Trends Identified
Financial Markets and New Economics
We are on the cusp of a new industrial revolution; one that addresses the triple challenge of global economic recovery, energy security and climate change. We stand, perhaps somewhat portentously, at a turning point in the history of humanity. What is missing, however, is an economic vision or financial game plan that can bring the myriad issues and foremost priorities together with the common goal of creating a new political economy and monetary infrastructure fit for the 21st century.
2011
Just imagine - RICS strategic foresight 2030
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)
Global Governance and Economic Disparity
The great 21st century paradox is that as the world grows together, it also grows apart. Improved global governance is advanced to meet the challenge of increasing economic disparity. But this, in turn, leads to a further paradox: the conditions that make improved global governance so crucial – divergent interests, conflicting incentives and differing norms and values – are also the ones that make its realisation so difficult, complex and messy.
2011
Just imagine - RICS strategic foresight 2030
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)
Planetary Stewardship in an Age of Scarcity
We are experiencing a confluence of powerful trends. Huge, extraordinary, universal trends, any one of which could impact upon our present way of life are coming together. The scale is planetary; the scope is centuries; the stakes are civilisation; and the speed headlong. At times the problems seem intractable, and all tax the capacity and competency of bureaucracies to tackle them. There is the interplay of three potent forces – growing demand, constrained supply and increased regulation. As one participant put it: “We are like the sorcerer’s apprentice – having started something we can no longer control”. Nevertheless, understanding an organisation’s full exposure to resource risk, especially energy and the environment, will be a defining factor determining long‐term viability.
2011
Just imagine - RICS strategic foresight 2030
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)
Creative Cities with Connected Communities
City building has become the ultimate expression of mankind’s ingenuity. The 21st century, moreover, is set to be the century of cities, for cities are moving centrestage, with both the commercial and cultural world increasingly being characterised by cities rather than by countries. Though the world’s cities differ significantly, they should all espouse one particular key ambition – to pursue a path of sustainable urban development – enhancing their quality of life and economic competitiveness while reducing both social exclusion and environmental degradation.
2011
Just imagine - RICS strategic foresight 2030
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)
Productivity, Partnership and People
Sometimes the world seems to be upside‐down, inside‐out, counter‐intuitive and confusing. Who would have imagined, a decade ago, a freely available service such as Google having such a profound impact on almost everything; social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn potentially connecting everyone; distributors in the mould of Amazon selling everywhere; sites such as eBay selling almost anything; financial intermediaries like PayPal setting‐up all over; or sources such as Wikipedia expanding our knowledge for ever and evermore. Customers increasingly are in charge. The mass market is dead. Middlemen are doomed. The niche is nice. Clients collaborate. Interactive communities open‐source and invent. We have shifted from scarcity to abundance. Openness, not ownership, is the key to success. It is all a never‐ending conversation.
2011
Just imagine - RICS strategic foresight 2030
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)
“Smart” infrastructure
“Smart” infrastructure in power engineering (smart grid) – an integrated self-regulating and self-restoring electricity grid system with network topology and covering all generating sources, trunk and distribution networks and all forms of consumer electricity, all together managed as an integrated set by a single network of automated devices in real-time – will undergo further development in the short term. The importance of sensory networks and sensor units will increase at the next stage in order to synchronise disparate industry systems for monitoring purposes.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Cloud solutions
Cloud solutions are already on offer on IT services markets. It is sufficient to note the dramatic growth and publicity accorded to services to store content in the “cloud” which are being developed and supported by all of the major companies in the segment, as well as the increasing trend of migrating towards Internet-based applications and leading global software manufacturers moving to business models geared towards a “thin client”. According to recent research by McKinsey Global Institute, by 2025 the annual market potential of cloud technologies and applications according to various developmental scenarios for the global economy could range from 1.7 to 6.2 trillion dollars.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Fourth generation mobile communications (4G)
Fourth generation mobile communications (4G) are widely accepted as promising technologies which make it possible to transfer data at speeds in excess of 100 Mbit/s for mobile and 1 Gbit/s for fixed subscribers. The introduction of such networks has already started and in the near future there is expected to be widespread dissemination of 4G communications on a global scale and associated development of new forms of content services and business models.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Machine-to-machine interaction technologies
The development of machine-to-machine interaction technologies (machine-to-machine, M2M) will lead to the emergence of more flexible opportunities for collaboration and distributed control of infrastructure objects and will become an important stage on the route to implementing the global concept of the “Internet of Things”.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
3D-printing technologies
3D-printing technologies have been around for quite a long time and have been successfully applied in several industries. Thus, without their use, the activities of many leading companies in terms of creating mock-ups, models and prototypes of units, assemblies, products, buildings and structures would not be possible. Future improvements in 3D printing should be considered in the context of global developments in processing devices with computer numerical control (CNC) and in expanding their use among end users (creation of home and public Fab Labs). The future of such additive technologies is linked to the development of new production principles, the creation of new materials with increased functional characteristics (strength, rigidity, etc.) and reduction in costs.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation