Introduction
Forward-looking activities have become an increasingly important for decision-making and policy formulation, and societal efforts to cope with the growing rapidity and uncertainty characterising societal change.Reference Barbieri Masini1–Reference May4
The pervasive power of ICT/CCST (Information and Communication Technologies/Computer and Communication Sciences and Technologies) is one of the drivers of social transformations and it is fundamentally changing the social, political, cultural and economic environment in which we live. To give only one example, the number of internet users has increased exponentially in the last few years. It has been calculated that, in the period 2000–2009, the increase of internet users amounts to 380.3% (Internet usage statistics, September 2009, http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm), making the internet a source of considerable potential for individuals, business and countries. On the one hand, the growing share of the population entering this interconnected society worldwide is a measure of the capacity of ICT/CCST to empower individuals on a global basis. On the other hand, the ubiquitous diffusion of ICT in everyday life is creating new divides that challenge this new society: increasing inequalities in access to ICTs reduce opportunities for individuals and institutions to develop and use knowledge and information that could help to foster innovation, facilitate efficient decision-making, and support education and training.
As the Digital Revolution flourishes, new technologies and new forms of societal organisations are rapidly emerging: new groupings, social behaviours, division of labour, but also new partitions, sources of segregation, and challenges. It is therefore necessary to examine the impacts of ICT/CCST on individuals and society, as well as to consider the perspectives and the needs of individuals and the society when developing new technologies. In addition, there are still not enough instances that creatively define the statute of the end users in innovation dynamics in order to feed the decision-making process in such a way as to have significant influence on the development and application of new technologies.
However, as these new technologies project their potential reach in the long-term future, an understanding of the societal implications of ICT/CCST has to include a forward-looking perspective. Obviously, such a perspective cannot be limited to an exploration of the possible technical options and choices, but has also to include their social environment (e.g. Ref. Reference De Laat5).
Reacting to the gaps identified above, the necessity to explore the emerging societal trajectories that accompany the developments of these new technologies and the goal to help shaping these technologies according to societal needs were the primary drivers of a two-day strategic workshop organised by the COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Office in October 2009 in Bruges in the frame of the COST Foresight 2030 series. COST Foresight 2030 was an interdisciplinary initiative encompassing a set of events designed to explore a multi-disciplinary vision for a future permeated and shaped by the Digital Revolution.
The workshop Living the Digital Revolution: The European Society in 2030, the concluding one of the six workshops of the initiative, gathered 20 distinguished scholars and experts from Europe and beyond (AU, NZ, US) for an exploratory brainstorming session. Representing various fields in the social sciences and humanities, such as sociology, education and learning, future studies, law and ethics, economics and business, demography and ICT, the experts focused on the possible trajectories of the European societies with regard to the accelerating advancements in ICT/CCST leading up to 2030. In its set-up, the workshop aimed at: picturing trends, possible, probable, desirable futures of the future European society/ies as shaped by the strong technological development intrinsic in the Digital Revolution; identifying the challenges for future society, potential solutions and their probability of happening in the future; assessing and reflecting on the impact of new technologies on our future daily life and how societal needs will help in shaping them. Although it focused on Europe, the workshop participants were conscious of the necessity to keep a global perspective.
Methodology
The workshop has been convened to gather experts’ insights and opinions on ICT/CCST and the European society/ies in the short, medium and long-term (ideally up to 2030).
The European Social Model (ESM) served as the normative reference for the participants’ brainstorming: they considered the implications of the Digital Revolution for the ESM – a vision of society that combines sustainable economic growth with improved living and working conditions. The European Social Model and the related European Social Agenda6–8 identify key areas where activities at European level add value:
• Creating opportunities in order to generate more and better jobs, facilitate mobility and increase welfare.
• Providing access to healthcare, education, social services for all citizens, so as to exploit opportunities and overcome inequalities.
