All started with one idea

Innovative Policymaking

Traditional roles of government and public administration need to adjust to emerging and future needs of societies, also shown by the EU FuturGov project. However, short-term policy cycles and dealing with urgent crises attract more attention than long-term considerations. Ad-hoc adaptations of the current system are preferred over transformational action. To overcome this, we are creating structures and mechanisms that allow and promote acting upon knowledge about the future by developing innovations that have the potential to impact public value, as also advocated, amongst others, OECD for anticipatory innovation governance.

Futures Garden tries to expand this knowledge about futures by exploring the potential impacts of ideas and issues, which we are only starting to notice (the weak signals). We can then begin to imagine how they could shape the way we make policies and specifically bring:

  • Unexpected ways of learning, listening and absorbing the signals of change.

  • Unconventional modes of analysis and understanding.

  • Unusual ideas for designing policies, new types of policy actions and instruments.

Futures Garden initiated by the EU Policy Lab of the Joint Research Centre

Commissioned by the DG for Research & Innovation through the Foresight on Demand framework contract

Futures of Democracy

Good policymaking involves those affected by the decisions. To sustain trust in the European Union, EU policies need to take into account and reflect the values and concerns of citizens. Therefore, active participation of citizens in policymaking is essential. The current consultation system offers individuals and groups opportunities to give feedback on ex-ante assessments of impact of potential new laws and on the legislative proposals. In parallel, big participatory processes are organised, such as the Conference on the Future of Europe, with European citizen’s panels and a digital platform to foster debate. Citizens’ panels contribute also to making recommendations ahead of certain EC initiatives (e.g. food waste, virtual worlds). Futures Garden experiments with two aspects of engaging citizens in public policies: exploring the unknown and deliberation through artefacts. Conventionally, citizens are involved in policymaking at the stage when policy issues are already initially framed. Here, they are welcomed at an earlier stage where the issue itself is unclear. In this conversation, instead of evidence and arguments, the citizens are guided by future artefacts to imagine potential new worlds.