The renewed Lisbon strategy stresses the need for Europe to place more emphasis on anticipating skill needs. Globalisation, technological change and demographic developments (including ageing and migration) pose huge challenges in that respect, comprising both risks and opportunities. At the same time, a lack of information on future skill needs has been a long-standing concern in Europe. With specific targets set in the Lisbon strategy, the need for regular forward-looking assessments has gained momentum. Subsequently, this resulted in the recent New Skills for New Jobs initiative by the European Commission, and related European projects aimed at identifying future job and skills needs using quantitative modelling approaches. While having advantages of robustness, stakeholders as well as the European Commission identified a clear need for complementary, more qualitative forward-looking analysis. Consequently, the European Commission (DG EMPL) earlier this year commissioned a series of 17 future-oriented sector studies (Horizon 2020) on innovation, skills and jobs following a qualitative methodology. The final results of these studies will become available in spring 2009, and will be followed by a number of other initiatives over the year to come and beyond.
Posts Tagged ‘globalisation’
EFP Brief No. 160: Future Jobs and Skills in the EU
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011EFP Brief No. 159: ForeSec: Europe’s Evolving Security
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011The objective of ForeSec is to tie together the multiple threads of existing work on the future of European security in an attempt to provide a more coherent guidance, orientation and structure to all future security-related research activities. It aims at enhancing the common understanding of the complex global and societal nature of European security in order to pre-empt novel threats and capture technological opportunities. The project takes a participatory approach in an attempt to facilitate the emergence of a coherent and ho-listic approach to current and future threats and challenges to European security. ForeSec builds a pan-European network around the European security foresight processes and helps foster a societal debate on European security and security research. As this brief is published, ForeSec still has a few months of project work lying ahead. Accordingly, all results presented here are merely intermediate.
EFP Brief No. 154: Looking Forward in the ICT and Media Industry – Technological and Market Developments
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011The project was an activity within the framework contract between the European Parliament and ETAG, the European Technology Assessment Group, to carry out TA studies on behalf of the Parliament’s STOA Panel in view of the growing importance of a European science and technology policy. The purpose of this particular project was to identify current and expected technological and market developments in the field of ICT with an impact on the media industry and to indicate regulatory challenges and requirements stemming from the anticipated changes. The main target group are the Members of the European Parliament; the wider addressee is the interested public.
EFP Brief No. 146: Germany 2020 New Challenges for a Land on Expedition
Sunday, May 22nd, 2011The brief provides a short overview of a project in which Deutsche Bank Research has combined its own foresight expertise with inputs from the bank’s business strategists and external experts in order to develop scenarios for the future development of the German economy and society against the backdrop of intensifying structural change.
EFP Brief No. 137: The Future of Manufacturing in Europe A Survey of the Literature and a Modelling Approach
Saturday, May 21st, 2011Manufacturing in Europe is facing challenges that may impact on its performance in the near future: the emergence of international competitors, new technologies allowing the emergence of new business models, increased off-shore and relocated activities. The aim of this study was to provide policy-makers with a long-term vision of European manufacturing, its characteristics, its place in the EU economy, in the world and the main challenges it will be facing. Its purpose was to identify, on the basis of current demographic, environmental, technological, economic and social trends, and possible scenarios, the likely bottlenecks, unsustainable trends and major challenges that European manufacturing will have to face over the coming 30 years. From this, implications for various microeconomic policies, notably for industrial policy, were explored, contributing to the mid-term review of industrial policy in 2007 by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry.
EFP Brief No. 135: Globalisation in the 21st Century: Where Optimism and Fear Collide
Saturday, May 21st, 2011Globalisation has become a keyword of the 21st century. Who are the winners and who are the losers in a globalised world? The term globalisation triggers extremely contradictory emotions among the people of Europe. One third of Europeans (33%) regard themselves as winners of this development and see globalisation as a kind of liberation from overly constrictive and outdated boundaries. In contrast, one in five citizens feels to have lost out in this process (21%). Europeans only agree on one issue: the process of globalisation can neither be halted nor reversed. These are the results of the first European representative study that asked 11,000 citizens aged 14 and above in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Russia and Switzerland about their hopes and fears for the future. The study was part of a research project by the Stiftung für Zukunftsfragen (Foundation for Research on the Future) of British American Tobacco.
EFP Brief No. 133: The Role of the EU in the World
Saturday, May 21st, 2011The purpose of the present brief is to explore how foresight studies perceive, interpret and handle the EU’s role in the world. The examination of its role can be interpreted in different ways, can include a wide range of perspectives, and can apply to various levels of reference (political, social, economic, technological, scientific etc.). We have focused on the concerns and challenges the European Commission has noted as of major importance in the coming years.
EFP Brief No. 130: Migration: One of the Most Important Challenges for Europe
Saturday, May 21st, 2011This brief presents major social, technological, economic, environmental and political trends and rationales for migration, followed by a number of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of migratory processes. In the last section, the brief concludes with a set of general policy options and some final remarks about the sources and data analysed.
EFP Brief No. 126: “In the Long Run” Best Practices for New Foresight Conditions
Saturday, May 21st, 2011The objective of this foresight brief is to summarise foresight experiences made by foresight practitioners of international companies attending the conference “in the long run” in Berlin in October 2004. The paper summarises new environmental conditions for corporate foresight and the resulting challenges for foresight work as perceived by the speakers. The paper also gives an overview of best practice solutions for the challenges presented.