• Demonstrating social solidarity to increase efforts to fight poverty and social exclusion and to help citizens to adapt to and benefit from the changing realities, thereby fostering social inclusion, integration, participation, dialogue and poverty reduction.
Before attending the Living the Digital Revolution workshop, participants were asked to answer three questions after reading some background material provided by the workshop convenors, including a non-exclusive list of societal trends with a potentially high impact on the future of the European society. The proposed trends included: an ageing society; changing higher education and knowledge management; globalisation, regionalisation and the reorganisation of space; an individualised society; migration; science, technology and society in knowledge economies. The questions to be answered by the experts focused mainly on the participants’ opinion on the proposed or additional future trends, their potential relevance and impact and their link with disruptive technological changes. The participants’ replies, together with a list of open questions derived from them, were compiled before the workshop and served as starting point for the discussions.
During the workshop, participants broke into three groups to consider changes to the European society within the following macro areas:
• Social organisation – including issues such as social composition, gender issues, labour flows, migration, cities, families, and education.
• Governance – including ‘good governance’, accountability of decision-makers, improved decision-making, legitimacy, and citizen involvement.
• Quality of life – including well-being, health, environment, food security, and questions of sustainability.
In the first brainstorming sessions, each group had to analyse the changes and trends they were expecting to happen in the three macro areas and to suggest three to four major changes, which they considered as the most important and most likely to happen. The groups were also asked to discuss wild cards (cf. Ref. Reference van Notten, Sleegers and van Asselt9 for a discussion of this notion) in order to explore possible discontinuities, too. The inputs from the three groups were collected and, in light of the ‘digital revolution’, used as a common basis for an initial exploration of possible developments of European societies and their implications for the European Social Model, as well as for formulating policy recommendations.
In order to reach a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the future challenges and possible answers to them, the experts used different approaches for the development of possible stories describing Europe 20 years from now. Thus, while all three groups referred the three macro areas given at the beginning of the workshop, two groups adopted an exploratory approach while one group was asked to use a normative one (e.g. Ref. Reference Barbieri Masini10, and the following section).
Exploring European Futures
Participants engaged in the scrutiny of the future by adopting both exploratory and normative perspectives. Such an exploration relied mainly on participants’ expertise and backgrounds but also on inputs from background papers, events and trends highlighted in previous COST Foresight 2030 workshops. The expected result was the formulation of insights on alternative social, technical, economic, environmental, educational, and political characteristics of European societies leading up to 2030, which served as a reference to address policy implications as well as the impact on the European Social Model of these possible transformations.
These insights about the future reflect different assumptions about how current trends and issues will play out and what new factors will come into play to create a range of different futures. Potential shifts in values, socio-economic structures (education, occupation, employment, poverty and income distribution), our environment, healthcare, demographics and a wide range of other factors have been taken into account.
To examine these alternatives for the future, the participants split into three working groups. Two of these working groups adopted an exploratory perspective, i.e. they started from the present and tried to envisage potential futures stemming from events and trends previously identified by the group of experts. One working group instead adopted a normative approach, i.e. they described a best and worst case scenario and cast against these two possibilities the events and trends previously identified. In this article, only the desirable scenario will be presented.
The purpose of dividing the experts into subgroups was in line with the emphasis of the workshop on diversity of opinions and openness of explorations. However, although developed separately, many common themes were identified in the three exercises. Finally, the results of the three working groups were then presented in a plenary for further discussion and cross-fertilisation of working groups’ results.
Working Group 1: Images of the Future
The participants of the first working group picked up an energy crisis as a wild-card to enter the discussion about the future of European society. Starved of fossil fuels for a short time, a systemic collapse is likely to happen. Transportation for leisure and work, household appliances, food storage and major services have all ground to a halt. Networked digital systems may have been protected, but are inaccessible to users. Vulnerable groups suffer the most.
