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

The article outlines a set of visionary scenarios on how the European society 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 scenario design framework developed and the resulting views of what the European Information Society might be by 2030 are presented. The article follows with a discussion of the implications of the scenarios design in terms of key areas of expected change and grand challenges to be addressed. It concludes by identifying policy challenges and proposing possible future research directions in the domain of ICT for governance and policy modelling needed to build a truly open Digital Europe twenty years from now.

► The article outlines a set of scenarios on how governance and policy making could develop by 2030 by using ICT tools and modelling techniques. ► The article presents the conceptual framework and methodological approach followed for the foresight exercise conducted. ► The article describes four internally-consistent scenarios and the implications for citizens, businesses and public services. ► The article discusses research and policy challenges to be addressed to build a Digital Europe twenty years from now.