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Understanding Foresight-Policy Interactions

❓ Why hasn't the government gotten back to us about this great foresight study we did? 


If you are involved in #PolicyOrientedForesight, #AnticipatoryGovernance and #StrategicIntelligence, you may have questioned the fit and impact of your work on policy. In our new publication, Philine Warnke, Sylvia Veit and I problematize these complicated foresight-policy interactions.

📖 "Understanding Foresight-Policy Interactions" --> https://lnkd.in/eUrjFE9M

We propose "institutionalization" as a process that shapes the formation of working practices and routines along four dimensions. Rather than trying to measure how foresight affects policy decisions, we are looking at how institutionalization affects the government's ability to absorb, interpret, and adopt anticipatory practices.

Our findings
-Decades of research on policy advice have taught us that simply providing 'better' methods does not necessarily result in 'greater' impact.
- We argue that one conducive factor for avoiding loose ends in foresight-policy interactions and facilitating absorption of results consists in its institutionalization along all dimensions (organizational, regulative, normative, and cognitive-cultural).
- foresight does not align well with the existing structures and procedures of the federal ministerial bureaucracy in Germany which are characterized by a strong departmental principle, resulting in ‘turf wars’ and ‘negative coordination’.
- The findings of our research suggest that a purely rationalist approach to the adaptation of foresight is inadequate.

This work represents the academic spin-off for an international readership of a study commissioned by the German Federal Chancellery and published in 2022.
--> https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/studie-strategische-vorausschau-2059782 

Posted on: 05/11/2024

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Shaping futures, story by story

Posted on: 31/10/2024

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Last Edited: 22 days ago

The future of Europe: futures imagined by Greek citizens

What will Europe look like in 2040? How will we travel, how will our society be organised, how will our schools function and what kind of jobs will people have? These are just some of the questions we have been asking Europeans to reflect on as part of the #OurFutures project launched by the EU Policy Lab. Through it, we collect EU citizens' images through a narrative inquiry method.

We recently did this in Greece, in close collaboration with foresight experts in the Greek government by reaching out to Greek citizens to gain insights into how people in this part of Europe would like the future to look like.

We have spoken to Epaminondas Christophilopoulos (UNESCO chair on Futures research at the Foundation for Research and Technology) and Vivian Efthimiopoulou (communication expert), focusing on some of their findings which demonstrate the value of citizen-generated future images for developing people-centric policies at both national and EU level.

Posted on: 30/10/2024

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The future of Europe: what do you imagine it will look like?

We invited people across the EU to share their imagined futures. For this collection we, the European Commission’s Competence Centre on Foresight, used a narrative inquiry method. Instead of asking opinions about the future, we asked participants to share a story about their desirable future, followed by a few questions about that story, in order to more fully comprehend their thinking. In this process we were guided by Voices That Count.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the first 591 stories of people that participated so far, mostly from Greece and Slovenia, followed by Germany, Spain and Italy. Approximately half of them are students, and the other half mainly consists of employed people. 

  

Posted on: 21/10/2024

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Vision ECO2050: The Future of the Economy by 2050, following the example of Luxembourg

Luxembourg Strategy, the Directorate for Strategic Economic Foresight was part of the Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy from 2021 to 2023. Luxembourg Strategy's core accomplishment is ‘ECO2050’ – a strategic economic vision for Luxembourg by 2050, published in Sept. 2023 and funded by the Ministry of the Economy. To ensure its relevance, the vision is adaptable to varying economic growth and population projections and to other similar countries than Luxembourg. It prioritises a balance between technological, natural and social solutions, while fostering private sector participation alongside public investment.

This vision anticipates three possible future scenarios – Socio-economic Sleepwalking, Bio-regional Circularity and Techno-digital Optimism – alongside a potential disruptive wildcard, the ‘Red Queen’ scenario. 

At the core, it argues in favour of a human-centered, nature-positive economy, with business-led clean technologies and climate adapted infrastructures and carbon services. 

The Foresight Vision ECO2050 is structured in 10 building blocks:

  1. Strategic autonomy since boosting domestic production reduces dependence on imports and decouples the economy from shocks on international markets 
  2. Circularity and sufficiency since saving energy and raw materials makes it easier to keep with environmental and financial constraints 
  3. Focusing on people, knowledge and wellbeing since societal and organisational innovation creates new businesses, attracts talent and preserves a high quality of life 
  4. Reconciling the digital, ecological and social transitions since building a competitive economy that manages the environmental and social footprint of new technologies facilitates social and ecological progress 
  5. Critical redundancy and strategic storage capacity since duplicating solutions and building up reserves of essential goods and services ensures greater resilience and adaptability for the economy 
  6. Administrative simplification since improving the environment for entrepreneurs, investors and researchers by streamlining procedures boosts the economy by making it more agile 
  7. Economic diversification since adapting key sectors to new challenges in the name of the general interest strengthens the preservation of common goods and the capacity of the existing economic system to turn transitions into business opportunities 
  8. Sustainable economic diplomacy since forging close diplomatic and commercial ties with partners who share the same ecological and social values creates synergies of strengths and assets, while cementing the global governance of resources 
  9. Sustainable and solid public finances since guarding against budget imbalances will help financing transitions and efforts towards greater sustainability 
  10. Anticipation and speed since planning for the long term, constantly adapting to increasingly rapid change and keeping an eye on developments gives a comparative economic advantage by defusing threats and reinforcing opportunities. 

The governance of the ECO2050 foresight process was as diverse and rich as was possible with the means at the disposal of Luxembourg Strategy and concerned 1300 persons, encompassing public administrations, national thematic observatories, research, business, federations, municipalities, citizens, youth organisations, foresight experts... 

Luxembourg Stratégie greatly benefited from international support from the EU Commission Vice-President for Foresight Maroš Šefčovič's team and the SG Foresight Unit, the OECD SG Foresight Unit, as well as from France Stratégie and Futuribles. Please read the full report and the condensed brochure ECO2050 here: https://luxstrategie.gouvernement.lu/fr/publicationsbis/rapport-vision-eco2050.html

Posted on: 18/11/2024