Earlier this month, our Director of Programmes, Rachel Wilkinson, was invited to speak to EU policy makers to share the Centre’s work on strategic foresight, signals and trends. The European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS) is an inter-institutional collaboration among the officials of the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, and the European External Action Service, with the support of the Committee of the Regions and of the European Economic and Social Committee. It monitors global trends and offers strategic foresight to the EU’s decision-makers. The meeting saw policy makers from across all EU institutions come together and learn about trends and discuss their possible implications.
The value of futures thinking
Futures thinking can help us navigate uncertainty by revealing the interplay of dynamic trends, identifying risks, opportunities, and innovations, and creating a collective vision for the future. At the Centre, we have been promoting futures thinking to civil society organisations for many years. Scanning the Horizon is our established collaborative platform for trend scouting and analysis in the international civil society sector. It includes leading ICSOs, national CSO umbrella organisations, philanthropy, and futurists. Members utilise futures skills and methods to shape and adapt their strategies. From this community and other programmatic work on futures thinking, such as our toolkit for tomorrow, we have developed futures resources to support civil society.
It is important for civil society to have a voice and be included in conversations with policy makers. At the Centre, we bring forward different perspectives and can share a global view of trends and signals. At the gathering of ESPAS, we had a unique opportunity to share our approach on futures thinking and the methods we use to develop futures thinking resources, such as trends mapping and signal spotting, through which we seek diverse inputs and ask critical questions to challenging our assumptions about the signals and trends we see emerging.
Taking a participatory approach to futures thinking
We take a participatory approach to our futures thinking. This allows for more inclusive and transformative futures to emerge, enabling out-of-the-box thinking with diverse input building upon our past experiences. By seeking a broader range of opinions and situations from a global perspective, we enable more inclusive and transformative futures to emerge. For policymakers, these wider perspectives ensure the implications on civil society organisations are better understood and more robust and future-proof policies are developed.
Trends and Signals
Our recent work highlights several key trends impacting the civic space. This includes Mis, Dis, and Mal information: AI-driven manipulation, erosion of trust in public institutions, and the rise of opinion engineering through social media. These trends can harm trust, democracy, and social cohesion, and CSOs need tools and strategies to address mitigating these effects.
Our work on anticipating futures examined trends on civic space. Key trends in this area are the increase in global conflicts, crises of multilateralism, tech solutionism, the influence of corporations, securitisation, disinformation, demographic shifts, growing inequalities, and climate injustice. All these interlinking and overarching themes need to be addressed to strengthen civic space. How we react to these challenges is vital for maintaining social stability, promoting human rights, and upholding the rule of law within the EU and globally.
CSOs and Futures Thinking
For more information about our futures work and that of the ESPAS please see:
- ESPAS (external website homepage)
- Toolkit for Tomorrow: Anticipating Civil Society Futures (toolkit) – Now also available to download in French and Spanish.
- Insights and Foresights: Learnings on mis-, dis-, and malinformation (resource collection)
Rachel Wilkinson
Programme Manager – Futures and Innovation
International Civil Society Centre
Rachel leads the Futures and Innovation programme at the Centre. She is responsible for managing the portfolio of projects and events as well as leading and developing the Scanning the Horizon strategic peer learning platform. Rachel has more than 15 years of experience working in the third sector, on a national and international level, working for various ICSOs in international development and human rights in both London and Berlin.