When the acute crisis has passed, it is ‘business-as-usual’, with no long-term consequences, except for the continuing vulnerability of European society to the energy crisis. The lasting legacy of such a crisis may be cultural rather than systemic, raising individual and public awareness about the need to limit energy dependence, and in general, about society’s reliance on technology. Experts advise that the closer we are to 2030, the more likely is this energy crisis, due to the likely increase of global demand of fossil fuels, the shortage of financial capital needed to shift to alternative energies and the vulnerability of energy supply to political instability in the supplying regions.
The following is a glimpse of what society might look like from 2015 to 2030 according to this working group’s discussion.
Social organization
For the experts gathered in this working group, the crucial tipping point was the enduring impact of cultural pluralism on future societies. On the one hand, cultural pluralism was acknowledged as a source of conflicts over values and worldviews. On the other hand, this diversity may be a source of social exclusion in general, and, in particular, a determinant of unequal access to ICT, thus adding up to the digital divides in society that already now affect more severely vulnerable parts of immigrant groups (e.g. elderly women).
Education has been considered as an integrative strategy to cope with this diversity: focusing on these issues, the generalisation of lifelong learning in the period 2015–2025 can therefore mitigate the potential conflict inherent in cultural pluralism.
At the individual level, lifelong learning is also crucial for exploiting the opportunities offered by rapidly developing ICT: in the short run, by social media, that are increasingly becoming platforms for creativity and ways to (personal) success; in the longer run, by cooperative and participatory design technologies, that will help to release individuals’ artistic talent and creativity (for an ‘antecedent’, see today’s Open-Source Car – OSCAR). In addition, enhanced social networking tools will have a huge potential for empowering and mobilising dispersed groups of people in the political arena, and enhanced communication and remote-presence technologies will enable individuals to work mainly remotely, combining real-world and virtual-world operations and relationships.
Two crucial questions arise from the latter two considerations in this scenario. The first relates to the established nation-state role and attributes: can national-based regulatory (and taxation) systems cope with the possibility of shifting through multiple layers of activity organised in multiple spaces, both virtual and physical? The second question is cultural and refers to how increased cooperation, creativity, and talent released by the use of ICT may lead to a re-examination of our understanding of wealth beyond simple valuing commodities and services to include intangible elements such as knowledge, learning, wisdom and self-fulfilment. These changing notions of knowledge and wealth may reshape teaching and learning organisations. While these issues may fully demonstrate their relevance in the very long run, close to 2030, trends that may enable these changes, such as the spread and enhancement of virtual presence/reality technologies are already here, and they are likely to develop rapidly in the 2015–2025 time horizon.
Quality of life
A baseline trend identified in this picture is that of a healthier population, which is said to characterise the entire time-span that has been considered. This is the result of many likely factors, including an increased awareness of food security and diet issues, the possibility to monitor constantly the health of individuals and populations thanks to ICT, and the advances of research on nutritional and health issues.
Healthier and older populations are likely to lead to societies where the role of the elderly changes fundamentally, as they are more integrated into the economic cycle and involved in caring and supporting activities in their families. If this hypothesis is confirmed, the relationship between education/work/retirement may be fully redesigned in the very long run (2025–2030), with blurred boundaries and constant shifts between these three ‘phases of life’. Financial support to the elderly will partially shift to alternatives to pension benefits for other forms of financial support valuing elderly people’s increased self-sufficiency and vitality (e.g. microcredit). Even lifelong work becomes a possible option in this picture. The increasingly active role of the elderly may lead to a cultural change sweeping aside the former meaning of ageing and retirement.
In the medium–long term (2015–2025), the incorporation of environmental values in education will contribute decidedly to harmonise individual and environmental health, eliminating the perceived trade-off between individual and collective well-being. ICT enable citizens to act as influential ‘prosumers’ and to form pro-environment pressure groups.
Governance
The considered time-span will be characterised by the general trend towards the reorganisation of geographical space and of the relations between real and virtual spaces (see the Quality of life section above) that will increasingly challenge national policy and legal frameworks in areas such as monetary policy and instruments, macroeconomic policy, research policy and intellectual property rights, and their capacity to create wealth and implement redistributive actions.
