Projects

At the Italian Institute for the Future, also through our competence centers (the Center for Near Space and the Center for European Futures), we carry out research, training and dissemination projects, in partnership with national and international organizations. Moreover, we coordinate European projects in line with our goals.

BETWEEN SCIENCE & SOCIETY HUB

BSS-HUB is a center for the elaboration and dissemination of new dialogue models between science and society, in order to govern the acceleration of scientific and technological progress and put it at the service of the common good. The aim is to analyze the dynamics of the relationship between science and society in a perspective able to capture long-term trends in order to develop new models of coexistence for the future.

TAKE PART

T.A.K.E PART (“Transnational Activities for Key digital skills in Engagement and youth PARTicipation”) is a project on digital and participatory democracy funded under the Erasmus+ action KA3 (Support to policy reform). It involves 100 under-30 citizens from Albania and Italy in transnational seminars with experts and policy makers to develop scenarios on the future of political participation in Europe and new solutions of digital democracy.

LONG-TERM MEGATRENDS

With the Long-Term Megatrends project, started in 2013, the experts of the Italian Institute for the Future select every year, at the end of an annual horizon scanning process that evaluates weak signals, wild cards, emerging phenomena, ten new megatrends destined to have a significant impact on the long term. The result is the Long-Term Megatrends report.

ORBITECTURE

The OrbiTecture project aims at developing a concept based on revolutionary engineering and architectural principles for the Cislunar City, imagining the future interchanges for Earth-Moon and Earth-Mars travel (SpaceHub) and a future lunar habit, overcoming the traditional concept of assembling space structures in orbit and identifying innovative and technically feasible methodologies to build human habitats in the Fourth Environment.

SCIENCE FICTION & ANTICIPATION

The project aims to use science fiction as a tool to anticipate the future: a strategy increasingly used internationally by organizations such as CoFutures or the Center for Science and Imagination at Arizona State University. Through speculative fiction it is possible to imagine possible and preferable futures, generating new scenarios from the hybridization of the creativity of leading science fiction authors with the experience of future scholars.

YOUTH COMMITTEE FOR THE FUTURE

The Youth Committee for the Future project is a European project funded under the Erasmus+ action KA3 (Support for Policy Reform) programme involving 50 under-30 citizens from Albania, Belgium, Italy, Lithuania and Spain with the aim of simulating a European Parliament committee on the future, applying social foresight methods to generate scenarios on five key long-term challenges and discussing with experts and policy makers to develop innovative solutions.

NEAR-SPACE EXPLO

The NearSpaceExplo project (“Near Space Exploitation”) is concerned with identifying ideas or projects for the access/use of Near Space, identifying ways to support, disseminate and develop them as much as possible. The perimeter of interest is the Italian ability to design systems for sub-orbital flight, such as the Hyplane business jet, leveraging a strong integration between aeronautics and space, involving young engineers and undergraduates.

FORE.C.A.S.T. – FORESIGHT, CHALLENGES AND ANTICIPATION IN SCIENCE&TECHNOLOGY

The aim of FORE.C.A.S.T. project is the anticipatory analysis of trends and megatrends that characterize scientific and technological progress in their components destined to produce significant impacts on society in the long term, with a focus on the anticipation of global existential risks, technoethics and technological unemployment issues.

SCENARIOS ON THE FUTURE OF EUROPE: CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES

The project, launched on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome and the publication of the White Paper on the Future of Europe, aims to reflect on the challenges that the European Union is called to face and the prospects of the integration process, in a multidisciplinary perspective that combines political, legal, economic, sociological aspects.