The Prospects of Institutionalizing the Values of Openness and Mutual Responsiveness in Science and Democracy

The Reference Foresight Scenarios report summarizes the results of a foresight process that started at the end of 2020 with the goal to develop a set of reference foresight scenarios to support policymakers. Foresight scenarios are a tool to improve strategy development and decision making in a context of turbulence, uncertainty, novelty, and ambiguity. Recent events, such as the COVID pandemic or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, made clear that being prepared for the unknown and unexpected becomes increasingly important. The reference scenarios presented in this report aim to help decision makers to increase the preparedness of their organisations under increasingly unpredictable circumstances.   The scenarios are four plausible versions of how the world may look like in 2040 and what this would mean for Europe’s global standing. They are called Storms, End game, Struggling synergies, and Opposing views. They do not claim to predict or project how the future may look like but offer strategic reflections, which can serve as a compass for policymakers for navigating through unchartered territories of turbulence, uncertainty, ambiguity and novelty. These four geopolitical scenarios are called ‘Reference’ Foresight Scenarios because they represent a forward-looking framework that provides a reference for use in policymakers’ debates about potential futures.   Read the report   Read the blog and learn more about the process and how these scenarios can be used in future oriented policy making.

The i-Portunus Houses project, implemented on behalf of the European Commission by a consortium of three partners – the European Cultural Foundation (coordinator), MitOst, and Kultura Nova Foundation – was dedicated to testing and analysing diverse transnational mobility schemes for the cultural sector. Apart from granting support for local hosts from all Creative Europe countries for the mobility of artists and cultural professionals, the project also included research on mobility in culture and the design of policy recommendations.  In the research, the mobility of artists and cultural professionals is understood as the temporary, cross-border travel of artists and cultural professionals with the purpose of creating, connecting, exploring and learning. The research was carried out by experts from different disciplines with Dea Vidović being the research leader. As a result of the aforementioned research, in 2022 Kultura Nova Foundation published a 4-volume publication. Each volume represents one of the research sections: (1) conceptual framework of mobility in culture; (2) the study on mobility in culture from the perspectives of artists, cultural professionals, hosts and funders; (3) an evaluation of i-Portunus Houses mobility grant scheme and (4) scenario for the future of mobility in culture.  The research covers a wide range of topics related to mobility in culture, such as its participatory and networking dimension, its digital dimension and virtual mobility, as well as its green dimension. The culmination of the research, alongside extensive recommendations and action points for sustainable mobility, is Scenario for the Future which introduces a new concept of "slow mobility".

Science can be better fostered in an open, democratic society than in other types of societies. The norm of civic participation in a ‘democracy’ is a lived ideal for citizens, just as the norm of ‘communalism’ is a lived ideal for the scientific community. Both norms presuppose the values of ‘openness’ and 'mutual responsiveness' among scientist and citizens. This highlights ‘openness’ not as a prescriptive norm but as a value of the institution of science. Simultaneously, ‘openness’ is also an institutional value of a democracy. If we primarily understand the norm of communalism as an institutional value of science, then communalism and openness becomey research virtues for the scientific community rather than prescriptive norms.  Similarly, ‘voting’ and participation in social-political decision making is considered a civic virtue in a democracy, even though the institution of democracy does not oblige individuals to vote or to participate. Therefore, we do not need to codifying these norma, which can be seen as functional for the operation of science and a democracy therefore represent institutional values. In this way, we can understand governance of the institution of science and democracy through the adoption of appropriate research virtues and civic virtues.  However, science and democracy are dependent on the extent to which scientist and citizens engage on the basis of these norms. How can we best encourage and incentivise those?

The project explores futures of science for policy; practices and processes by which information is exchanged between knowledge actors and policymakers with the intention to produce scientifically-informed policy in Europe. We are making a deep dive into developments which are currently underway and will take us to different possible 2030s, according to events largely unpredictable and decisions bound by a number of constraints of diverse nature. The project is one of eight foresight deep dives of the project 'European R&I foresight and public engagement for Horizon Europe' carried out by the Foresight on Demand consortium.