The second Mutual Learning Event (MLE) took place online on September 26, 2024, as part of Eye of Europe, a Horizon Europe project which aims to enhance the integration of foresight practices into Research and Innovation (R&I) policy-making across Europe and to nurture a vibrant, cohesive R&I foresight community that contributes significantly, as a collective intelligence, to shaping and guiding policy decisions.

The online MLE brought together fifty participants from diverse stakeholder groups: Eye of Europe partner organizations, the European Commission, R&I funding agencies, representatives of governmental bodies. The event, organized by Technology Centre Prague (TC), focused on the topic of policy oriented communication of foresight results. Group and plenary discussions in three interactive sessions were framed by expert presentations showcasing diverse practices in the application and communication of foresight.

Presentations:

• Michal Pazour (TC Prague, Czech Republic) introduced the Eye of Europe project and the context of this second Mutual Learning Event.
• Moderator of the event Lenka Hebáková (TC Prague, Czech Republic) followed up with an introduction to the event’s aims and agenda.
• Mikko Dufva (SITRA, Finland) – “Communicating foresight. From knowing it all to empowering change”. The presentation included three case studies: SITRA’s decade long experience with megatrends as a platform for dialogue, their work on weak signals as an invitation to broaden futures thinking in a “what if?” spirit and, finally, their efforts to empower others to define futures bottom-up, through small funding to diverse teams across Finland.
• “Communicating foresight in the European Commission” presented by Maia Knutti and Teodora Garbovan (EU Policy Lab, European Commission) brought insights into how, in the European Commission context, foresight is employed and linked with the policy cycle. Examples covered foresight content (e.g. Strategic Foresight Reports) and engagement tools (e.g. megatrends hub, scenario exploration system) that are serving different stakeholder groups across multiple channels.
• Bianca Dragomir (Institutul de Prospectiva, Romania) discussed a case study on embedding foresight into policy making in the context of developing the Strategy for Fishing and Aquaculture 2035 in Romania. Moreover, she shared about embedding foresight into both policy making and societal conversation, discussing two Foresight on Demand projects: Scenarios on “Transhumanist Revolutions” and foresight-meets-speculative-design project “Futures Garden”.
• Totti Könnölä (Insight Foresight Institute, Spain) shared about the Foresight on Demand project "European R&I foresight and public engagement for Horizon Europe" that advanced several objectives: generating foresight intelligence, i.e. through forward-looking policy briefs; monitoring of foresight activities and providing support for exploitation (Horizon Futures Watch); laying the building blocks for a European foresight community supported by an online platform.
• Marie Ségur (Futuribles, France) presented a case study on “Future of social work in France to 2035-2050” and the methods employed throughout the process: using surveys to motivate engagement with futures thinking, scenario building that may inform strategic choices and guide towards a vision and, finally, communicating outcomes in a synthetic manner, that may contribute to a wider discussion around the topic.
• Eye of Europe project coordinator Radu Gheorghiu (UEFISCDI, Romania) shared previews of the upcoming upgrade of the futures4europe.eu platform, with its new look and extended features.
  
  
  
  This event is the second in a series of five MLEs planned in the project; the following event will be held in January 2025 also in an online format. All Eye of Europe MLEs are organized by Technology Centre Prague (TC), Eye of Europe partner and key Czech national think tank and academia based NGO with a rich experience with knowledge-based policy making support and (participatory as well as expert based) foresight activities.

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The first Mutual Learning Event (MLE) took place on May 23, 2024 in Bratislava, Slovakia as part of the Horizon Europe project Eye of Europe, which aims to contribute to the maturing of a vibrant Research and Innovation (R&I) foresight community in Europe and to support the integration of foresight practices into R&I policy-making.

Forty participants from partner organizations and external representatives of ministries, governmental bodies, R&I funding agencies and the European institutions gathered in the premises of the Government Office of the Slovak Republic.

This MLE, organized by Technology Centre Prague (TC), focused on the identification of emerging needs and approaches in the practice of foresight for research and innovation.

To this end, the MLE in Bratislava was structured along the following phases:

• Eye of Europe’s vision and main building blocks, presented by project coordinator Radu Gheorghiu
• The context and role of this MLE, and a brief overview of other mutual learning events that took place since 2020, presented by Michal Pazour 
• Showcasing preliminary results of the Stocktaking of the organisation of R&I Foresight activities in the European Research Area (ERA), by Simone Weske. The presentation highlighted key benefits of the R&I foresight activities, constraints and bottlenecks, as perceived by the survey respondents.
• Four country studies - Slovakia, Finland, Austria and Sweden - have brought interesting insights and comparisons related to R&I foresight uptake and potential for improvement:
  Slovakia: Research and Innovation System and the potential for R&I Foresight |Michal Habrman, Government Office of the Slovak Republic
  Finland: Finnish national foresight ecosystem | Juha Kaskinen, FFRC University of Turku Finland
  Sweden: Leading from the Future in Sweden | Joakim Skog, Vinnova Sweden
  Austria: R&I foresight | Christian Naczinsky, Austrian Ministry of Education
• Discussions in four participant groups on emerging functions and approaches of R&I foresight. Overall, the group discussions touched on the dynamics of R&I foresight demand and supply and on the diversification of tools and methods for establishing dialogue with policy-making.
  
  This video crea ted by the event host, Výskumná a inovačná autorita (VAIA), offers a glimpse into the spirit of both the MLE and the R&I foresight masterclass that preceded it. The detailed outputs of the MLE will be published in a dedicated report.
  
  
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  Five MLEs are planned in the project, with the following one being held online in September 2024. All Eye of Europe MLEs are organized by Technology Centre Prague (TC), Eye of Europe partner and key Czech national think tank and academia based NGO with a rich experience with knowledge-based policy making support and (participatory as well as expert based) foresight activities.
  

As a Coordination and Support Action funded, 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.