Digital Europe 2030: designing scenarios for ICT in future governance and policy making

Abstract

The article outlines a set of visionary scenarios on how governance and policy making could develop by 2030 by using advanced ICT tools and modelling techniques and integrating them into governance processes and policy making mechanisms. These scenarios have been designed through a foresight exercise conducted by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) as part of the CROSSROAD Project, a support action of the European Commission¿s 7th Framework Programme. After presenting the conceptual framework and methodological approach followed, the main results of the trends analysis conducted as part of the research are discussed. This entails an analysis of main societal, policy and research trends that are considered central for understanding and mapping ICT research for prospective governance and policy making. The article then presents the scenario design framework developed and the resulting four internally-consistent views of what the European Information Society might be by 2030. The consequent implications of each scenario for citizens, businesses and public services are discussed. The pace at which the elements of the visions unfold will, however, be influenced by the speed of change of the overall technological landscape and societal context. Considering the unprecedented growth and speed of ICT uptake and the rapid emergence of technologies which enable applications for ICT for governance and policy making (e.g. social computing, mobile technologies, pervasive computing, etc.), it is argued that the world in 2030 will be radically different from the world we live in today. Finally, the article identifies the key areas where change is expected, proposes possible research directions and discusses the future research and policy challenges to be addressed in order to build a Digital Europe twenty years from now.