News

The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to disrupt energy systems around the world. While much has been said and written about the immediate to medium-term impacts from the virus, this webinar will take on the daunting task of discussing the energy outlook for 2040 and beyond.

Large Chinese and US digital platforms are shaping the global technological frontiers. The American technological hegemony is increasingly challenged by China. Subsequently, technology issues have taken a central role in the disputes between China and the United States.

Increasing number of academic and policy books and articles are focusing on how to design and implement foresight in policy setting. However, foresight in policy-making also implies involvement of considerable number external stakeholders who have heterogeneous understanding of the role of strategic foresight. The heterogeneity goes beyond traditional debates among different schools of thought in strategic foresight concerning design and implementation.

The Foresight Centre at the Estonian Parliament created five public sector governance scenarios for Estonia which paint different pictures of digitalization.

Strategic foresight has gained considerable currency during the last decades, said Meelis Kitsing, Head of Research, Foresight Centre.

Today, the Foresight Centre is holding the conference A Different Kind of Future in the Riigikogu Conference Hall, presenting studies conducted in the three fields of research of the Foresight Centre: productivity, (e-)governance, and labour market.

The current European debate on regulation of digital platforms focuses on American digital platforms such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. There are no significant European digital platform businesses which are systemically as important as US platforms. This has contributed to rhetoric on unfair practices, lack of accountability and empowerment of consumers. Debate has become more political as mainstream politicians such as French President Emmanuel Macron have discussed publicly the need to enhance fairness and to regulate platforms. The European Commission has proposed a new tax on revenues of large digital companies.

The Foresight Centre is happy to announce the launch of several fascinating studies that provide information for generating scenarios on productivity, labour market and (e-)governance.