The EU introduced missions as a new instrument in Horizon Europe. Mission Boards were appointed to elaborate visions for the future in five Areas: Adaptation to Climate Change, Including Societal Transformation; Cancer; Healthy Oceans, Seas, and Coastal and Inland Waters; Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities; Soil Health and Food. Starting in autumn 2019, five Foresight on Demand projects supported them with foresight expertise and methodology.

This report provides the work in support of the Mission Board on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities. Starting with a systemic analysis, the project identified urban challenges in existing forward-looking studies in order to determine the thematic scope together with the Mission Board. It collected data about consolidated external and internal drivers, trends and practices as well as weak signals, potential disruptive events or incremental changes with a potentially substantial positive impact on cities.

This final report summarises the results of the actions to support the Mission Board for “Adaptation to Climate Change, including Societal Transformation” with forward-looking evidence.

In accordance with the Request, the proposed services, approaches to be adopted, and the concrete nature and form of the outputs have been shaped and validated through close interaction with the Mission Board (MB) via the Mission Secretariat, run by relevant European Commission (EC) services, throughout the implementation of the action.

As a result of the interactions with the Mission Secretariat, the following actions were taken:

1. Preparing a short paper Input to Mission Board on scoping activities & tasks
   (Deliverable 1)
2. Analysing national and regional funding programmes of selected countries for
   projects on Climate Change Adaptation, and conducting interviews with selected
   Mission Board members in preparation of a foresight workshop.
3. Preparing an input paper for the foresight workshop Input Document FoD CCA
   Workshop, 23 January 2020 (Deliverable 2).
4. Holding a foresight workshop (23 January 2020) with Mission Board members,
   European Commission representatives (Mission Secretariat), and foresight experts,
   and summarising the results of the workshop. The workshop served to identify
   barriers and solutions, enablers and impacts of climate change adaptation in a variety
   of thematic fields, including health, water, food and agriculture.
5. Developing and implementing a Delphi survey on assessing key aspects of the draft
   paper of the Mission Board. The survey addressed climate experts. They assessed
   future targets in thematic fields (e.g. financial risks, health, social infrastructure), and
   ranked related measures and R&I fields for importance.
6. Preparing and analysing the results of the Delphi survey: Delphi Survey results,
   July/August 2020 (Deliverables 3 and 4).

The report is structured along these deliverables.

The foresight project “Adaptation to Climate Change including Societal Transformation” (Framework Contract 2018/RTD/A2/OP/PP-07001-2018-LOT1) was meant to complement the Mission Boards’ deep and wide-ranging expertise by exploring longer-term time horizons, up to and beyond the year 2050. Building on existing future-oriented work, the project employed dedicated foresight methods, in particular workshops and a Delphi survey, to explore this time horizon in a systematic manner, and involving experts and stakeholders as appropriate.

Climate Adaptation refers to anticipating the adverse effects of climate change and taking appropriate action to prevent or minimise the damage they can cause, or taking advantage of opportunities that may arise. It has been shown that well-planned, early adaptation action later saves money, lives, livelihoods, and biodiversity.

The foresight was based on the European Commission (EC) White Paper “Adapting to climate change: Towards a European framework for action” of 2009, and on the EU climate adaptation strategy adopted in 2013. At the time of the formulation of this strategy, the economic, environmental, and social costs of not adapting to climate change were estimated to range from 100 billion € a year in 2020 to 250 billion € a year in 2050, for the EU as a whole. Meanwhile, the EC in February 2021 elaborated and adopted a new climate adaptation strategy, which focuses on developing solutions and implementation of adaptation measures.

Research directions: Climate change adaptation (CCA) including societal transformation covers a broad range of areas, such as agriculture, dealing with water resources, disaster prevention, migration flows, security issues, behaviour changes, urban areas, industry and trade relations, transforming the energy system and transportation. The thematic scope of the foresight exercise was defined in close collaboration with the Mission Board (MB) through the Mission Board Secretariat. Consequently, the Delphi survey implemented in summer 2020 was used to assess elements of the interim MB report, in particular items around risk management, financial risk protection, social infrastructure, health, water, food/agriculture, and ecosystems. All the work fed into the final report of the Mission Board “A Climate Resilient Europe - Prepare Europe for climate disruptions and accelerate the transformation to a climate resilient and just Europe by 2030” (2020).