This process is coupled with a parallel long-term trend of searching for new forms of legitimized governance, raising issues about the accountability and responsibility of the multiple actors that crowd this arena, as well as about the need of new mechanisms for defining and enforcing regulations.
Working Group 2: Images of the Future
The key point that initiated the second picture was the idea of an increasing cultural pluralism within Europe that will strongly characterise the future European society, analysing both the benefits and potential drawbacks this will bring. The importance of ageing populations and healthcare was acknowledged, too, but working groups did not discuss these trends thoroughly.
The following is a glimpse of what society might look like from 2015 to 2030 according to the discussion of the second working group.
Social organization
In an enlarged multicultural Europe, attracting many immigrants, cultural pluralism is to be considered as a natural key feature of the future European society and a long-term trend requiring urgent action and behavioural change by both citizens and policy-makers. Increasing cultural pluralism results in a change in the population and therefore a change in values and their social distribution. This might lead to a decrease in social solidarity and an increase in fragmentation. Schools are expected to be one of the first places where conflicts arise. As a consequence, the educational system should be changed in order to allow space for the promotion of values such as cultural integration and tolerance.
However, the need to adapt to cultural pluralism will be only one of the reasons why the educational system will have to change. The increased diffusion and use of ICT will have a major impact on it, too. For example, by 2015, universities are expected to deliver their lectures in a mixed real–virtual university, and by 2020, all public schools will have the necessary ICT infrastructure and in-house knowledge to use these new technologies. At the same time, new forms of learning will be created to respond better to new emerging needs. Also in this picture, lifelong learning will become crucial: people will live longer and work longer, with a constant need to update their skills. More time should also be dedicated to education for people who do not have ICT skills; peer-to-peer education is expected to play a major role in this regard, allowing us to have all of the active population ICT-educated by 2030.
The high diffusion of ICT will also have a strong influence on the economy. The evolution of a virtual world will create space for new forms of completely virtual economic activities. Matched with creativity, this could boost the creation of innovative services based on ICT. The parallel development of adequate regulation would be necessary for those new services to start up. Additional services provided through ICT could include the use of humanoids and/or robot companions for assisting people to live independently as well as services delivered via mobile phones.
However, these economic benefits might not be enough to maintain Europe’s role in the global economy. This could be endangered by the increasing power of new emerging economies, especially in Asia, resulting in a relative slowdown of European growth in traditional terms, although guaranteeing a very high quality of life for its citizens. The calculation of growth with new indicators such as quality of life, happiness, and well-being could still reverse this trend and guarantee Europe’s leading role at a global scale.
Quality of Life
Despite changes in the economy and increased poverty, the quality of life will remain quite high in Europe. This will be facilitated by empowered citizens who will be the first in line to protect their wellbeing. The figure of the so-called ‘prosumer’ will permeate all aspects of our life, creating a considerably strong change in citizens’ behaviour as they shift from being mere consumers to proactive producers and more active citizens. These new behavioural patterns will have an impact on energy savings, but will also create a more responsible consumer and producer, especially in relation to food consumption and safety. Such prosumers may also impact the overall governance system. Potential Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues as well as other potential impending factors (e.g. monopolies) to the take off of this new behaviour should be tackled by policy makers.
Thanks to this more responsible behaviour among citizens and society, a low carbon society can be a reality by 2030, This will take place at all levels, including industry, and will require a strong commitment at political level to allow the changes and provide the necessary financial support for the creation of innovative products such as biodegradable materials for electronics. In this context, the protection of the environment will be increasingly important and will become central to the political agenda. The environment will be considered as a collective good not to be exploited, but to be protected.
Food security and quality will become a crucial issue for Europe too. A shift in food production with an increase of local and Euro-Africa food production is expected to happen, but this would have to be accompanied by a strong political commitment to avoid potential ‘food crises’.
