Technology

Today, we are at the beginning of a Fourth Industrial Revolution. Developments in genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing and biotechnology, to name just a few, are all building on and amplifying one another. This will lay the foundation for a revolution more comprehensive and all-encompassing than anything we have ever seen. Smart systems—homes, factories, farms, grids or cities—will help tackle problems ranging from supply chain management to climate change. The rise of the sharing economy will allow people to monetize everything from their empty house to their car.
While the impending change holds great promise, the patterns of consumption, production and employment created by it also pose major challenges requiring proactive adaptation by corporations, governments and individuals. Concurrent to the technological revolution are a set of broader socio-economic, geopolitical and demographic drivers of change, each interacting in multiple directions and intensifying one another. As entire industries adjust, most occupations are undergoing a fundamental transformation. While some jobs are threatened by redundancy and others grow rapidly, existing jobs are also going through a change in the skill sets required to do them. The debate on these transformations is often polarized between those who foresee limitless new opportunities and those that foresee massive dislocation of jobs. In fact, the reality is highly specific to the industry, region and occupation in question as well as the ability of various stakeholders to manage change.
The Future of Jobs Report is a first step in becoming specific about the changes at hand. It taps into the knowledge of those who are best placed to observe the dynamics of workforces—Chief Human Resources and Strategy Officers—by asking them what the current shifts mean, specifically for employment, skills and recruitment across industries and geographies. In particular, we have introduced a new measure—skills stability—to quantify the degree of skills disruption within an occupation, a job family or an entire industry. We have also been able to provide an outlook on the gender dynamics of the changes underway, a key element in understanding how the benefits and burdens of the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be distributed.

The European Union seems to be moving from one emergency to the next. Europe’s leaders are in crisis-fighting mode: reactive, improvising, often uncoordinated – but ultimately modestly successful.
The Eurozone has not splintered; Russia is smarting under Western sanctions; some burden-sharing on refugees has been agreed. Busy with short-term problems, however, Europeans have taken their eyes off more profound, long-term challenges. How the European Union copes with its immediate problems in the next couple of years will determine how the continent will fare in decades to come.
In this White Paper, we – the Global Agenda Council on Europe – are analysing some of the most pressing issues confronting the EU in 2016-2017. We present the choices that European leaders must make in the years ahead and explain how these could shape the Union’s medium to long-term development. To illustrate how different policy choices interact, we have drawn up two fictitious scenarios of how the EU could evolve in the next 10 years.
The immediate economic concerns that dominated the European agenda in 2008-2014 are lessening. The cyclical upswing in the European economy, however, must not make governments complacent about the need for reforms. Faced with stagnating or shrinking working-age populations, European countries simply must fix their productivity problem to generate long-term growth. In innovation and digitization, Europeans often seem obsessed with data privacy and protection rather than grasping new opportunities. The European Commission’s laudable attempts to integrate and improve EU markets – for example, for energy and capital – have so far been slow to get off the ground. The arrival of millions of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees is a great opportunity for an ageing Europe, but only if governments, together with the private sector, act swiftly to help the new arrivals find jobs.

Nature-based solutions simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits by bringing more nature and natural features and processes into cities, landscapes and seascapes. This report presents the main findings of the Horizon 2020 Expert Group on ‘Nature-Based Solutions and Re-Naturing Cities’.

The Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Advisory Group has produced a report which proposes to put FET at the nucleus of the European Innovation Council.

The FET Advisory Group has been set up at the beginning of H2020 with the mandate to give advice to the Commission regarding the objectives and the scientific and innovation priorities of Future and Emerging Technologies.

As a result of discussions extending over more than a year, the group has now produced the report "The future of FET: a possible nucleus for the European Innovation Council", which proposes to put FET at the nucleus of the European Innovation Council.

Earth observation data and information are vital to allow decision-makers and society in general to take informed decisions about climate, energy, food security, natural hazards, health and other societal challenges. These challenges are complex, interrelated, cross-border in nature and interdependent at the global scale and therefore coordination is essential to avoid duplication of efforts and reduce observational gaps.

The European Commission together with 27 EU Member States are active members of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), which provides a global voluntary framework where governments and participating organisations can coordinate their strategies and investments in the field of Earth observation while promoting full and open access to data and information through the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

This booklet provides a snapshot of EU-funded projects which illustrate how European research and innovation contribute to this global initiative, showcasing the potential of international collaboration in science for diplomacy.

