VERA – Forward Visions on the European Research Area

VERA is funded by the European Union's FP7 programme for research,
technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 290705

Facing the Future: Time for the EU to Meet Global Challenges

Code: E04

Primary project information

Lead: EC Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC-IPTS)
Additional project partners: Bureau of European Policy Advisors of the European Commission
Type of activity: study
Date conducted: 2009
Date of Publication: 2010
Duration: 1 YEAR
Summary: What will the world look like in 2025 and beyond? What are possible future disruptive global challenges? And how can the EU position itself to take an active role in shaping a response to them? There is a clear and growing need for the ability to an-ticipate change to be embedded in policy. This is critical not only for being able to respond and adapt to new situations before they occur but also to shape the future, building upon mutual understanding and common vi-sions to be jointly pursued. For policy responses to address all the pressing current global challenges, especially when seen in isolation, is clearly a demanding task. Institutions face greater com-plexity and difficulty in providing solutions in due time. This is particularly true when the policy focus extends beyond the challenges that societies face today, seeking to anticipate future challenges and transform them into opportunities.
Financed by: Bureau of European Policy Advisors of the European Commission (BEPA)
Budget: N/A
Research area/market/industry/sector: sustainability, food, climate change, water, energy, health, knowledge, demographics, education, empowerment, converging technologies, ICT
Main report (full title): Facing the Future: Time for the EU to Meet Global Challenges

GRAND CHALLENGES

Economic Challenges Shortlist: of research relating to this challenge is to sustain societal development,
Geopolitical Challenges: In relation to globalisation, it is expected by 2025 that the world will comprise many more large economic powers. China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and In-donesia will take on greater significance in the global economy (EIN, 2007) and their huge consumer-driven domestic markets can be expected to become a major focus for global business and technology (17); The problems faced by developing countries also increasingly become the problems of developed economies, such as the EU member states, as a consequence of increasingly fading borders between nations due to terrorism and conflicts (i.e. over natu-ral resources) and migrations caused by pandemics and poverty (23); Many rising superpowers, such as Russia, China, the Middle-East and some Latin American countries, have widely differing traditions in democratic gov-ernance, which may cause pressures on democracy also elsewhere. Western norms and values, as the foundation of the global system, could also be chal-lenged by radical religious identity politics that might emerge as a powerful counter-ideology with wide-spread appeal;
Geopolitical Challenges Shortlist: China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and In-donesia will take on greater significance in the global economy (EIN, 2007) and their huge consumer-driven domestic markets can be expected to become a major focus for global business and technology (17); The problems faced by developing countries also increasingly become the problems of developed economies; Many rising superpowers, such as Russia, China, the Middle-East and some Latin American countries, have widely differing traditions in democratic gov-ernance, which may cause pressures on democracy also elsewhere;
Societal Challenges: Need to Anticipate and Adapt to Societal Changes; Rising employment rates will no longer be sufficient to compensate for the decline in the EU working population, leading to economic growth being mainly dependent on in-creases in productivity (17); Ageing societies are placing increasing pressure on pension systems, social security and healthcare sys-tems;
Societal Challenges Shortlist: Need to Anticipate and Adapt to Societal Changes; Rising employment rates will no longer be sufficient to compensate for the decline in the EU working population, leading to economic growth being mainly dependent on in-creases in productivity (17); Ageing societies are placing increasing pressure on pension systems, social security and healthcare sys-tems;
Technical Challenges: New converging technologies that emerge from multidisciplinary collaboration are expected to drasti-cally change all dimensions of life (17);
Technical Challenges Shortlist: New converging technologies that emerge from multidisciplinary collaboration are expected to drasti-cally change all dimensions of life (17);
Health Challenges: provide equal access to healthcare
Health Challenges Shortlist: provide equal access to healthcare;
Cross-cutting Challenges: global energy shortage will lead to a rise in global competition for energy resources, a greater dependency between nations, with energy in general and oil in particular playing a key role in future power relations and defence policies (11); Climate change, water scarcity and lack of food at affordable prices will be important factors in the in-crease of illness and death rates in developing countries, which will lead to a deepen-ing in poverty and exclusion linked to the unsustain-able exploitation of the natural resources still avail-able, mass migration as well as threats in the form of radicalisation and terrorism; Increase in continuing flows of migrants from de-veloping to developed countries due to environmental hazards and armed conflicts as well as aspirations to a better quality of life (17); Education and information and communication tech-nology (ICT) innovations could lead to a shift towards citizen empowerment and e-governance with citizens holding governments accountable due to an increase in transparency, but this is at risk of failing to become reality since the majority of the world population is still excluded from having access to the knowledge society (17); Innovations limited by social acceptance due to a lack of education, transparency and societal un-derstanding of technological possibilities;
Cross-cutting Challenges Shortlist: global energy shortage will lead to a rise in global competition for energy resources, a greater dependency between nations, with energy in general and oil in particular playing a key role in future power relations and defence policies (11); Climate change, water scarcity and lack of food at affordable prices will be important factors in the in-crease of illness and death rates in developing countries, which will lead to a deepen-ing in poverty and exclusion linked to the unsustain-able exploitation of the natural resources still avail-able, mass migration as well as threats in the form of radicalisation and terrorism; Increase in continuing flows of migrants from de-veloping to developed countries due to environmental hazards and armed conflicts as well as aspirations to a better quality of life (17);

