European Commission

The move towards urbanisation is progressing and more than half of the world population is today living in cities. By the 2030s, five of the world’s eight billion people will live in urban areas. How can this continuous urbanisation trend be reconciled with the “Rio+ 20” Earth Summit hopes and the European Union’s commitment towards a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth by 2020? This publication addresses the issues of urbanisation focusing on the concentration of needs and services, the migration and settlement patterns in Europe, the new forms of poverty and exclusion, urban welfare and social innovation, and green urban planning. A greater understanding of the dynamics of urban societies will allow instability and risks within cities in humanitarian, economic and security terms to be better managed.

The World Energy Technology Outlook report (WETO-H2) provides a coherent framework to analyse the drivers and constraints in world energy to 2050, energy development and CO2 emissions. WETO-H2 presents three different scenarios for the future world energy system up to 2050: the Reference case, the Carbon constraint case and the Hydrogen case. The report highlights the main future energy, environmental and technological challenges that Europe will have to face in order to stay competitive while promoting new clean energy technologies.

The World Energy Technology Outlook report (WETO-H2) provides a coherent framework to analyse the drivers and constraints in world energy to 2050, energy development and CO2 emissions. WETO-H2 presents three different scenarios for the future world energy system up to 2050: the Reference case, the Carbon constraint case and the Hydrogen case. The report highlights the main future energy, environmental and technological challenges that Europe will have to face in order to stay competitive while promoting new clean energy technologies.

The world energy, technology and climate policy outlook (WETO) positions Europe in a global context. It provides a coherent framework to analyse the energy, technology and environment trends and issues over the period from now to 2030. In this way, it supports long-term European policy-making particularly considering the questions related to (1) the security of energy supply; (2) the European research area; (3) Kyoto targets and beyond. Using the POLES energy model and starting from a set of clear key assumptions on economic activity, population and hydrocarbon resources, WETO describes in detail the evolution of world and European energy systems, taking into account the impacts of climate change policies. The reference scenario encompasses international energy prices, primary fuel supply (oil, gas and coal), energy demand (global, regional and sectoral), power generation technologies and carbon dioxide emissions trends. To face uncertainties, WETO presents alternative scenarios corresponding to different assumptions on availability of oil and gas resources (low/high cases) and on technological progress (gas, coal, nuclear and renewable cases). Two major policy issues are addressed: (1) the outlook of the European Union gas market in a world perspective (impressive growth in gas demand and increasing dependence on energy imports); (2) the impacts of greenhouse gas emission reduction policies on the world energy system and on progress in power generation technologies. The rigorous analysis of long-term scenarios, with particular attention to the European Union in a global context, will enable policy-makers to define better energy, technology and environmental policies for a sustainable future.

Two major challenges will have to be addressed on the way towards a “postcarbon society”: the adoption of new forms of energy (cf. security of supply, availability of resources, oil price) and the adaptation to the climate change that is already taking place.
Most of the time, these issues are tackled from the supply side and the technological perspective. But the demand side is crucial. The political initiatives, the economic incentives and the social behaviour can make a difference. This publication covers issues including in the long term such as globalisation, behavioural changes, market mechanisms, “rethinking the city”, social acceptability, job creation, land-use and public services. It also addresses the role of politics and social actors (businesses and trade unions) as well as the new governance for a post-carbon society.

Forward looking activities (FLA) are used for the preparation and the formulation of EU policies.
Foresight and Forecasting allow to elaborate long term visions and to assess economic, social and environmental impacts of policies. Between 2007 and 2010 around twenty research FLA initiatives have been launched by the Seventh Research Framework Programme under the theme “Socioeconomic Sciences and Humanities” in the following fields: Globalisation, Europe and neighbouring countries; ERA (European Research Area), science, technology and innovation; Evaluation of policies and modelling of post-carbon society; Mapping, preferences, visions and wild cards.

This publication aims to give an overview of the methods and results concerning the future challenges in energy. Using various tools for energy foresight – quantitative models, Delphi survey and back-casting approach – Energy futures analyses Europe in a world context. It also highlights the importance of research in the energy field. Finally, it presents EU projects in this field at the cross roads of technology and socio-economy.

The European Union is concerned by the competitiveness, security and sustainability of its energy system. This publication presents the main results of the ENCOURAGED project that assessed the potential energy corridors between the EU and its neighbouring countries addressing in particular the issues on natural gas, electricity and hydrogen. The EU neighbouring countries are the main suppliers and transit countries of oil and natural gas. The dependency of the EU on imported gas supplies is largely increasing in the next years. Therefore, the role of neighbouring countries will grow significantly in the next decades and will probably extend to electricity exchanges and perhaps, in the next decades, to hydrogen supply. Three main points are of particular importance for the integration of the energy markets of the EU and neighbouring countries: to get compatible interconnections, compatible market framework and compatible environmental policies.

This paper briefly outlines possible futures scenarios of science 2.0, analyses its implications and draws policy recommendations “fit for the future”. Science 2.0 is more than open access: it refers to the emergence of open, data-intensive and citizen science across the full research cycle, from data gathering to reputation management.
Science 2.0 is here to stay and it is already growing well beyond individual projects. On the supply side, an ecosystem of services and standards is emerging. Adoption is growing and becoming mainstream already in some phases such as preprint publication, reference sharing, open access publication. Impact is already visible and will address some of the most burning issues of science, such as the slowness of the publication process and the challenge of reproducing research results.
Based on the extrapolation of existing trends and on analogies from different domains, we anticipate a set of “scenario snippets”:
- The full integration of data, publications and intermediate product will enable reproducibility by default. But adoption of such sharing culture will require time and a new system of incentives based on impact metrics and career structure.
- Evaluation metrics will become multidimensional, granular and instantaneous;
- The work of scientist will change with greater collaboration and independence from institutions.
Overall, we will see an unbundling of services, which are today integrated. Research will be separated from teaching, data collection from data analysis, publication from reputation management. Different specialised service will emerge and displace the incumbents such as publishers and universities. At the same time, the value chain will reorganise through vertical integration around new platforms. These could be built around unexpected positions in the value chain, including electronic reading devices.
In terms of implications, these scenario show opportunities and risks in three main areas.

This report is based on a study of foresight into the drivers of change and disrupters affecting the future of Europe and the strategic responses that the European Commission should consider in shaping the second strategic programme (2016-2018) of Horizon 2020. Importantly, the study was designed to use available foresight material. It is therefore focused on sense-making, rather than the generation of original intelligence.
Whilst the study cannot claim to be comprehensive, it nevertheless points out that foresight used in strategic planning offers insights, generates ideas and brings to the fore important cross-cutting domains. The use of foresight can help ensure that Horizon 2020 strengthens the competitiveness of Europe and enables it to respond to the significant current and future societal challenges.