The new futures4europe.eu is live!

Picture a virtual agora where forward-looking practitioners come together to collaborate and inspire, showcasing their projects, findings and events. This is the vision behind the new version of futures4europe.eu!

With its new features, it empowers users to build a vibrant community shaping Europe's collective vision for the future. Register now and build your profile!

Call for Papers of the Futures4Europe Conference 2025 is open

The first Eye of Europe conference taking place on 15-16 May 2025 in Vienna will address Future-Oriented Collective Intelligence (FOCI). Three key dimensions of FOCI will be explored, which correspond to the tracks of the Call for Papers. Submit your paper by 2 February 2025!

Kick-off of 'Foresight on Demand II'

The Foresight on Demand (FOD) project aims at providing quick forward-looking inputs to policymaking by leveraging the best available foresight knowledge. It addresses the growing need for more responsive foresight to inform policymaking. Last October, FOD partners gathered in Brussels to share lessons learned during FOD I (2019-2023) and identify emerging topics relevant to the current FOD II (2024-2028) period.

Foresight Starter videos in the making

As part of the Eye of Europe project, the Finland Futures Research Centre is currently developing ‘foresight starter sets'. One component of these is a series of short videos aiming to present futures thinking and foresight, clarify what to expect from a foresight workshop and introduce a variety of foresight workshop methods. The first video on “Untangling Futures and Foresight: An Essentials Guide” is now available!

Foresight and Societal Resilience

The EU-funded project FUTURESILIENCE project has set out on a journey exploring foresight’s contribution to societal resilience. In practice, ten "FUTURESILIENCE labs" located across Europe have embarked on a scenario process to strengthen resilience in the face of very different challenges. Topics range from climate change, housing and spatial mobility to cybersecurity threats and health systems.

Latest news about Eye of Europe Mutual Learning Events

Over 50 participants joined online last September at the second Mutual Learning Event (MLE) to discuss policy-oriented communication of foresight results. Key takeaways have been compiled in a summary report. The third MLE will take place online next 21 January 2025 and will focus on the integration of Foresight into the R&I Policy Cycle. Stay tuned!

What lies ahead for Universities?

In October, the University of Turku (Finland) published a research study on futures directions and possibilities for the University. By combining extensive research literature with a Delphi study, the report offers an analysis of the operating environment of universities and provides a map of multiple pathways and tensions that could transform how universities teach, research, and serve society.

Shaping Democracy’s Futures in Moldova

"Moldova may be small, but its fight for democracy holds lessons for us all. The futures are shaped not just by policies or geopolitics but by the collective vision of those daring enough to imagine a better tomorrow". Mathias Behn Bjørnhof of the Danish Foresight consultancy Anticipate, shared with us his thoughts about his participation in a democracy conference in Moldova last October.

For this edition of the Coffee Corner, Futures4Europe zoomed in on the perspective of Pierfrancesco Moretti, coordinator of the National Research Council of Italy and one of the consortium's members of the Eye of Europe project. He unpacked how he sees the role of foresight in the next few years, and how he envisions a potential societal shift that might define the world in 2050.

The concept of Future-Oriented Collective Intelligence as a transformative approach to making sense of complex challenges will be at the centre of the first Futures4Europe Conference next 15-16 May 2025 in Vienna, Austria.