Governance
In the coming 20 years, the concept of governance will change significantly, and new forms of governance will appear in our daily lives. This will be influenced by an increasing need for environmental protection, as well as by the need to guarantee high standards for our quality of life. Moreover, new security issues will be the determinant for the introduction of new regulations.
On a global level, by 2025 there will be a shift towards a multi-polar world where governance will be guaranteed by a few large countries or unions of countries. If Europe will be able to catch up with the rising Asian powers, then it will play an important role in this multi-polar world. The US will see its supremacy reduced.
Governance will change significantly at local level as well. States will have to face and cope with a rise in reliance on non-state enforcement of community law. They will also need to coexist with new forms of governance developing at local level due to increasing cultural pluralism, the diffusion of ICT and social networking, and the possibility of new types of lives in a 3D world.
ICT will play a twofold role in this shift: from one perspective, it is the main reason for the need of these new forms of governance as ICT reduces the importance of the concepts of place and space. Thanks to ICT, people living miles away can engage in social relationships that are less place-dependent. From another perspective, ICT will play a key role in the development and implementation of these new forms of governance and provide states with useful tools to overcoming these issues.
Europe will also face an increasing need for security to maintain a high level of quality of life within its borders. To do so, outside border control and surveillance will be increased and migration will be regulated at a central level. This is also a precaution for what was considered a wild-card: a terrorist attack of massive proportions, like a ‘European 9/11’.
Working Group 3: Images of the Future
As mentioned earlier, in order to develop their picture, the third group adopted a normative framework, aiming at drawing a picture of what the European society in 2030 should ideally look like – a vision that takes into account the premises of the European Social Model.
One tipping point discussed was a deepening of the financial crisis leading to a complete disconnection between the real and virtual economies. Other wild cards identified by the participants were medical immortality (what would happen if death could be ‘medically cured’), massive changes of religious demographics, or a global pandemic.
The experts agreed on central issues that needed to be included in the scenario: how to benefit from and cope with cultural pluralism; the key roles of education, knowledge management and creativity; access to resources (technologies, education, knowledge, healthcare, energy and food); equal rights and opportunities for all parts of the population; individual empowerment; and issues of trust, accountability, transparency and legitimacy.
The following is a glimpse of what society might look like from 2015 to 2030 according to the desirable scenario developed by the third working group.
Social organization
In this vision of a desirable future, education plays a major role: There is open, universal access to education and – because people are living longer, more productive lives – lifelong learning is the norm. Education, particularly of young people, will focus on tolerance and acceptance to reflect the increasing integration of pluralism and diversity in European society. Increased and equal access to knowledge will help to overcome socio-economic inequalities.
In this vision, knowledge will be organised and delivered in a horizontal manner, covering a wide range of disciplines. Learning will be broadly participative. Citizens will be encouraged to ‘learn how to think’ as the learning process is active and engaging. Citizens will be intrinsically motivated to learn as education becomes part of their everyday lives. Creativity will be re-defined as a key value, and creative thinking and acting will be fostered at all levels.
Changes in the education system are paramount and people must become critical thinkers. Schools need to be transformed to foster this paradigm shift. Professional training will cover a wide spectrum of subjects and certificates/degrees will be validated by the respective sectors.
An inclusive society that embraces cultural pluralism will evolve where everyone can participate in community life, rather than an exclusive society divided by rising social inequities, riots, conflicts and wars. The virtual world will have evolved, boundaries with the real world will blur. People will use virtual spaces to alleviate social isolation and alienation, thereby complementing social needs.
New methodologies and tools to measure society’s health will have evolved. GDP will no longer be the norm – societies will not be driven by the need for ‘growth at all costs’.
As for the political level, in the near future, we will live in a multi-polar world. In this scenario, people share and create common visions. However, we need to be aware that a multi-polar world could also fragment society as conflicts might erupt between different communities, nations or religions. Solutions will have to be identified before they are actually needed.
