Look ahead to keep up - Foresight exercise explores universities’ fate in different geopolitical futures [Op-ed]
To achieve lasting impact and shape the future in a positive direction, foresight must go hand-in-hand with strategic decision-making. In Research Europe, EUA’s Policy Coordination and Foresight team elaborate on their work to explore Europe’s possible futures.
For Anna-Lena Claeys-Kulik and Thomas Jørgensen, in today’s world it is important for the university sector to take a step back and think about the future strategically, using tools to provoke the imagination to picture possible futures, prepare for different possibilities and enhance resilience.
In this article for Research Europe, they make the case for European universities to make futures thinking and strategic foresight methodologies part of their planning, drawing on the results of EUA’s own Universities and the futures of Europe project. In particular, they describe the approach of their co-authored foresight report “What if?”, which examines likely influences on the future of university cooperation in Europe in the next decade, analyses political, economic, social, legal, technological and environmental drivers of change and outlines four different forecasts of possible futures for transnational university cooperation.
The full article is available on Research Professional News: Transformation to collapse: four futures for Europe’s universities.
“Expert Voices” is an online platform featuring original commentary and analysis on the higher education and research sector in Europe. It offers EUA experts, members and partners the opportunity to share their expertise and perspectives in an interactive and flexible exchange on key topics in the field.
All views expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of EUA.
