EFP Workshop: Policy options for surprising and emerging futures in Europe

The European Foresight Platform (EFP) organises a policy workshop ‘Policy options for surprising and emerging futures in Europe’, which will take place on the 26th of October in Brussels.

Over the past few years we have witnessed a growing number of technological, economic, environmental, political, social and ethical surprises (wild cards) with very high (often negative) impacts on European and global society and economy. Example are the global financial crisis, the Fukushima Disaster and the Arab Spring. Often these surprises have associated ‘weak signals’ warning us about their potential occurrence. However, our blindness or reluctance to foresee radical changes in our lives rather often makes their manifestation look surprising.

Worldwide, there are several initiatives that aim to identify, collect and interpret emerging issues and potential surprises that could have an impact of the economy and society. Also in Europe the EC launched a number blue-sky research initiatives aimed to identify issues that should not be left “out of the policy radar” because they could have an impact on the European economy and society and could be important in shaping the European Research Area. As a knowledge hub for foresight, the European Foresight Platform (EFP) brings together the information and knowledge base on foresight in Europe and internationally. As a result, EFP has an extensive overview of emerging issues and potential surprises identified in various foresight activities.

The workshop will bring together the emerging issues and potential surprises identified in various foresight and forward looking activities. More particularly, the EFP workshop will focus on those issues and surprises that could shape the European Research Area (ERA). This workshop aims to discuss and prioritise the most important emerging issues and surprises for Europe as well as to identify research questions and policy requirements to address these surprises. Moreover, the workshop will discuss in more detail how the European and national surprise monitoring and management systems can be used and how we take into account the specific nature of the various member states (risk assessment culture and practices, levels of vulnerability and resilience to certain surprises).

For more information about the workshop please see the attached brochure.

About the European Foresight Platform
The FP7 Coordination and Support Action “EFP European Foresight Platform – supporting forward looking decision making” aims at consolidating the information and knowledge base on foresight in Europe and internationally. It reinforces foresight actions initiated under the 6th Framework Programme, in particular EFMN and ForLearn. The EFP aims to be a knowledge hub for foresight-related information to facilitate European foresight and forward looking exercises. The ultimate purpose of EFP is to better exploit foresight as a resource to support policy-making. The knowledge hub will be used in a series of national and European policy workshops, geared towards major future challenges to Europe. EFP is coordinated by Susanne Giesecke from the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT). Other partners include the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR), the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) and TNO. More information about EFP can be found on www.foresight-platform.eu