein gemeinsames Essen (), einen kreativen Workshop – und vielleicht auf einen neuen Blick auf das, was vor uns liegt.

📅 September 8
🕛 8h30-14h30
📍 Rennweg, Innsbruck (in der Nähe des ORF)
🔗 Mehr Infos & kostenlose Anmeldung hier: https://walkthefutures.org/innsbruck/

Du brauchst kein Vorwissen. Bring einfach deine Neugier mit.

Die Veranstaltung steht allen offen, die mindestens 18 Jahre alt sind, in Innsbruck leben oder arbeiten und keine Vollzeitstudierenden sind. Die Teilnahme ist kostenlos und findet im Rahmen einer Pilotstudie statt (endet im Oktober 2026).

Weitere Informationen:
Besuche www.walkthefutures.org oder schreib eine E-Mail an Zukunftsforscherin Suzanne Whitby unter hi@walkthefutures.org .

We are living through a transition that feels, at once, like collapse and awakening. The crises surrounding us—ecological breakdown, technological acceleration, geopolitical fragmentation—are often treated as separate problems. But they are not. They are symptoms of a deeper rupture: a failure in how we perceive reality itself.

This is the beginning of the “Big Shift.” Not merely a historical turning point, but a transformation in consciousness. The dominant frameworks through which humanity has understood itself—nation, progress, even “humanity” as a unified moral subject—are no longer sufficient. They fragment under pressure because they were never grounded in the deeper fabric of existence. They abstracted us from the Earth, from each other, and ultimately from being itself.

Long before modern crises, ancient traditions understood something we have forgotten: the Earth is not an object. It is a living, sacred reality. Early liturgical texts and cosmologies did not separate matter from meaning. To speak of the Earth was already to speak of order, of balance, of participation in a larger whole. This was not “ecology” in the modern scientific sense—it was a lived metaphysics.

What has been lost is not knowledge in the narrow sense, but a way of knowing. The modern world, in its pursuit of control and clarity, reduced reality to what can be measured, extracted, and optimized. Technology is not the root problem; it is an extension of this perception. We did not simply build machines—we built a worldview that sees the world as machine.

And so we arrive at a strange paradox: we speak constantly of “saving humanity,” yet we do not even know what “humanity” means. It is an abstraction, a moral placeholder, often detached from real conditions and embedded inequalities. In trying to center humanity, we displaced the Earth. And in doing so, we undermined the very conditions that make human life possible.

A different orientation is needed. Not a rejection of humanity, but a re-centering within a larger field of existence. To love the Earth is not a poetic gesture—it is an ethical necessity. It means recognizing that harm to ecosystems is not external damage but a form of self-destruction. It means reframing ethics from human-centered to Earth-centered, from domination to participation.

This is where the future becomes most uncertain—and most significant. Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are often framed in terms of capability and risk. But the deeper question is ontological: what kind of intelligence are we creating? If intelligence is participation, then ethical design requires more than safeguards—it requires alignment with the structures of reality itself.

We stand, then, at a threshold. The path forward is not a return to the past, nor a blind leap into technological futurism. It is a synthesis—a planetary civilization that draws from ancient wisdom while engaging modern knowledge. A civilization that recognizes the plurality of perspectives without losing sight of underlying unity.

This requires new forms of leadership, new frameworks of foresight, and a redefinition of progress. Not growth for its own sake, but alignment with the conditions that sustain life and meaning.

Ultimately, the future is not something we predict. It is something we participate in. Every action, every perception, contributes to the unfolding of reality. The question is not whether change is coming—it is whether we are capable of aligning with it.

To become planetary beings is not to transcend the Earth, but to belong to it fully. To act with awareness that we are not separate observers, but active participants in a living, dynamic cosmos.

The shift has already begun. The only question is whether we recognize it—and whether we are willing to follow it to its conclusion.

The future of Angola and its youth are inextricably linked, as the country looks to capitalise on its demographic dividend, with over two-thirds of its population under the age of 25. The National Development Plan (2023-2027) prioritizes youth and human capital development to overcome barriers to long-term growth. The Youth4Foresight Toolkit, developed by Directorate General for International Partnerships of the European Commission, youth experts and EU Delegations worldwide proved to be instrumental in engaging young Angolans.

