The CERIS Event: Foresight and Key Enabling Technologies is taking place on 5 March at the ''Le Bouche à Oreille'' in Brussels, Belgium.
Anticipating the future, both in terms of threats and of opportunities offered by new emerging technologies is a real challenge. Having the capacity to depict plausible futures, to identify upcoming threats and to propose early responses can be of invaluable help to decision makers.
Many organisations, including the European Commission, have developed instruments that provide timely assessment of technology trends on a regular basis. The broad technology landscape does not show frequent fluctuations, and a plethora of tools and ready-made information products unveiling trends in different time horizons are widely available.
However, pure technology watch-based approaches should shift the focus from a purely technological standpoint to the way in which these technologies are and will be used in a given policy, operational, industrial and societal context.
The aim of the event is to analyse the key components that should be addressed for a more tailored foresight approach to civil security and to make the necessary links with Key Enabling Technologies2 (KETs). In addition, a panel discussion on potential ways to strengthen the enduser’s foresight capacity and the EU's technological sovereignty in KETs will be presented.
[1] Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) should be understood as technologies, which alone or in combination with other technologies have the potential to significantly enhance or deliver new capabilities.