The Covid-19 pandemic has shattered our sense of ‘normal’, and amplified uncertainties and issues at the core of what the future may hold. The project ‘After the new normal: Scenarios for Europe in the post Covid-19 world’ examined possible futures of 2040 for the EU emerging from the crisis of the pandemic, as possible contexts for EU R&I. The five scenarios described in this report chart different possible post-Covid-19 evolution paths, creating new perspectives on key EU R&I policy issues.

Control over technological development

Across all scenarios, the ability of the European Union to exert control over future technological development - through regulation, standardisation, and the enforcement of policy - entails wide ranging socio-economic implications for the broader society.

The EU share of global R&D is shrinking, and there is an unavoidable, growing EU dependence on technologies developed and produced elsewhere in the world, most notably in the US or China. There is also an ever-increasing influence of private firms on technological development, including large multinationals, which remain largely outside public control as regards potential societal consequences of the deployment of those technologies. The challenges these trends may pose to the ability of the EU to exercise control over technological development will depend on the speed of the recovery from the Covid-19 crisis and on the character of the relationships that will be built during the recovery effort.

Resilience, adaptability and preparedness for future crises

Resilience, adaptability and preparedness require an anticipatory R&I policy including ways of identifying, monitoring and addressing threats and developing new emergency response capacities that involve science in systemic roles: as a generator of advice, as a capacity for quick analysis, monitoring of the challenge and evaluating the efficacy of responses, as well as a generator of new responses and tools against the crisis. Preparedness should include:

1. ‘Wind-tunnelling’ new plans, policies, and institutions through worst-case scenarios for alternative crises.
2. Exploring regularly new modes of assessing threats and trialing emergency responses, which offer the possibility to explore hidden opportunities.
3. Engaging research with all branches of government to share findings about threats and opportunities, and to foster more integrated and coordinated responses.

The key role of education

The Covid-19 crisis precipitates the introduction of a new wave of educational technologies, opening up new possibilities and engendering new challenges and risks. This could be heralding new opportunities for improving the relations
between science and education, and therefore strengthening the contributions of science to society, as well as new challenges of fracturing value and belief systems, populism and fake news. The availability of public funds for education and the role that private companies will play in new educational developments will be critical. EU R&I policy can contribute to improving the links between science, technology and education by supporting local experimentation in education in a framework that could help diffuse good practices across the EU.

EU level financing for R&I

After nearly 50 years of Framework Programme, EU direct funding for R&I projects has become part of the institutional backbone of the EU. The scenarios remind us that this is not given and that the EU budget is subject to political negotiations despite its importance for the maintenance of R&I capacity in different Member States. There is a continuous need for ensuring that the EU gets value for money out of its investments in R&I including the recognition of the benefit that Member States and EU policies across the board gain from the EU Framework Programme.

Regional disparities in R&I performance

The persistence of regional disparities in R&I performance has been a problem for the EU for a long time, and one that the EU has yet to resolve. The scenarios remind us that such disparities can develop into deep divide across the economy and politics of the European Union. Furthermore, the scenarios demonstrate how some modes of recovery can be better suited for enabling the more equitable generation of economic and social value from R&I, particularly in those regions facing greater present day challenges. Emphasis in social innovation, social entrepreneurship and frugal innovation in the EU instruments may make important contributions to overcoming regional disparities.

Defining future priorities in R&I policy

R&I policy priority-setting processes and the extent to which R&I priorities are driven by concerns with the past, current and future challenges vary across Member States of the EU. This affects the definiton of joint priorities as well as the diversity and vibrancy of the EU innovation ecosystem. Scenarios that explored conditions of challenging polarisation between different national interests and between public and private interests, highlight the importance of public engagement and especially of engagement with new actors, such as social-purpose companies, in the definition of future priorities of EU R&I policy as well as in the governance and implementation of the R&I effort.

