Cross-border threats and systemic risks at the intersection of human, animal and environmental health increasingly interact and amplify each other, driven by climate change, environmental degradation, technological transformation and geopolitical uncertainty. No single EU agency can anticipate such dynamics alone. Led by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), this Foresight on Demand project piloted a multi-agency foresight process with a One Health approach for the EU-ANSA Futures Cluster, in close interaction with the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), ECHA, Frontex and the Joint Research Centre. The work was carried out under the Foresight on Demand framework contract of DG Research and Innovation by a team from the Insight Foresight Institute, AIT, Fraunhofer IS and VTT.
The process moved from scoping and shared framing to AI-assisted horizon scanning, which yielded over 1,100 factors of change (trends, weak signals and wild cards) across PESTEL categories, clustered into themes for scenario work. Scenario workshops and AI-assisted morphological scenario building produced a set of scenarios for 2035, ranging from 'Better safe than sorry: Nature-Smart Europe in the Age of Prevention' to 'Nationalism and egocentrism in Europe'. At a sense-making workshop in Lisbon in November 2025, representatives of EU agencies developed shared 2035 visions for four strategic areas and stress-tested them against contrasting scenarios: future risk modelling and digital twins; health, equity and demographics; security, resilience, climate crisis and public engagement; and One Health governance and data use.
The work shows that the main bottlenecks are institutional rather than methodological: fragmented data governance, misaligned mandates and planning cycles, uneven capacity and, above all, trust and legitimacy. The same technologies can enable prevention and coordination or intensify surveillance and inequity, depending on governance. The project therefore proposes an adaptive, modular approach in which agencies lead and co-produce joint foresight modules, such as shared horizon scanning, scenario building and roadmapping, so that multi-agency foresight becomes a standing capability rather than a one-off exercise.
Final report (EFSA Supporting Publications, 2026): https://doi.org/10.2903/sp.efsa.2026.EN-10045