The future should be defined by respectful, social interactions, dialogue, universal access to information and literacy.
Quality of life
Enlightened prosumers will view the environment as a global public good and their behaviour will reflect society’s need for sustainable consumption. People will be aware of their environmental life footprint. Food will be produced, distributed and consumed sustainably, with food prices being controlled. In this vision, there is universal food safety and access rather than a food divide, unequal access to water and rising water contamination. ICT helps consumers to plan and manage resources and avoid imbalances such as shortages and surpluses.
Wealth will be distributed worldwide and universal efforts will be undertaken to combat poverty. Educated consumers will manage their own health and nutrition, which leads to healthier societies. Bio-agriculture will ensure that food is nutritious. Responsible individuals and collective management of natural resources replace unsustainable consumption.
Personal, social and environmental limitations are acknowledged and taken into consideration. Instead of no ‘off time’, competing pressures and demands, there is a balanced and collective use of time where people do not struggle with the work–life balance at the expense of their health and family relationships. Well-being rather than wealth is a measure of social health. Societies are characterised by social ‘solidarity’ rather than social isolation.
Governance
Participatory societies will be built by empowered individuals and grass roots movements.
Collaborative modes of innovation will flourish. This will lead to a new definition of wealth creation as individuals increasingly participate in society. Creative capital, such as ideas, will be highly valued and intellectual property will be considered as services. This, of course, requires new framework conditions for value creation and creativity exchange. New forms of protecting intellectual property will also evolve as collaborative innovation takes root and grows. Social media will continue to transform societies and create opportunities.
European citizens will be protected by a responsive and informed security network. Individuals will enjoy a well-defined and informed security apparatus. With high-speed networks becoming ever more pervasive and powerful, producers and legislators have to make sure they are open and trusted. This enabling infrastructure is crucial but will require social acceptance and individual empowerment that need to be actively sought.
In order to allow this desirable vision to become reality, we need to start today. For this, visionary leadership is key.
Policy Recommendations
In order for the outlined pictures and visions of the future to become real, significant changes in policy-making are needed. In a society where ICT/CCST will play an increasingly important role, policy makers need to provide the adequate framework for the future citizens to allow them to fully benefit from the new technologies. This framework should enable the creation of adequate ICT infrastructures; empower citizens; encourage innovation; protect the environment by addressing the threats posed by climate change, and lay the groundwork for low-carbon economic growth.
In order to maximise those benefits, a closer cooperation among governments, civil society organisations and the private sector is needed.
Drawing from the insights provided by working groups, the following recommendations have been formulated as major points of future policy development to benefit from the Digital Revolution:
• Education and knowledge management must be reorganised to support new types of knowledge in all fields. New curricula as well as different styles of teaching methods and spaces should be developed to further promote the study of science and technology and engineering. The involvement of the Humanities in more technical curricula would be the novelty with philosophy playing a major role towards complementing the users’ perspectives. This reorganisation should be accompanied by the provision of new educational facilities that will encourage new conceptual thinking. Access to knowledge, both virtual and real, should be guaranteed for everybody while lifelong learning will become the norm for all citizens.
• Owing to the increased cultural pluralism in Europe, policies that help with coping with and benefiting from multiculturalism should have a high priority in the future European agenda. Policies supporting multiculturalism in schools are needed to benefit from diversity and favour the integration of immigrants into European society. The promotion of tolerance and cultural pluralism in general should be endorsed as a way to prevent social exclusion and poverty.
• Policy-making procedures should be changed to address what will benefit as many people as possible. New participatory modes of governance should include knowledge collection from a broad range of European citizens and stakeholders to create ‘holistic’ policies. Citizens should be empowered to take a responsible action in this direction. Virtual spaces should also be used to reach global solutions with consequent adequate facilities and regulation.
