Harnessing Foresight for Future-Oriented Policymaking is an ongoing joint project by the European Commission Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM) and the EU Policy Lab of the Joint Research Centre.

The current world - defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), requires decisionmakers to sharpen their capacity to look ahead, think and work in a proactive, systemic and creative way, amongst others by using foresight.

The project supports foresight capacity building in EU Member States and integrating future-oriented thinking into decision-making. It underpins the implementation of the ComPAct - Enhancing the European Administrative Space and its ʺPublic Administration Skills Agendaʺ pillar. Through this pillar the Commission aims to support EU Member States in their efforts to build resilient, attractive, transparent, and high performing public administrations by equipping them with a wide range of tools to upskill and reskill their workforce.

Future-oriented Policymaking - project actions:

The main deliverables will include:

Stay tuned for the updates on this page! 

If, in the meantime, you already want to explore the future, check out our TED-ED Future Forward  lessons. With the help of short animations, you will be guided through different topics explaining futures thinking. Interesting for people of all ages, including policy makers. 

See also our comprehensive Foresight training package for EU policymakers, which is designed to inspire innovative thinking, provide applied knowledge on foresight through progressive learning pathways, and offer tailored guidance for policy departments in their specified foresight journeys.