Trends Identified
Digital wallets will empty faster
Anthropologists know there are three things most of us now carry with us wherever we go: our keys, our wallets and our cellphones. Digital wallets could fold the last two into a single item – and perhaps eradicate cash altogether. Could it change how we spend too?
2011
Seven technologies to disrupt the next decade
NewScientist
Game Changers for Inclusive Innovation
The digital revolution has democratised innovation. On the one hand, users are much closer to producers and influence the way a product develops; they try out, evaluate and give feed-back. Also, the digital economy allows new – and smaller – players to enter the market and scale-up. In addition, the digital economy has created new markets, or new economic prospects. Think about bridging the gap between idle resources and potential users or customers. Uber or Airbnb are classic examples.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
21st Century Dialectics: Or How We Can Achieve Prosperity in New Times
For two generations it was plausible that more openness, and more ow (of capital, people, goods or information) contributed to the public good. It became an article of faith that globalisation and more open trade led to general benefits, stridently asserted by leaders and gurus of all kinds. Now, large minorities have seen their income stagnate, and fear that their children will be worse o than them, and probably jobless, thanks to the combination of migration and automation. Technological change continues to be ‘capital-biased’, meaning a declining share of income for labour, and new job and wealth creation continues to concentrate in areas with high levels of graduates. The promise of shared prosperity which underpinned so much economic policy over the last 70 years is now called into question.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Between Governance of the Past and Technology of the Future
In the online world, people are used to instant, accessible and personalised services. But the infrastructure for politics is still based on technology developed in the 18th and 19th centuries. In many parts of everyday life, voters are used to a consumer experience where they get instant feedback and personal participation; but party membership, ballot boxes and stump speeches do not offer the same speed, control or personal engagement. The institutions of representative democracy at national and EU level – political parties, elected members, law- making – do not offer the same quality of experience for their ultimate consumers. This matters because it is causing voters to switch o . Broad participation by most of the population in the practice of democracy is vital for societies to remain open because it ensures pluralism and prevents takeover of power by narrow interests. But in some countries and some elections, turnout is regularly below a third of registered voters, especially in European Parliament elections.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
The Future of Work
The world of work is changing rapidly. Several ongoing mega-trends – including globalisation, digitalisation and demographic changes – coupled with rapid change in values and preferences regarding work, have the potential of significantly affecting the quantity and types of jobs in our economies, as well as how and by whom they will be carried out.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Populism: From Backlash to Framing the Future
The rise of populism on both sides of the Atlantic is one of the defining social, political and economic phenomena of the current era.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
The Rise and Implications of 'New Power'
People are waking up to their own power, coming together at a scale and speed unimaginable just a few years ago. New crowd-based and participatory models and values are transforming politics, business and other sectors of society.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
The Future of Transportation
Transportation is humanity’s greatest lever for economic growth. More than any other technology, transport is the catalyst for big leaps in culture and ideas. And transport has itself been the engine for growth on a global scale. The Great Acceleration of the Rail Age enabled the transport of produce and people in volume, which in turn enabled urbanisation and the development of the mass market. Powered by coal, constructed of iron and steel, and financed on new capital markets, the railways themselves became a primary driver of the Industrial Revolution. That was then, this is now. The great question facing global leaders is whether our current transportation options can meet the inexorable and conflicting demands of growth and environmental stewardship. At current 2.7% annual rates of growth, mobility demand in the developed world will double in 25 years and rise sixteen- fold in a century. Existing modes have served us well, but offer only incremental improvements when a step- change in performance and energy efficiency is required.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Time for Sustainable Connectivity
Increasing connectivity is and will remain one of the main engines of globalisation as it keeps slashing the cost of distance. Hence a growing international integration of production systems and a constant Ricardo-Schumpeterian pressure for efficiencies. This is ne as long as these efficiency gains are, or perceived to be, fairly distributed. But, as we have seen in recent times, opening may turn to protectionist or isolationist discourse if gains are not equitably distributed.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Why Tech Innovators are Poised to Save the World
When trying to understand the societal impact of tech entrepreneurs on modern society, we need to look back, back to hippie culture and the San Francisco music revolution of the sixties, the birthplace of tech entrepreneurship in its current form. The common and strikingly new belief at that time was that we are responsible for the future of our planet, that an inclusive and networked society is more balanced and likely to be more sustainable; that race, gender and sexual orientation do not matter and need to be tolerated in whichever form. That mis ts and outlaws are admirable, if not role models.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)