Foresight for Social Innovation

The aim of this study was to serve as one of the inputs to the update and to initiate a discussion on the possibilities of updating the Czech republic 2030 strategy. In order to ensure that this strategic document reflects the dynamic developments on the global and domestic scene, mechanisms for regular reviews and updates of the objectives and measures have been proposed. Given the events of the last 3 years (especially the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine), it is relevant to review the relevance of the assumptions regarding the long-term development of the Czech Republic, which served as the basis for the original wording of the strategic objectives and targeting of the document. The role of České priority was to provide foresight exercises in order to reach two goals: Assess the relevance of existing goals: the problems and challenges facing society are changing and so are the definition of objectives for further development. The task of this section is therefore also to determine whether the original ČR 2030 goals are still relevant in the context of change and respond to the major challenges that society is facing and will continue to face in the coming decades. Identify blind spots: there may be issues or opportunities that the document does not cover - i.e. blind spots. The next task of this part of the update is to identify such gaps to increase the comprehensiveness of the document. The project was implemented in the form of workshops, which were attended by experts and representatives of public institutions and ministries. On the basis of pre-prepared scenarios of development, the participants had to identify the resulting challenges, opportunities and areas that have not yet been covered in the CR 2030. The list of these areas was subsequently consulted with representatives of public institutions. These expert consultations were complemented by input from the general public through a creative competition held in September 2022.

We implemented the ForSI (Foresight for Social Innovation) project with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, with the Unit of Social Innovation. The aim of this collaboration was to identify so-called social time bombs - in our definition, problems that will be significant in the future or are already known today, but not yet sufficiently addressed by the state administration. The learning process itself was also a framing goal of this collaboration, where the unit team wanted to learn some foresight methods and implement them into certain processes of the department's work. The project involved desk research, two expert workshops, expert interviews, and also working closely with leading experts on social issues to develop a set of social issue cards. The final list of social time bombs was used by the unit to define calls for grant programs for nonprofits seeking to address diverse problems through social innovation. Foresight was thus used in this case to direct public funds more effectively, thereby addressing the problems that need to be focused on with an eye to the future.

Smart Futures Tunisia aims to explore what Tunisia and its digital economy could and should look like in 2035. For this purpose, normative future scenarios were created from which inspiring future job profiles could be derived. In a final step, recommendations identify options for action through which the envisioned future can be approximated. The results are based on a three-stage methodology approach: First, key thematic areas were outlined through baseline research and expert interviews.  Second, a foresight workshop was conducted to create a room to elaborate on different future scenarios and job profiles while also developing a digital skills map and initially discuss recommendations.  Third, the results were refined through expert validation loops and expert interviews. The future scenarios were created to explore what urban areas, smaller cities and rural areas might look like in 2035. A future is drawn in which Tunisia is characterized by smart and self-powered buildings, increasing e-mobility, and public services delivered digitally. Apart from that, digital progress offers the opportunity to provide more equitable education, to conduct various types of commercial activities via e-commerce, and to improve access to health. Such a future in its variety of facets has been visually depicted in the graphic above. Furthermore, future job profiles are derived on this basis. In a desirable Tunisian development, these will be found primarily in the areas of food production, fintech, e-commerce, health tech, mobility, ed-, gov-, and green tech. Specific job profiles range from farm drone operators, who operate and maintain drones that monitor, measure and analyze crop growth and health, to cybersecurity experts, who protect government data from digital attacks. To be prepared for the changing profiles, digital competencies need to be developed, which can be categorized into the following four pillars: digital literacy and data literacy, technology-specific skills, digital product literacy, and digital transformation literacy. After developing future scenarios and outlining future job profiles, recommendations were finally drawn up that will enable Tunisia to proactively strive for the future outlined. General recommendations manifest themselves, for example, in the promotion of a "digital culture" that includes all strata of the population in order to make appropriate use of the potential of digitization. A specific example of a topic area recommendation is to strive for leadership in green tech solutions. Here, it is recommended to promote green tech culture, for example by including environmental sustainability and green tech solutions in education and public campaigns. In addition to content recommendations, Foresight Journey recommendations aim to improve and deepen the methodological applications of foresight for potential future ventures in this thematic field. Smart Futures Tunisia is part of the Special Initiative “Decent Work for a Just Transition” Invest for Jobs of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by the Digital Transformation Programme Tunisia of the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Invest for Jobs aims to team up with companies to create good jobs in eight African partner countries and to improve local working conditions.