Futures Stories

The future can evolve in different directions, each shaped by our actions of today. In order to capture the ideas about the future the European Commission’s Competence Centre on Foresight has launched the event  #OurFutures - Stories for the future of Europe.

We invite you all to write a very short story expressing what you would like to see in the Europe of the future, with your hopes, uncertainties and ideas. You can add your story via bit.ly/our_futures

Tell us your story

You can write more than one short story if you feel strongly about more than one issue. Your input, along with that of others, will be translated in all EU languages. 

Do you like to know what other citizens in Europe think? You can also read about their visions and ideas at the Futures4Europe page. And you are welcome to come back as new stories are updated regularly.  

Other stories

Futures Insights

The material you will give us will be analysed and shared with EU policy makers. We will look for early signs of potentially important developments, persistent problems, novel and unexpected issues. These outcomes will serve to generate actual, future-oriented recommendations for EU action to build together the Europe that we want.

For example this general analysis of stories from 2022 presented to policy makers at the European Commission  'A portrait of how EU citizens imagine their futures' and an analysis of stories by Greek citizens presented to policy makers in Greece 'Futures imagined by Greek citizens'  

The collected date is available at an open database for all interested researchers, policymakers and others that would like to explore these stories of the future of Europe.

Go to database

Reports

Resilience. The future of Europe as seen by EU citizens

This report presents an analysis on the topic of resilience of the stories selected from the #OurFutures initiative. These stories — envisioning life in 2040 — provide unique insights into how people across the EU perceive Europe's capacity to remain resilient amid multiple transformative challenges. This thematic analysis supports the European Commission’s 2025 Strategic Foresight Report on resilience. It therefore focuses on stories that explicitly reference the role and position of Europe, its institutions, and its collective future.

Read the report

Emergent patterns - the future of Europe seen by EU citizens

The results of the #OurFutures stories can be analysed per country, per age group, per policy domain or other classifications. The analyses can also correlate several parameters to check whether certain values or preferences occur in specific combinations. This report gives an overview of who are the people so far who shared their stories, main themes, feelings associated in these stories, sources of influence, and likely hood and capacity to makes the stories happen.

Read the report

Futures imagined by Greek citizens

The objective of this report is to show the potential of the tool. While coming from a very small sample of Greek citizens, these first analyses are very promising. They demonstrate that the insights that they provide can serve to generate concrete, future-oriented recommendations for EU action. 

Read the report

Additional program

We will make sure policy-makers will learn about your stories, we will inspire them with your ideas.

But if you like to take action yourself and want to become a change-maker, future-oriented thinking might help.

This nicely designed Futures Frequency workshop, by Sitra, will give you guidelines to organise your own workshop, and discuss the future together.

And don't forget to share your images for the future in our database at the end!

Futures Frequency workshop

Of course you can also add this, as a short intro or outro, to your own (futures) workshops, presentations or discussions. If during that activity you would like to discuss your results in real live, follow this link. Or let us know and we can help you.

Inspiration

Need some inspiration, feel free to read the stories of others. Or check out some nice co-created future narratives @storiesfrom2050, or 365 unique visions on the future of our planet @onedayin2050. If you have a nice initiative let us know, and we can spotlight it here.

Go to stories

Collaborations 

This is a collaborative project, we work together with partners from all over Europe to stimulate a future mindset and collect futures images from all citizens in the EU. 

Are you interested in supporting us with this mission? We are happy to hear from you.

Write to us

Active partners and ongoing collaborations:

Special thanks

A special thanks to our partners Sensemaker, Voices that Count, Infinite Futures, Foresight Unit - Presidency of the Government in Greece, and the workshop participants that helped us test the questionnaire. 

Futures4Europe

We are hosting #OurFutures at the Futures4Europe platform. A great foresight community of engaged citizens, policy makers and foresight experts. Join us there. 

Year of Youth 2022

2022 was the European Commission Year of Youth. We believe the voices of young people matter. Therefore we spotlight some of our stories written by youth on the 'Views and Hopes for the Future' page. Are you under 30 and do you also like to spotlight your story, this is your invite. 

Conference on the Future of Europe

This project was also part of the Conference on the Future of Europe (Cofe) 2021 - 2022. Initiated by 3 EU Institutions (Parliament, Commission and Council), as a unique opportunity for citizens across the European Union to express their views on the future of Europe. During the conference the multi-lingual platform collected a vast amount of information, which reflects the expectations, ideals and aspirations of Europeans. A way to influence the political debate and contribute to building a future we can all share.