European foreign policy 2025: 2nd set of scenario workshops 7 – 9 March 2016
By invitation only
In the second session, workshop participants reframe existing perceptions, mind sets, and concepts about the future through the use of the ‘Multiple Scenario Generation’ methodology. Different scenarios that define the most likely trajectory, the most notable downside risks, new trends or dynamics and ‘unknown unknowns’ will be developed. By using the scenarios policy recommendations for the EU foreign policy will be elaborated.
The foresight process is organized by the umbrella project team based at the Hertie School and run by Monika Sus and Franziska Pfeifer. The scenario workshops are facilitated by Oliver Gnad (GIZ) and Randolph Pherson (Globalityca).
Foresight Analysis and Scenario Planning: Towards Scenarios (Part II)
Monday, 7 March 2016, 9am – 5pm
> Scenario workshop on Ukraine & Russia (Faciliator Oliver Gnad) /
> Scenario workshop on US (Faciliator Randy Pherson)
Tuesday, 8 March 2016, 9am – 5pm
> Scenario workshop on China (Faciliator Randy Pherson)
> Scenario workshop on MENA (Faciliator Oliver Gnad)
Wednesday, 9 March 2016, 9am – 5pm
> Scenario workshop on Turkey (Faciliator Oliver Gnad)
The Dahrendorf Foresight Process
The Dahrendorf Forum has initiated a strategic foresight process called “European foreign policy 2025”. The project will focus on the five countries or regions included in the Dahrendorf project: China, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Turkey, North America, Russia and Ukraine. The process brings together international experts on these regions and policy makers. They will identify and discuss key drivers that influence the future trajectories of the relationship between the European Union and the respective regions and countries over the next ten years. Based on that, the experts will develop different scenarios that define the most notable downside risks, and new trends or dynamics that might be leveraged to create new opportunities.
This first set of meetings was held in December 2015. Workshop participants entered into a critical review of their key assumptions regarding the current situation and identified a set of drivers that are likely to shape the future trajectory of the selected case. In a second step, facilitators led the group in a structured brainstorming exercise to develop a set of key drivers.
Both sets of workshops take place at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. The outcome of the foresight process will be a set of alternative future scenarios for the EU foreign policy 2025 which will be presented and discussed at the Dahrendorf Symposium (25–27 May 2016 in Berlin).
The objective of Foresight Analysis is not to predict the future but to generate a solid set of scenarios that can bound the range of plausible alternative futures. Foresight analysis is most useful when a situation is complex and the outcomes too uncertain to trust a single prediction. It has proven highly effective in helping analysts, decision makers, and policymakers contemplate multiple futures, challenge their assumptions, and anticipate surprise developments by identifying “unknown unknowns” – i.e. factors, forces, or players that one did not realize were important or influential before commencing the exercise.