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

The Millennium Project / 15 Global Challenges

Code: E03

Primary project information

Lead: The Millennium Project Planning Committee
Additional project partners: hundreds of individual contributors from various organisations (nodes)
Type of activity: report / website
Date conducted: updated regularly
Date of Publication: 2011
Duration: continuous
Summary: The 15 Global Challenges provide a framework to assess the global and local prospects for humanity. Their description, with a range of views and actions to addressed each, enriched with regional views and progress assessments are updated each year since 1996 and published in the annual State of the Future.
Financed by: sponsor list http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/sponsors.html
Budget: N/A
Research area/market/industry/sector: holistic view on globe, no sector
Main report (full title): State of the Future

GRAND CHALLENGES

Economic Challenges: How can ethical market economies be encouraged to help reduce the gap between rich and poor?
Geopolitical Challenges: How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts, terrorism, and the use of weapons of mass destruction?
Societal Challenges: How can population growth and resources be brought into balance? How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes? How can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions change? How can the changing status of women help improve the human condition? How can transnational organized crime networks be stopped from becoming more powerful and sophisticated global enterprises?
Technical Challenges: How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone? How can growing energy demands be met safely and efficiently?
Health Challenges: How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune micro-organisms be reduced?
Cross-cutting Challenges: How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict? How can policymaking be made more sensitive to global long-term perspectives?
Other Challenges: How can scientific and technological breakthroughs be accelerated to improve the human condition? How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?

Summary of relevant aspects

Connecting fields: All possible fields :)
Aspects of RTI Governance: These Challenges are transnational in nature and transinstitutional in solution. They cannot be addressed by any government or institution acting alone. They require collaborative action among governments, international organizations, corporations, universities, NGOs, and creative individuals.
Other Aspects of Governance: The Challenges are interdependent: an improvement in one makes it easier to address others; deterioration in one makes it harder to address others. Arguing whether one is more important than another is like arguing that the human nervous system is more important than the respiratory system.
Background information: agencies and promote foresight and innovation activities at large. Towards these objectives, FinnSight 2015 engaged ten expert panels

Scenarios

Actions/solutions implied: Several solutions, high level goals defined.
Who benefits from the actions taken?: World.

Meta information

Time horizon: no specific time horizon
Methods: expert information gathered and analysed
Target Group: decision-makers
Objectives: To raise awareness on global challenges
Countries covered: All
Geographic scope:

Entry Details

Rapporteur: Riitta Nieminen-Sundell
Rapporteur's organization: VTT
Entry Date: 28.08.2012