Foresight
European Solar Test Installation (ESTI) JRC Ispra site (Italy)
In an increasingly complex world, strategic foresight equips European leaders and policymakers with a structured framework to transform insights about the future into actionable knowledge. For the European Union, strategic foresight is particularly crucial in addressing pressing issues like climate change, economic transitions, and social equity, ensuring a future that is both sustainable and inclusive.
By looking at possible developments that could affect EU policies, through knowledge and imagination, the JRC’s foresight work helps policymakers to take smarter, future-oriented policy decisions that shape its long-term direction. Through its efforts, the JRC supports policymakers in navigating complex challenges while ensuring that Europe is prepared for the demands of tomorrow.
The JRC’s EU Policy Lab, with its Competence Centre on Foresight was established in 2018. Its overarching goal is to nurture anticipatory culture in the EU policymaking process.
guiding the EU towards more sustainable, resilient and competitive future(s).The JRC’s foresight work is crucial in
The Polycrises Exploration Workshop tool is based on the insights of the Risks on the Horizon foresight study, aimed at boosting preparedness of policymakers everywhere. The tool can be used to enhance risk awareness by exploring the broad spectrum of risks, map potential future polycrises and explore interconnected and cascading impacts, as well as to identify policy interventions to mitigate disasters and support policy goals.
Foresight can enhance traditional risk assessment by providing a holistic approach and systems thinking for navigating increasingly extreme, interconnected, and potentially global disaster risks.
Also designed for group workshops, the FutureGov serious game stimulates debate and structured conversations about what the future may look like. Participants are asked to role-play scenarios such as Over Regulation and DIY Democracy, and to think about emerging trends and future policy proposals in a rapidly changing society.
The digital transition in agriculture and rural areas is complex and context-specific, requiring tailored solutions that take local needs, resources, and challenges into account. Developed by the Competence Centre on Foresight, along with input from Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium, the Digital Transition Toolkit helps policymakers reflect on the implications of the digital transition for farmers and rural communities through structured conversations and helps them develop a vision framework for their policy. It can be used to discuss key issues for building vision and strategy for your digital transition, engage stakeholders to develop or improve an existing strategy and increase your anticipatory capacity and future-proof your strategy.
The JRC-developed Scenario Exploration System (SES) is an engagement tool for exploring possible paths towards the future, through the prism of a specific topic. Numerous educators and policymakers have used SES in exercises to engage stakeholders and search for solutions in virtually any policy area. In an EU-funded project, the Political Science Faculty of the University of Gent adapted SES for workshops on nanotechnology, asking participants to step away from the polarising opinions surrounding it. Another example was under the Finnish presidency of the Council, where the Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union brought together representatives of customs authorities engaged in a foresight process to explore the Future of Customs and the strategic implications for today’s policies.
The SES serious game is free to use and adapt. Numerous issue-specific editions have been developed, including SES for City Greening, SES for Space Tourism and SES for Future Mobility.
Megatrends offer invaluable insight for policy shaping and future proofing. Also created by the Competence Centre on Foresight, you will find curated information on the long-term driving forces of change that are observable in the present and will continue to have a significant influence for a few decades into the future at The Megatrends Hub. Shifts in urbanisation, climate change, security and ageing populations are just some of the megatrends covered in the Hub.
The information the hub provides has already proven invaluable for policymakers of the Lithuania 2050 initiative—a vision and strategy for the country’s economic, cultural, and societal future. Ireland, Italy, Greece and Czechia, have also harnessed megatrends to analyse the societal challenges they face.
