Foresight

When everyone’s a winner

Stuart Nagel

Win‐win analysis involves finding alternatives to policy and other problems so that conservatives, liberals and other major viewpoints can all come out ahead of their best…

The OPEC summit and the future of oil

Frank Bracho

It was the oil crisis of the 1970s that brought OPEC to the world stage, and it is a new oil crisis that may be its downfall. For not only did the Caracas summit sideline…

Bottom line in the new economy

Michel Godet

Tempting as it is to be deterministic about world trade, Western economies are facing a number of new challenges. The collapse of hi‐tech stocks has prompted a…

Understanding urban futures: between science and science fiction

Simon Marvin

Over the last five years, governments, think‐tanks and public alike have re‐focused their minds on the future development of British cities. Why are such diverse social…

Forecasting health and predicting longevity

Irving H. Buchen

Once upon a time, illness and disease were acts of God visited upon defenceless individuals. Now, science is able to map the interplay of genes, environment and lifestyle…

Return of the hothouse flower

Alan R. Winger

Many businesses are attracted by the idea of relocating where the air is clean, housing cheap and labour plentiful. And the information and communications experts are…

Enlarging Europe through science and education

Jerzy M. Langer

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the enlargement of the European Union (EU) by countries from the former Central and Eastern Europe became possible. Science and education…

Macau – the new digital bridgehead

Roberto Carneiro, Pedro Conceiçã, Artur Viana Fernandes

For countries and regions all over the world, the Digital Economy brings threats as well as opportunities, fast timeframes and narrow windows of opportunity. Nowhere are…

Emerging economic sectors in the third millennium: the mega‐materials era

Graham T.T. Molitor

This fourth article in a series of six focuses on mega‐material technologies. Offering the ability to deconstruct and reconstruct matter at atomic and sub‐atomic levels to…