If you had a time machine, would you travel back to change the past or fast-forward to see the future?
In the Flash series, the hero travels back in time to save his mother, only to realize that altering one single moment creates a completely different ‘present.’ It’s a classic sci-fi trope, but it highlights a profound truth about the relatedness of time. Outside of Hollywood, foresighters (a word we made up from foresight & practitioners), know better than anyone that the future is not a distant, strange place. It is well defined by decisions we make, perceptions we have and desires we harbor today.
Last September, we had the opportunity to explore exactly this during a two-day “foresight-on-foresight” workshop in Mamaia, Romania, within the Eye of Europe project. The mission was simple but ambitious: to co-create a vision for Research & Innovation (R&I) Foresight in 2040. The final output, the Manifesto of the Research & Innovation Community, provides a loud and clear message: Innovation must be bridged with the needs of society, and foresight will be the “godfather” of this union. However, for that to happen, the discipline itself needs to evolve.
What is needed
For starters, if foresight is to serve society, it must act as an open and inclusive space where everyone is welcomed. The key is to foster imagination and creativity as primary human inputs, promoting collaboration that goes beyond the mere representation of organizations. By encouraging people to connect based on their inner values and human instincts, we can finally reach out to marginalized actors and embrace true diversity.
In this process, futures literacy is highlighted as a foundational capacity. Moving beyond academic definitions, it is the essential competence required to navigate uncertainty and design robust anticipatory systems—empowering individuals, organizations, and society to act in a way that is truly systemic.
In simple words, you can think of it like this:
Imagine you are planning a long outdoor hike. “Present-day thinking” is just looking at the sky right now and seeing sun. “Futures literacy” is different—it’s the ability to imagine three different scenarios: what if it stays sunny? What if a sudden storm hits? What if I get lost and it turns dark? Because you can imagine these different futures, you pack a raincoat, a map, and a flashlight. You aren’t “predicting” a storm; you are becoming resilient because you’ve anticipated it. This isn’t just about survival; it’s about having the agency to choose a different path entirely when the landscape changes.
Besides inclusivity and resilience, we did not forget the simple but accurate economic laws that seem to put in motion most of the things in our reality: supply and demand.
Demand-wise, our vision for 2040 sees R&I Foresight taking on an extended role. It serves as a strategic bridge between sectoral policies, societal needs, and industrial ambitions. But beyond serving as mediator, foresight acts as the trigger point—the initial ‘why’—that allows new research and innovation to emerge. By doing so, it ensures that regional innovation ecosystems remain vibrant, relevant, and ready for whatever comes next.
However, for this demand to be fulfilled, a mature community of practice is required (this is the supply side). This goes beyond professionalization through training and education; it requires future-oriented policies and the active embedding of foresight into the status quo of our institutions. Like everything that contains and/or is defined from knowledge (spillovers), networks are valuable here. What do we need to ensure that the discipline will remain vibrant and relevant? A well-connected, global community, which will experiment with new technologies and methods throughout the foresight process.
Why it matters
In this era of AI, it is becoming increasingly important for our societies to recognize that knowledge does not exist solely in laboratories, universities, or computer systems. It is also found in the simplest, everyday moments of life—embedded in emotions, lived experience, and in the connections between people. Much of what we know is held not only by individuals, but within networks and communities. If you are a sports fan, consider a basketball team: five players move as a single unit on the court. Their performance depends not only on individual skill, but on shared understanding, timing, and trust. Replace even one player, and the dynamics change; the outcome is no longer the same. Recognizing this broader landscape of knowledge also reveals the true value of foresight. It allows us to bring hidden insights to the surface, to connect different ways of knowing, and ultimately to co-design the futures we wish to live in.
Eliza Savvopoulou- Stavros Mantzanakis
You can find the Manifesto of The R&I Foresight Community here
The Manifesto was produced in the Context of Eye of Europe Project- Funded by EU
Image by Thanh Nguyen from Pixabay
