The European Strategy and Policy Analysis System brings together EU institutions and bodies who are committed to thinking longer term about the challenges and opportunities facing Europe.

ESPAS Horizon scanning project is a structured activity whose objective is to detect and analyse at an early stage emerging ‘game changers’ that could have significant impact on society and policy. Beyond seeking and identifying emerging trends, horizon scanning helps assess and prioritise early signals for decision-making or for further examination and analysis.

The horizon scanning process

The process is threefold. It starts by collecting ‘signs of new’ from scanners across the European Institutions and bodies, as well as international organisations. Next, sense-making workshops are held to identify potential emerging trends, and finally, meaning-making sessions are conducted to understand the possible consequences and policy implications. These sessions result in lists of 'signals of change', identified emerging developments

1) Scanning

Scanners are always on the hunt for ‘signs of new’: factual information about new developments indicating something different, potentially significant. These signs are shared on the Futurium platform for discussion.

 2) Sense-making

Monthly sense-making workshops are held to examine collected ‘signs of new’, find links and interconnections among them across policies and sectors, and envisage potential impactful future developments, or ‘signals of change’.

3) Future impacts

Future impact workshops are exploratory and prioritisation sessions, held after some sense-making workshops. They aim to decipher the three potentially most impactful ‘signals of change’ from about 20 signals.

This careful process results in publication of Horizon Scanning newsletters providing a broader perspective on policy making.

Read all the publications

Horizon scanning feeds in to other ESPAS projects, for example the Global Trends Reports. 

To learn more about the ESPAS Horizon Scanning project or be part of it, please contact JRC-HORIZONSCAN@ec.europa.eu.