In December, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation’s Expert Group on the Economic and Societal Impact of Research & Innovation (ESIR) released a policy brief on better anticipating future technological developments, titled “Embedding Anticipatory Governance in Europe’s Transitions.” Comprising sixteen members, the group’s role is to provide independent advice to the European Commission on how Research and Innovation (R&I) policy can strengthen the EU’s economy amid the green and digital transitions. 

The document underscores the importance of embedding foresight, flexibility, and ethics into the EU’s regulatory frameworks to navigate both the risks and opportunities offered by new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. In this regard, it notably highlights the need to increase public trust, accountability, and international cooperation, recommending the use of regulatory sandboxes and greater stakeholder engagement to adapt to emerging challenges. 

To help the European Union regain its leading position in the global competitiveness and innovation race, the report notably calls for better consideration of the broader societal transition that emerging technologies are part of, as well as the need to respect planetary boundaries. As such, the concept of "societal readiness levels" (SRLs) is proposed as an effective way to measure society’s acceptance of and preparedness for adopting new technologies, starting from the early stages of research and innovation agendas. 

When it comes to the environment, the report argues that technology has led to exploitative habits and practices, which in turn have caused biodiversity loss, irreversible pollution, and global warming. Moreover, it argues that planetary boundaries are a key factor in the global competition for materials and access to critical minerals and will thus play a major role in global governance. Deep-sea mining is presented in this regard as a prime example of the need to extend governance considerations to the research and pre-technology phases while accounting for environmental limitations. 

In this light, the authors call for the establishment of a proactive regulatory framework and a systems-based approach. They also advocate flexible governance that accounts for both the varying maturities of different technologies and their intrinsic characteristics, including the risks they entail. Accordingly, they emphasise the importance of adopting a diverse range of practices, including self-regulation, awareness-raising, labelling, and nudging, as well as co-regulation and prescriptive regulatory measures, depending on the context. 

On foresight, the authors recommend adopting a framework of “alternative futures” and scenarios rather than focusing on a single future to enhance policy resilience. Additionally, foresight should be better integrated into the design of technology-related initiatives, rather than remaining a stand-alone process, to identify which technologies are critical. Overall, knowledge stemming from experts and civil society should be leveraged to better equip policymakers with comprehensive and relevant insights. 

The authors also recommend developing a holistic picture of future technologies and building an integrated and interoperable architecture, notably addressing common issues such as technology dependency. For instance, they highlight the multiple uses of the digital and information infrastructure created for the energy sector, which is also utilised in health and climate technologies. 

However, in a recent interview, ESIR’s rapporteur, Paweł Świeboda, criticised the EU’s lack of transparency on foresight and critical technologies, which have been the subject of classified reports delivered directly to member states by the Commission’s Observatory of Critical Technologies, set up in 2021. He recommended instead the establishment of a public critical technology tracking tool to enhance both stakeholders’ and the broader public’s knowledge of these key issues.