Analysing potential futures to support decision-making today is an approach increasingly used in a world characterised by rapid, volatile and complex change. More and more organisations, including EU bodies, are integrating foresight methods into their activities to guide organisational strategies and increase their preparedness for significant future developments (1). Against this backdrop, the EMCDDA has been hosting this week the 5th meeting of the ‘futures cluster’ of the EU Agencies Network on Scientific Advice (EU-ANSA). This is the first face-to-face encounter since the group was formed in 2019.
EU-ANSA is one of the sub-networks operating under the tutelage of the Heads of EU agencies network. It allows dialogue between chief scientists and senior scientific staff from agencies with a strong science component to their work and helps provide scientific and technical advice to the EU institutions, Member States and other relevant EU policymakers.
The ‘futures cluster’ gathers 13 technical EU agencies (2), the EC Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the European Commission (DG RTD). The event provided a platform for networking, knowledge exchange and planning upcoming outputs.
The meeting kicked off with a keynote and a discussion on the institutionalisation of foresight for future strategic design and innovation (Prof. Paulo Carvalho, Lisbon School of Economic and Management/ISEG). This was followed by presentations on foresight methods and tools, including horizon scanning, early warning and forecasting and scenario building applied by the cluster members.
Last month the EMCDDA launched a new report: The future of drug monitoring in Europe until 2030.
This is available in its Futures toolkit.