• Universal access to wireless communication technologies must be guaranteed. Funding for improving and providing (whenever necessary) the infrastructure should be increased. Access to the skills for using ICT should be included in educational programmes as well as guaranteed for everybody through lifelong learning.
• The empowerment of individuals in all areas has to be a key notion for future policies. Support for empowering individuals should also be available for increasing awareness about environmental friendly behaviour at all levels, in schools, at work, in industry and in the public sector.
• Creativity needs to become a key notion, and creative thinking will have to be fostered at all levels. The value of human capital has to be recognised, particularly as individuals engage in lifelong participation in society.
• The spreading of the prosumer concept will have a significant impact on the daily life of Europeans. Future policies should focus on the provision of an adequate regulatory framework, both at national and European level, for the uptake of this new behaviour. Issues such as intellectual property protection, privacy and fair remuneration might arise as a consequence of the increasing diffusion of this new behaviour and should be tackled by future policies.
• New policy frameworks and metrics are needed for measuring the success of societies. A new definition of growth is needed. The concept of measuring success by GDP has to be replaced or broadened to include well-being, happiness, health and quality of life.
• In view of a shift towards low-carbon societies, a prerequisite would be the self-sustainability of the ICT industry. New regulations, but most of all dedicated funding, should therefore be put on the future agenda. Priority should be given to the development of bio-friendly materials for ICT and of other new environmentally friendly ones, which will have a substantial impact on the lifecycle of the ICT industry.
• It is important to develop protocols, prices and policies around ethical engagement, involving transparency and accountability. Ethical drivers around the development of ICT must be taken into consideration.
Living the Digital Revolution: An Open-ended Conclusion
What will Europe and its societies look like in 20 years from now, assuming that the technological advancements will continue to grow exponentially? This was the question experts tried to answer when gathering in Bruges. There was a general agreement that new technologies – in the sense of enabling technologies – will play a key role in shaping the future society. Virtual worlds and realities will become increasingly important in all areas of life, be it family, leisure, business, economics or politics – just to name a few.
In their discussion, the workshop participants identified trends and developments that have the potential to change the face of the world we know today. If we want to enable all citizens to live in and benefit from our future societies, the major stepping stone towards the future is education and knowledge management. Education has to happen at all levels, starting from the early childhood until old age. Life-long learning will be the norm. Tomorrow’s citizens will live longer, which will lead to dramatic changes to work life and the role of the elderly in our societies. Increased longevity will create new dynamics in the lifecycle of education, work and retirement.
Education systems will have to be radically reformed, becoming interdisciplinary, horizontal and participatory. Education will also greatly influence the degree to which the broader objectives of the European Social Model are realised – in view of creating a society defined by inclusivity, equal opportunities and openness. For this purpose, the access for all to ICT tools and infrastructure as well as the ability to use them is pivotal.
Participants unanimously agreed that education is also crucial for allowing us to cope with our increasingly diverse societies. Increased migration will reinforce Europe’s cultural pluralism – a potential source of richness and creativity – that needs to be actively embraced in order to avoid social divides and worsened conflicts over values, cultures and world views. Education is the way to address cultural pluralism issues, but should be accompanied by immigration policies aiming at increasing public awareness about the value of immigrants for European societies.
The future society will be characterised by prosumers, proactive, empowered consumers who are ICT literate and active individuals living in an increasingly interconnected and complex world. With the environment becoming a global public good and growing environmental awareness, the educated prosumers will voluntarily downsize consumption and be aware of their individual life footprints. However, this will need to be supported by political measures.
Prosumers are also producers, as they customise products and services to suit their own needs. With social media being all pervasive, new opportunities for expression, sharing and collaboration for communities and for business will be created. New and different values are already emerging, defining new paradigms, also in economical terms.