Summary of relevant aspects

Aspects of ERA Governance: For the EU to fully become a knowledge society there is a need to anticipate and adapt to political, cultural, demographic and economic transformations. Business, demography, migration and societies are generally changing at a much higher rate than public institutions and related decision-making processes. Legal frame-works, social security systems, education and the mod-els of healthcare have difficulties in keeping up with the pace of these transformations.
Other Aspects of Governance: Need for Effective and Transparent Governance for the EU and the World (23); This challenge comprises the need for the EU to create more transparent and accountable governance struc-tures and processes that can adapt to and anticipate the future, and to use this capacity to do likewise at the global level in order to address global and common chal-lenges and to spread democracy and transparency all over the world. Addressing the multiple effects of both challenges mentioned above requires new forms of governance and that as many nations and stakeholders as possible join forces (23); Single policy governance approaches can no longer cope with global issues, leading to fragmented re-sponses to common challenges that are complex and interconnected; The growing strength of emerging economies in-creases pressure to integrate them more closely into international coordination processes. Unbalanced representation of nations in global fora, such as the UN, WTO and IMF, makes it impossible for many de-veloping countries to participate in global decision-making processes and to implement or adopt strate-gies that are decided only by the economically pow-erful countries (23);
Background information: to identify key driving forces and characterized focus areas of competences, assisted by extensive deployment of Internet-based

Scenarios

Actions/solutions implied: Policy alignment towards sustainability – includ-ing the need to align all relevant policy domains to achieve reform in the agri-system; a reduction in the EU’s dependency on resources; an increase in levels of education and social awareness; appropriate and effective management of migration flows resulting from climate change, aspirations to a better quality of life, and the labour market needs of especially ageing societies; and a change in the policy paradigm based on GDP to an updated system that also considers ecological flows and stocks (31); Social diversity and ICTs towards citizen empow-erment – including the need to build new incentives to facilitate and strengthen relationships between dif-ferent social systems; develop the necessary means to enhance education on the use of ICTs in conjunc-tion with other technologies; improve the quality of education by, for instance, fostering competition within and between EU national education systems; regulate the healthcare system, tapping into new technologies to provide equal access for all; develop radically new and far more efficient forms of social protection; and enhance regional specialisation through the formation of regional RTDI clusters; Anticipation of future challenges to turn these into new opportunities – including the need to em-bed forward looking techniques in EU policy making; foster mutual understanding through ongoing and in-clusive dialogue both within the EU and worldwide to build shared values, common visions, actions, and smart regulations, and enable effective and adaptive international organisations to become a reality; estab-lish partnerships between industry, government and society; clarify at global fora the role and status of the EU and balance its representation in international or-ganisations; and foster (e)participation and (e)democracy through the use of web 2.0;
Who benefits from the actions taken?: BEPA, European presidency; European citizens

Meta information

Time horizon: 2025
Methods: The methodology used combines an extensive analytical review of more than 120 recent future-oriented studies, followed by a broad online consultation of almost 400 identified issues in six policy-relevant areas and use of multi-criteria quantitative analysis (Robust Portfolio Modelling) to prioritise the resulting issues. Key issues were then presented and discussed in a workshop with selected experts and policy makers. The main objective of the expert workshop was to organise the findings of the literature review and the analysis of the online survey into novel cross-cutting challenges, which the EU needs to tackle now in order to secure a better future for all and to translate them into policy messages. As a wide variety of challenges emerged related to the future of the world in 2025, the criteria of urgency, tractability and impact were used to prioritise and select the most relevant ones. • Chairship – This involved contacting researchers for the six groups and establishing a chairship comprised of one Dane and one European researcher for each challenge. They were then asked to invite up to 100 researchers to offer their views in a virtual discussion forum. Out of the invitees, 15 researchers from each group were also asked to meet at a workshop conference in Copenhagen on 16 January 2012 shortly after the Danish EU presidency began.