Engaging Young Voices for Change

The Youth Forum in Malanje (in July 2024) centred on "Youth participation in local governance and its impact on human capital development" and brought together 52 youth participants (including 24 women and some young mothers) from five municipalities in Malanje province. The event focused on helping youth better understand national policies and explore ways how they can contribute meaningfully to local governance.

The Youth Forum was one of the events organised under the EU funded “Support to Civil Society in Local Governance in Angola (PASCAL)” action, which aims to contribute to economic growth and social development through an inclusive, heterogeneous and effective participation of civil society in the governance process.

A key element of the forum was the application of structured long-term thinking by using the techniques and guidance from the Youth4Foresight Toolkit. Through Three Horizons methodology, young participants explored different future scenarios and created actionable recommendations.

This same tool was also applied during the Youth Forum in Huambo, another Angolan province, where it proved equally successful in engaging youth and fostering forward-looking dialogue. 

Foresight in Action: Three Horizons Methodology

The Three Horizons technique enabled participants to envision a preferred future for their region and Angola. Divided into groups, they assessed the present, identified trends and challenges, and developed transition ideas.

Discussions highlighted youth concerns: education, healthcare, and local economic development, alongside challenges like poor infrastructure, inadequate education quality and limited access to essential services.

Participants formulated key recommendations for policymakers, such as creating youth-centred programs, youth centres and vocational training facilities, and stressed the importance of policies that improve access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunities, particularly in rural areas.

Yong people found the forum groundbreaking and meaningful, with one stating, "We have never participated in such an experience," emphasizing the importance of youth voice. Young mothers expressed hope for their children's futures and appreciated meeting others outside their villages, reflecting the workshop's deep impact in fostering hope and agency and ownership over their future. 

The Impact of Youth4Foresight

The structured, adaptable methodologies of the toolkit encouraged inclusive discussions, giving youth a voice in shaping the strategies outlined in Angola’s National Development Plan 2023-2027. As a result, the recommendations produced in the workshop were directly relevant to local realities and can guide policymakers in enhancing youth participation and development.

Using foresight techniques empowered young people to reflect on their aspirations, critically analyse their present situation, and propose realistic solutions. The Youth4Foresight Toolkit has been successfully used in several countries by EU Delegations to engage with youth as a part of the Youth Action Plan in EU external action. 

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.

Delivering solutions for a more sustainable future

ISINNOVA provides research services and strategic consultancy to public and private actors pursuing sustainable visions, solutions, and policies.

Five Pillars of Our Approach

1. Anticipate – Apply systems thinking and foresight methodologies to identify emerging challenges, reveal interdependencies, and inform proactive, future-resilient strategies.

2. Integrate – Connect disciplines, sectors, and knowledge systems to foster richer analysis and tackle complex challenges holistically.

3. Align – Ensure research, innovation, and governance processes reflect the values, priorities, and needs of society through ethical, participatory, and responsible approaches.

4. Co-create – Engage diverse stakeholders — researchers, policymakers, citizens, and industry — in collaborative processes to design solutions that are inclusive, relevant, and impactful.

5. Transform – Drive systemic change by translating shared knowledge and co-created solutions into sustainable, scalable actions, supported by continuous assessment to ensure applicability, effectiveness, and long-term value.

Track Record

• 50+ years in the game (and counting).
• Involved in over 130 research projects (ISINNOVA designs, develops, and manages sector-specific & cross-sector EU and global projects)
• 15 staff members with multidisciplinary backgrounds (engineering, statistics, economics, politics, law, social sciences, computer science and media studies)
  

4CF The Futures Literacy Company is a consultancy entirely focused on strategic foresight and long-term strategies. For nearly two decades, 4CF has been on the mission to help its clients prepare for an uncertain tomorrow. The Company has executed hundreds of projects for private companies, public institutions and international entities, including the European Commission and its agencies (EUDA, ENISA), FAO, UNFCCC, UNESCO, UNEP and UNDP. 4CF is at the forefront of global innovation, and actively contributes to the development of cutting-edge foresight tools, including 4CF HalnyX (Delphi platform), 4CF Sprawlr, 4CF FLEx.

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

2026: Sustainability, Temporality, and Futures, 9-10 June 2026, Turku, Finland