Other emerging issues of relevance to EU R&I policy

Additional emerging issues that may deserve particular attention in the coming years include:

• Several scenarios suggest that there will be both a greater need and stronger willingness for Member States to collaborate closely on matters of R&I policy.
• The widening of the range of actors as well as of policies that matter for R&I, linked to the growing policy attention to system change will become an important challenge for coordination of efforts and policy coherence.
• With their strong emphasis on competitiveness and growth objectives, the established rationales underpinning EU R&I policy are increasingly out of synch with the needs of societal and world challenges.
• As the landscape of European knowledge systems continues to evolve, R&I policy must realise its influential role in shaping broader change and adopt socio-economic disparities and environmental concerns as guiding principles.

All scenarios suggest the need for stepping up collective capability and willingness to actively engage in open and collaborative R&I relationships, both within Europe and with the world beyond Europe. This is obvious in relation to some of the global challenges Europe is aiming to address, but also with regard to emerging technologies where international alliances are decisive for establishing common standards and regulation. In order to ensure a relevant global role of Europe in the world, it is essential to build upon a strong, stable and coherent home base in R&I.

This report is also available on Zenodo.  

The Covid-19 pandemic has shattered our sense of ‘normal’, and amplified uncertainties and issues at the core of what the future may hold. The project ‘After the new normal: Scenarios for Europe in the post Covid-19 world’ examined possible futures of 2040 for the EU emerging from the crisis of the pandemic, as possible contexts for EU R&I. The five scenarios described in this report chart different possible post-Covid-19 evolution paths, creating new perspectives on key EU R&I policy issues.

4CF The Futures Literacy Company is a consultancy entirely focused on strategic foresight and long-term strategies. For nearly two decades, 4CF has been on the mission to help its clients prepare for an uncertain tomorrow. The Company has executed hundreds of projects for private companies, public institutions and international entities, including the European Commission and its agencies (EUDA, ENISA), FAO, UNFCCC, UNESCO, UNEP and UNDP. 4CF is at the forefront of global innovation, and actively contributes to the development of cutting-edge foresight tools, including 4CF HalnyX (Delphi platform), 4CF Sprawlr, 4CF FLEx.

The vision of FOSTER is to build a foundation from which a new Knowledge and Innovation System (KIS) for Europe’s food system can emerge. The current structure is insufficient to address the emerging challenges of nourishing people in a healthy and sustainable way. Key objective is to gain insights into how it can be built to be more inclusive and better governed. 

FOSTER shall help to transform Europe’s food system outcomes and will achieve this by: 

• building a FOSTER Platform including food system-state of the art knowledge, foresight by semi-automated Horizon scanning, trend and threats-analysis and new multi-dimensional scenarios of EU food systems to 2040; 
• implementing the FOSTER Academy – including four Summer Schools – for integrating food system-related disciplines and citizen science to enhance food system understanding across the ERA; 
• initiating and assessing a co-creation and co-learning process within six national resp. regional Citizen Driven Initiatives (CDIs), in which new knowledge, strategies and Action Research Agendas are gained; 
• scaling out and deep CDIs solutions and approaches to other territorial contexts; 
• studying different R&I mechanisms of policy support for mission-oriented R&I policy for food systems transformation, and analysing and ground-proofing them in each CDI; 
• strengthening science-policy interfaces by co-learning processes with external experts and developing recommendations for food systems R&I policies tailored to different geographies and sectors; 
• identifying the trigger points to help ‘unlock’ system lock-ins and support further dynamics towards system transformation; 
• and applying reflective monitoring on all FOSTER’s co-learning activities to develop insights into how the KIS can be broadened from an agricultural-KIS to a food system-KIS.
  

To inspire adoption of FOSTER learnings, over 20 workshops and a final conference will be conducted; scientific position papers and policy briefs will be widely communicated. 

We’re pioneering the European Health Data Space by building the first Regional Smart Health Data Space.

