Trends Identified
The Future of Work, Technology, Income Gaps and the Role of Governments
The future of work and technology and increasing income gaps are among the most discussed topics of long-term prospects at the moment. However, systemic perspectives and global as well as local strategies to improve the long-term outlook are often lacking. Government long- term and large-scale strategies are needed to address the potential scope and spectrum of unemployment and income gaps in the foreseeable future due to the acceleration, globalisation, and integration of technological capacities and population growth.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Cities of Flows and the Spectre of the Sustainable City
It is vitally important to recognise that planetary urbanisation is one of the main drivers of the ecological predicament the world is in. Indeed, the ‘sustainability’ of contemporary urban life – understood as the expanded reproduction of its socio-physical form and functioning – accounts for 80% of the world’s resource use, of global ecological degradation, and of the world’s waste. What I wish to foreground in this contribution is that these urban roots that structure global socio- ecological flows and the feeble techno-managerial attempts to produce more ‘sustainable’ forms of urban living actually are customarily ignored by both researchers and policy-makers, while it is precisely these socio-metabolic flows that continue to sharpen the combined and uneven socio-ecological patterning that marks contemporary urbanisation dynamics.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
The Future of Foresight in Europe. Beyond Evidence-Based Pessimism to Realistic Hope
A focus on the short term often overemphasises negative, trends of doom and gloom. Developing and using foresight enables realistic hope. It pushes beyond sugar-coated ideology about what the future should be and the evidence-based pessimism that is driving fear of the future. Foresight is a disciplined approach to futures thinking that enables societies to thrive under disruptive changes and to collaborate to create new and better future possibilities for all. It is not about wishful thinking. The aim is not to predict, but to be better prepared. To develop a more explicit, testable, contestable and useful sense of the future that is already emerging in the here-and-now.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Strategic Foresight: a Mechanism for Stakeholder Mutuality
The last decade was marked by a fundamental misalignment between the global economic system and the societies which it is expected to serve, between political systems that must enable prosperity and progress and the rising expectations of voters. This is at the heart of the social upheaval, rising populism and the declining trust in institutions seen in many western democracies.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Managing by Anticipation
Decision-makers have always been faced with the tasks of addressing crises, leading change and responding to the unexpected. Recently, however, unexpected and constant change has become the norm, while the interconnections between separate and distinct crises are more tightly knit than ever. Technological innovations have amplified these trends to an unprecedented degree in terms of pace, scope, complexity and impact. And, while some crises are already loud and visible, others are less easy to spot or to predict, although they may potentially be more toxic in the long run.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Winners and Losers of Globalisation
The winners of globalisation are often said to be the millions in the emerging economies who have been lifted out of poverty in recent decades, together with those who were already rich and are now richer. The losers are said to be concentrated in the developed countries - the squeezed middle whose jobs, income and prospects have been hit.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Governance Challenges for the EU
Over the past few years, the EU has had to confront a series of crises that have put a lot of strain on its governance system and opened new fault-lines across European societies: sovereign debt issue, migration, Brexit, Ukraine, Russia's newfound assertiveness, terrorism. The outcome of the US elections will also have to be factored in over the coming months and years.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Society and Conflict in a Changing Global Environment
Our strategic environment is changing rapidly. We live in a world that is at once more connected, contested and complex. The fragile societies, instability and conflict which we meet in many parts of our neighbourhood and beyond also have consequences for our internal security and prosperity. To take account of the new global context, our approach to conflict must also change. Greater connectivity is both an asset as it drives communication, trade and mobility, but also makes us vulnerable to cross border crime, terrorism, global pandemics and cyber-attacks. The rise in human mobility compels us to rethink our approach to migration, sustainable development, security and governance.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Cities and Regions of Tomorrow: Drivers of a Better Future?
Cities are catalysts for policy change and the 21st century will be shaped by metropolitan values: diversity, creativity, industriousness, entrepreneurialism.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Organised Civil Society and Governance: Trends and Challenges
Advances in technology, wealth and income concentration, shifting demography, migration flows, under employment and climate change are transforming our societies. The (dis)empowered citizen, as introduced by the World Economic Forum 2016 Global Risks Report, describes the tensions between the growing cyber connectivity empowering citizens with more information and means of communications against the increasing feeling of exclusion from meaningful participation to decision-making among citizens and civil society.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)