Different ways of creating value will emerge in networked economies. Creativity will become a key value, and human capital will become paramount. Ways of distributing value will evolve, and the concept of protecting intellectual property will have to be redefined as people embrace alternative means of distribution and profit. Our current understanding of wealth will have to be replaced and the concept of ‘growth’ reconsidered. Is growth necessarily an aim in itself? Innovation will flourish as interconnected individuals focus on collaborative innovation in virtual spaces. Cloud computing will enable real-time delivery of products, services and solutions over the Internet by teams, eliminating the need for large-scale capitalisation. This raises questions concerning data control and ownership.
On a global level, the experts agreed that a multi-polar world is evolving. Developing economies, led by China and India, are already challenging the collective dominance of the United States, Europe and Japan, shifting the geographical balance of power. Europe needs to prepare itself for this shift and to formulate responses.
With a world moving towards increasing globalisation, communities and governance at the local level will become more important. This raises questions about the role – and reach – of governments in the changing geopolitical and geo-economic environments. The enhanced remote communication via ICT, from current social networking tools to virtual presence technologies, will alter the concept of individual mobility. This paves the way to multiple simultaneous locations for working and family life and to multiple allegiances that cannot be fully understood through the dual framework of the national political community and of the local social community.
Citizenship will take on new and different dimensions as boundaries between the virtual and the real worlds blur. Trust will shift away from institutions into networks and social relationships. This is already happening in peer-to-peer lending schemes, people raising loans through online communities, micro-patronage and micro-financing. Such networks are more accountable and transparent than today’s financial institutions.
In the context of enhanced collective and individual decision-making, ICT plays an important role. In turn, this requires security and privacy issues to be seriously addressed – if people are to trust in and accept new technologies. As life enhancement technologies become pervasive and personalised medicine evolves, society will have to address ethical considerations.
In this context, today’s inadequate governance structures and lack of global political vision will have to be replaced with new, more participatory forms of governance, visionary leadership, and new models of political accountability and transparency if we are to meet our greatest social, economic and environmental challenges.
As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it. (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
Simone Arnaldi has a PhD in social sciences from the Gregorian University in Rome. He currently serves as the Director of the Jacques Maritain Institute, a private, non-profit cultural institute based in the Italian town of Trieste. In addition, Simone is Research Fellow at the Interdepartmental Research Centre on Environmental Law Decisions and Corporate Ethical Certification of the University of Padua (IT), which studies the ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging technologies. He lectures at undergraduate and graduate levels in the areas of sociology, social studies of science and technology, social foresight at the Universities of Padua and Trieste (IT). Simone’s research interests include the social construction of future(s), theory and practice of foresight, and the relation between science, technology and society.
Francesca Boscolo graduated in International and Diplomatic Sciences at the University of Bologna (IT) in 2004. After working for the Chamber of Engineers of Land Hessen (Germany) as training organiser, she moved to Brussels (Belgium) in 2005 where she attended a Master in European Studies, specialising in European funding. Before joining the COST Office in 2008, Francesca worked as consultant for Ernst & Young and Deloitte European coordination offices in Brussels, where she supported clients with applications for European funding, mainly for ICT projects under the 6th and 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission. For Deloitte, she was also involved in the coordination of the European Network of Deloitte Grants & Incentives offices as well as of lobbying activities for clients all around Europe. Currently, Francesca is a Science Officer for the Science in Society Cluster within the COST Office, being responsible for the management of ICT, ISCH and TUD Actions.
Julia Stamm studied social and political sciences at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder (Germany) and international relations at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Lille (France). From 2004 to 2006, Julia was a PhD researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin/Germany, a Franco-German research centre for social sciences. In 2006, she obtained her PhD (with highest honour). In addition to her academic activities, Julia worked as project coordinator and expert on European affairs and communication in Berlin. In 2006, Julia joined the COST Office in Brussels as Science Officer. She currently manages the Domain of Individuals, Societies, Cultures and Health, which gathers over 25 pan-European research networks in the social sciences and humanities. Since 2009, Julia has been invited professor at the European University Viadrina where she is teaching elite and career sociology. Her research interests include political sociology, elite research, career sociology and European integration processes.