- Virtual discussion forum – Divided equally between the six societal challenges, the 600 researchers were invited to comment on the draft text of Horizon 2020. The researchers were asked to contribute personal visions for the future as well as point out needs and possible solutions. They were also asked to suggest and comment on the technologies and the priorities within the given challenge, as well as to consider the instruments and implementation needed to ensure success as seen from a scienti c perspective. Lastly, they were asked to contribute their ideas on how to secure the link between research and the innovation perspective stressed in Horizon 2020. All of the input was collected in a draft report that formed the basis of the aforementioned conference in Copenhagen.
- Conference - On 16 January 2012 the six panels met and discussed the draft report, offering comments and adding new ideas
inspired by the input collected in the virtual discussion forum. The aim was to reach agreement on:
1) the views and recommendations in each of the six panels;
2) a joint statement during plenary sessions expressing the view on scientific issues cutting across all six challenges; and
3) recommendations for the implementation of the challenges so they become a basis for excellent research and far-reaching solutions.
- Outcome – A condensed report offering ideas and solutions that could help form Horizon 2020 from a scientific point of view; presentation of the conclusions to the European community in an open dialogue.
Target Group: BEPA; European Presidency, European Policy makers
Objectives: The aim of this project is to provide a comprehensive picture of the main trends ahead and possible disruptive global chal-lenges in the future and to examine how the EU could position itself to take an active role in shaping a response to them. The work described in the final report contributes a fresh perspective on the future, linking widely accepted quantified trends through 2025 and beyond with the opinions of experts and policy makers on the likely consequences of these trends and wild cards. This work has been undertaken in cooperation with the Bureau of European Policy Advisors of the European Commission.
Countries covered: EU
ERA actors/stakeholders mentioned: Isabelle Balot (WHO), Yang Chenggang (Southwestern
University of Finance and Economics Chengdu), Fairouz Farah Sarkis (The Arab Open University), Lelio
Fellows Filho (Centre for Strategic Management and Studies, Brasilia), Thierry Gaudin (Prospective 2100),
Kayoko Ishii (Osaka University), Elisabeth Jaskulké (SUEZ Environnement), Miriam Leis (TNO), Ruben Nelson
(Futurist), Nicolas Pascual de la Parte (General Secretariat of the EU Council), Pasi Rinne (Gaia Global), Ingo
Rollwagen (Deutsche Bank Research), Corinna Schulze (IBM), Jack Smith (Defence R&D Canada), Oliver
Sparrow (The Challenge Network), and Jan Wouters (Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies). Guido
Battaglia and Carl Björkman (WEF); Maria Joao Albernaz, Stefano Bertozzi, Matteo Bonifacio, Agnes Hubert, Sonia Neto,
Alina-Stefania Ujupan and Katarzyna Wilk (BEPA), John Bensted-Smith (DG Agri), Nicolas Gérard (DG
DEV), Margarida Gameiro (DG EAC), Natalie Lubenets (DG ECFIN), Axel Volkery (EEA), Bartek Lessaer
and Miranda McIntosh (DG EMPL), Maria Gylfadottir, Reka Hosszu and Henriette van Eijl (DG ENTR),
Christian d’Cunha and Kristof Tamas (DG JLS), Fabiana Scapolo (DG JRC), Dorota Pyszna-Nigge (DG
MARE), Gabriella Fesus and Agnes Kelemen (DG Regio), Natalia Martins da Fonte and Alar Olljum (DG
RELEX), Michel Baer, Paras Caracostas, Elie Faroult, Pascal Steller and Pierre Valette (DG RTD), Vincenç
Pedret Cusco (DG TREN).
Geographic scope:

Entry Details

Rapporteur: Susanne Giesecke
Rapporteur's organization: AIT
Entry Date: May 2012