On an Ambitious Mission
We embarked on an ambitious mission to reshape the smart healthcare landscape and accelerate innovation within four Widening countries – Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, and Greece.

Our overarching objective is to foster an environment where smart health innovations thrive, creating excellent innovation ecosystems within the participating widening countries, while having the support of three developed countries – Sweden, Germany, and Spain.

Aligned with the Regional Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) in healthcare, we aim to leverage cutting-edge technologies such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) to enable personalized medicine, informed decision-making, and enhanced disease prediction.

Beacons of Innovation
We will create the first Regional Smart Health Data Space (RSHDS). This marks a significant milestone on our journey towards a unified European Health Data Space (EHDS).

We will showcase the capabilities of the RSHDS through the implementation of four interconnected pilots, each addressing critical healthcare challenges:

• Cancer treatment (Greece)
• Alzheimer (Bulgaria)
• Cerebral tumours (Romania)
• Dementia (Cyprus)

Within this project, UEFISCDI is leading, among other activities, Task 6.3 - Long term common R&I and investment strategic agenda and action plan. The task will develop a joint R&I strategic agenda aligned with regional/national Smart Specialization Strategies, with local and European regulations concerning data governance and data sharing, as well as with the European Policy priority of Data Driven Digital Transition and Smart Health.

For this, it will use foresight-based methodologies such as backcasting, visioning, foresight expert workshops and other. 

A proposal for a methodology to identify Megatrends and Grand societal challenges with a significance for Research and Innovation in the Czech Republic

FAO’s Office of Innovation is working with partners on an FAO Chief Scientist initiative on Foresight on emerging agrifood technologies and innovations, aligned with the UN 2.0 process and the FOFA 2022: engaging all key actors of agricultural innovation systems in the foresight on emerging technologies and innovations to better prepare for alternative futures, feeding it into anticipatory action, and convening the global community for constructive dialogue and knowledge exchange. The aim is to support policymakers, investors and innovation actors in their approaches and decision-making. The study assesses a selection of technologies and innovations, which potentially could be of paramount importance in addressing agrifood challenges until 2050, as well as the most important trends and drivers that will influence the emergence of agrifood technologies and innovations and their triggers of change, including some regional aspects. The goal is also to build plausible future scenarios for the evolvement of the emerging technologies and innovations in the future with the time horizon of 2050 to inform future-oriented policymaking. The report is built with inputs from a multistakeholder Delphi survey and online workshops with experts.

The chemical industry is a significant contributor to the EU’s economy. It is simultaneously instrumental to the green and digital transition and exposed to its effects. A steady supply of (green) chemicals is required to deploy renewable energy generators, insulate Europe’s building stock and create reusable and recyclable consumer goods. On the other hand, chemical synthesis is an energy-intensive process inherently dependent on carbon-based feedstock (currently derived almost exclusively from fossil fuels). In addition, chemistry is a global industry with international value chains, where the EU both collaborates and competes with other countries for materials, knowledge and skills. Transforming the European chemical industry into a sustainable motor for the green and digital transition will require investments in infrastructure, assets and skills. Focus should be placed on chemicals that are crucial to this Twin Transition, Europe’s resilience, or both. The long lead time required for the deployment of infrastructure and the development of skills means that such investments must be made now to achieve targets set for 2050. In connection with these issues, the report at hand aims to give insights into a number of value chains that are strategic to EU economy. It considers which chemicals and innovations are vital to transforming these value chains as well as rendering them more resilient and future-fit. To this end, a participatory workshop-based foresight approach was implemented to provide a unique set of insights from stakeholders and translate them into actions and policy recommendations.

Established by the European Commission, Foresight-on-Demand is a mechanism to respond to the demand for quick inputs to policy-making by drawing on the best available foresight knowledge.

FoD aims at offering the European Commission services with timely and effective support related to crisis situations, emerging risks, and policy challenges.

