What types of EU R&I policies would be effective in the years to come? How shall these policies help us explore and respond to the uncertainties of the future? 

Finding answers to these questions requires first of all imagining the context, in which future EU R&I policies might be situated. For doing this, we need to explore developments both at global level and within the European Union.

This autumn, experts are developing alternative climate scenarios as part of a foresight project that helps prepare the 2nd Strategic Plan 2024-2027 of the Horizon Europe Framework Programme for R&I. The project is conducted by the “Foresight on Demand” Consortium on behalf of the European Commission, DG RTD. In a Deep Dive area “Climate change and R&I: from social change to geoengineering”, together with the other members of the expert team, I am developing, among others, this 'green dream' scenario. Get involved, comment on the scenario and relate the scenario to recent developments!

Between 16th - 19th of July, Eye of Europe consortium partners AIT and Fraunhofer ISI attended the 2024 conference by the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S).

The ultimate objectives of TRIGGER are to provide EU institutions with knowledge and tools to enhance their actorness, effectiveness and influence in global governance; and to develop new ways to harness the potential of public engagement and participatory foresight in complex governance decisions, thereby also tackling emerging trends such as nationalism, regionalism and protectionism.

TRIGGER specific objectives are:

• Advance the state of the art in understanding global governance;
• Evolution of the EU’s interaction with global governance, in particular so-called “actorness” and “effectiveness” of the EU;
• Understand how global governance and emerging technologies interact, and what role the EU plays in this respect, in particular as “regulatory superpower”;
• Identify emerging trends that strengthen / loosen deeper global governance and cooperation;
• Build capacity for strategic foresight and public engagement inside EU institutions.

The TRIGGER consortium is composed of 14 partners, including four non-EU countries. TRIGGER will achieve its objectives thanks to the combined effort of four research sub-groups:

• a group focused on global and EU governance, which will create an unprecedented Atlas of Global Governance REGulation and Europe’s AcTORness (AGGREGATOR);
• a group focused on the relationship between governance and emerging technologies; 
• a group dedicated to strategic foresight and public engagement, which will use new techniques such as AI-enabled sentiment analysis and innovative public engagement methods to develop a tool on Co-Creating the European Union (COCTEAU); and
• a group specialised in dissemination and communication. All major deliverables will eventually be merged into a toolkit dedicated to Public Engagement for Responsive and Shared EU Strategies (PERSEUS).