Technology

The world is moving rapidly towards ubiquitous connectivity that will further change how and where people associate, gather and share information, and consume media. A canvassing of 2,558 experts and technology builders about where we will stand by the year 2025 finds striking patterns in their predictions. The invited respondents were identified in previous research about the future of the Internet, from those identified by the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project, and solicited through major technology-oriented listservs. They registered their answers online between November 25, 2013 and January 13, 2014.

In their responses, these experts foresee an ambient information environment where accessing the Internet will be effortless and most people will tap into it so easily it will flow through their lives “like electricity.” They predict mobile, wearable, and embedded computing will be tied together in the Internet of Things, allowing people and their surroundings to tap into artificial intelligence-enhanced cloud-based information storage and sharing. As Dan Lynch, founder of Interop and former director of computing facilities at SRI International, wrote, “The most useful impact is the ability to connect people. From that, everything flows.”

UK Space Vision 2025 is a glimpse of what a space enabled world may look like in 2025, what it will mean for UK’s economy, for UK’s Government, and for consumers, families and citizens. It was inspired by the recommendation of various stakeholders and presents a forward vision of a space enabled world and the benefits to the UK of maintaining its lead role in Space.

This report evaluates the National Space Technology Programme (NSTP) against delivering support for growth of the space sector. Although overall the programme is deemed to have been very successful, the report provides detailed recommendations for areas which can be improved.

The Space Innovation and Growth Strategy, published in February 2010, created real momentum in the sector. It brought industry, academia and Government together around the common cause of driving economic growth and provided the foundation for a transition of the UK space sector from a niche industry towards a high-technology, mainstream, industrial and science sector.This report affirms the ambition to grow and identifies the new actions that are needed to deliver further growth.

As the Congress considers the existing space policy challenges, the major issues it faces can be summarized as three broad questions: What is NASA for? What should NASA do? How? This report analyzes these questions and some possible answers. It also addresses a number of cross-cutting issues, such as NASA’s interactions with other federal agencies and the growing role of the commercial space industry.

Understanding trends in science and technology and interpreting state-of-the-art research results in view of their potential to influence future space activities is an input to long-term strategies. This paper presents some mechanisms adopted by a corporate research think-tank, the Advanced Concepts Team of ESA. These include the analysis of research results of the team and its academic network, the analysis of science and technology forecast reports and interpretation of expectations of the science community as expressed during advanced concepts workshops.

The quality of territorial foresight and, in particular, of urban foresight, is nowadays measured not so much in terms of the ability to anticipate possible futures, always challenged by the increasing uncertainty and the exponential rate of change, as in terms of the ability to construct collective visions of the future that are ambitious, proactive and engaging for stakeholders and citizens.
What foresight has to offer is its capacity to approach both long-term challenges, perceived in the present, as well as shared aims and values in a distant horizon. This publication attempts to address these challenges by ‘imagineering’ the future of cities though the application of methods and techniques drawn from the strategic foresight and prediction fields in a systematic, rigorous and holistic way.

This paper by Fan Gao, assesses the extent to which China is likely to achieve levels of shale gas production by 2020 which would make a meaningful difference to its growing need for imports of pipeline gas and LNG. The study suggests that given the rather disappointing progress on Coal Bed Methane production since exploration and development work started some 25 years ago, a cautionary approach is needed in anticipating the outlook for shale gas for the remainder of this decade. The specific challenges include water availability and population density demographics as well as the need to stimulate an innovative competitive dynamic in the Chinese upstream service sector and an appropriate upstream investment framework with foreign participants for the transfer and application of technology.

The paper provides a rare appreciation of the dynamics of the onshore Chinese upstream industry and from that basis a better understanding of what will be required, on a number of policy levels, for Chinese shale gas development to succeed.

Innovation is essential for France to be in the global competition in ten years, and maintain its standard of living and social model. The report outlines seven technological and industrial goals for France for 2030: energy storage, recycling of materials, the promotion of marine resources, green proteins, individualized medicine, silver economy and promotion of massive data (Big data).

This paper identifies and analyses some key challenges that OECD and partner economies may face over the coming 50 years if underlying global trends relating to growth, trade, inequality and environmental pressures prevail. For example, global growth is likely to slow and become increasingly dependent on knowledge and technology, while the economic costs of environmental damages will mount. The rising economic importance of knowledge will tend to raise returns to skills, likely leading to further increases in earning inequalities within countries. While increases in pre-tax earnings do not automatically transform into rising income inequality, the ability of governments to cushion this impact may be limited, as rising trade integration and consequent rising mobility of tax bases combined with substantial fiscal pressures may hamper such efforts. The paper discusses to what extent national structural policies can address these and other interlinked challenges, but also points to the growing need for international coordination and cooperation to deal with these issues over the coming 50 years.