We implemented the ForSI (Foresight for Social Innovation) project with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, with the Unit of Social Innovation. The aim of this collaboration was to identify so-called social time bombs - in our definition, problems that will be significant in the future or are already known today, but not yet sufficiently addressed by the state administration. 

The learning process itself was also a framing goal of this collaboration, where the unit team wanted to learn some foresight methods and implement them into certain processes of the department's work. The project involved desk research, two expert workshops, expert interviews, and also working closely with leading experts on social issues to develop a set of social issue cards. The final list of social time bombs was used by the unit to define calls for grant programs for nonprofits seeking to address diverse problems through social innovation. Foresight was thus used in this case to direct public funds more effectively, thereby addressing the problems that need to be focused on with an eye to the future.

https://www.ceskepriority.cz/foresight#co_je_foresight

As a Coordination and Support Action, project “Eye of Europe” aims to enhance the integration of foresight practices into Research and Innovation (R&I) policy making across Europe. Ultimately, the project envisions a more cohesive and influential R&I foresight community that contributes significantly, as a collective intelligence, to shaping and guiding policy decisions.

To this end, Eye of Europe builds on existing initiatives and experiences to foster knowledge-sharing between foresight practitioners and policy makers, attract domain experts in foresight endeavours, and engage a broader audience in futures thinking. Nurturing futures4europe as the online home for the community and running various face-to-face events with different stakeholders will underpin these ambitions.
Methodologically, the project relies on the following building blocks:

• futures4europe.eu as the online hub for the R&I foresight community in Europe: The platform accommodates the interests of various stakeholders such as foresight experts, beneficiaries, domain experts, and an active audience. It operates on multiple integration levels, from mapping organizations and experts to sharing foresight results and capabilities. Moreover, it acts as the communication gateway for ongoing foresight activities, events, educational and inspirational materials.
  
  
• Sharing of practices: This entails mapping institutions engaged in R&I foresight activities, promoting mutual learning through interactive formats, developing shared visions for the future of foresight in R&I policy within the European Research Area (ERA), fostering exchanges among the foresight in R&I policy community through conferences, encouraging dialogues between futurist/expert communities, academics and policy practitioners.
  Key figures: 5 mutual learning events (MLE): 2 online, 3 face-to-face events; 1 vision building event for the Future of R&I Foresight in ERA; 2 conferences
  
  
• Running foresight pilots: Conducting a series of pilot workshops and online consultations with diverse formats, methodologies, and participants. This involves identifying topics of common interest within the European Research Area (ERA), where foresight perspectives offer added value, designing and implementing tailored pilot foresight activities involving various stakeholders, harnessing lessons learnt and feeding them into the platform and other dissemination channels.
  Key figures: 11 Foresight pilot processes: 3 exclusively with citizens, 4 mainly with experts and researchers tackling specific R&I topics, 4 involving a bespoke group of participants. Out of the 11 events, 8 will be face-to-face events, and 3 pilots will take place online
  
  
• Boosting futures literacy: The project encourages meaningful engagement with diverse audiences, from foresight professionals, researchers, policy-makers to various futures sensitive profiles (e.g. entrepreneurs, journalists, artists) and the wider civil society. The project will provide guides, methodology toolboxes, and training modules for R&I foresight and futures literacy, incorporating written and multimedia content.
  Key figures: 5-10 short training sets for participants in foresight exercises; 1 training module for foresight beneficiaries; 1 foresight training for early career researchers, 1 Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on R&I foresight; 12 conversational podcasts; 6-8 Short videos and/or animated materials showcasing foresight processes and outcomes
  
  
• Fueling the public discourse around futures: Promoting the project and fostering the foresight community via the online platform futures4europe.eu and complementary channels such as social media and a dedicated newsletter. In addition to highlighting the project's own initiatives, Eye of Europe will also aim to promote foresight content developed in other projects, showcasing a diverse range of perspectives and insights within the foresight field. The quarterly newsletter will feature various content types like interviews, project updates, and foresight-related articles. Social media, particularly Futures4Europe's LinkedIn page, will be used to engage professional communities and wider audiences, with a focus on sharing project activities and fostering discussions.