The Internet of Things—sensors and actuators connected by networks to computing systems—has received enormous attention over the past five years. A new McKinsey Global Institute report, The Internet of Things: Mapping the value beyond the hype, attempts to determine exactly how IoT technology can create real economic value.

Our central finding is that the hype may actually understate the full potential—but that capturing it will require an understanding of where real value can be created and a successful effort to address a set of systems issues, including interoperability.

To get a broader view of the IoT’s potential benefits and challenges across the global economy, we analyzed more than 150 use cases, ranging from people whose devices monitor health and wellness to manufacturers that utilize sensors to optimize the maintenance of equipment and protect the safety of workers. Our bottom-up analysis for the applications we size estimates that the IoT has a total potential economic impact of $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion a year by 2025. At the top end, that level of value—including the consumer surplus—would be equivalent to about 11 percent of the world economy.

Horizon 2020 has a single overarching objective: the achievement of scientific, technological and societal impact based on excellent research and innovation projects. It aims to achieve economic impact by supporting industrial competitiveness, economic growth and job creation. It aims to achieve societal impact by developing the means to respond effectively, quickly and efficiently to the urgent societal challenges (climate change, loss of biodiversity, ageing, etc.) Europe is faced with.

This brochure, which presents examples of research and innovation projects funded through past EU programmes and constitutes a record of impact, shows that the ambitious goals set for Horizon 2020 are fully justified.

From 2014 to 2020, Horizon 2020 brings all EU research and innovation funding together under a single programme with three key objectives:

- Excellent Science: Strengthening the EU’s position as world leader in science and attracting the best talents to work together across Europe;
- Competitive Industries: Strengthening industrial leadership in innovation to get Europe back on the path to growth and job creation;
- Better Society: Innovating to tackle societal challenges shared by all Europeans, across seven key themes: Health, demographic change and well-being; Food security, sustainable agriculture, marine and maritime and inland water research and the bio-economy; Secure, clean and efficient energy; Smart, green and integrated transport; Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials; Europe in a changing world -inclusive, innovative and reflective societies; and Secure societies – protecting the freedom and security of Europe and its citizens

Airbus’ Global Market Forecast for 2015-2034 offers a forward-looking view of the air transport sector’s evolution – accounting for factors such as demographic and economic growth, tourism trends, oil prices, development of new and existing routes, and ultimately highlighting demand for aircraft covering the full spectrum of sizes from 100 seats to the very largest aircraft like the A380.

Entitled “Flying by numbers” this new forecast – which serves as a reference for airlines, airports, investors, governments, non-government agencies and others – anticipates that air traffic will grow at 4.6 per cent annually, requiring some 32,600 new passenger and dedicated freighter aircraft at a value of US$4.9 trillion.

“Global System on the Brink: Pathways toward a New Normal” is a joint study by the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight Initiative and the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO). Work on this joint assessment of global trends began before the onset of the recent crisis in US-Russian relations, but is more relevant than ever today as we seek to avoid a greater conflict and achieve a new normal of cooperation between Russia and the West. In keeping with previous forecasting works published by the Atlantic Council and the IMEMO, the study examines current trends and potential scenarios for global developments over the next twenty years.

Despite the rapid globalization of the past few decades, which promised cooperation and integration, the potential for major state conflict is on the rise due to deep fragmentation within and between societies. The old confrontation between capitalism and communism has given way to conflicts of moral values with nationalist, religious, and historical-psychological overtones. The worst outcome would be the emergence of a new bipolarity, pitting a group of states centered around China and Russia against the United States and some European and Asian allies. However serious the current situation, the study emphasizes the opportunities for narrowing differences.

The purpose of – and the motivation be-hind – this study is to move the debate on autonomy in weapons systems ahead by introducing some more conceptual clarity and definitional rigor. To that end, we offer a new instrument for conducting a multidimensional autonomy risk assessment (MARA) in weapons systems. By quantifying and computing key descriptive characteristics (“vectors”) of systems to gauge their autonomous and military capabilities, the instrument can be used to generate a comprehensive overview over weapons systems deployed currently and in the near future. This way, it can assist policy-makers in coming to an informed decision on the possible establishment of a politically defined maximum of autonomy in weapons systems.