Futurs-ACT in numbers
higher education and research laboratories
research organisations
scientifiques
+
labelled projects approved for funding
About us
Objectives
Futurs-ACT aims to bring out research and research-action projects responding to the following objectives:
- Assess potential impacts of possible futures
- Co-create climate change adaptation scenarios
- Explore and experiment with pathways to prepare desirable futures
- Promote the inclusion of local stakeholders and interfacing between science and civil society in the process
- Facilitate changes of scale (from global forecasts to territorial foresight)
- Prioritise knowledge for action that can be grasped by citizens, socio-economic stakeholders and public decision-makers
Strategic foresight : an intrinsically interdisciplinary question
“Foresight – the discipline of exploring, anticipating and shaping the future – helps build and use collective intelligence in a structured and systematic way to anticipate developments and better prepare for change. Horizon scanning , the assessment of megatrends, emerging issues and their policy implications, as well as the exploration of alternative futures via visioning and scenario planning, are key to informing strategic political choices.”
To date, scientific studies have often concentrated on the impacts of climate change, not only on a global scale but also at regional levels. As the scope of related impacts is vast, the result is a common challenge for the societies within our territories and for science. At the level of a territory, solutions are possible through anticipation. But by their very nature, such solutions require interdisciplinary and participative research.
History
Through the Regional Policy for Higher Education, Research and Innovation (SRESRI), in 2018, the Nouvelle Aquitaine Region highlighted its intention to play a leading role in supporting the creation and consolidation of leading multidisciplinary research networks, at national and international levels, on themes of strategic interest for its territories. This initiative of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regional Council led to the creation of various Regional Research Networks.
The creation of the Futurs-ACT research on the anticipation of climate change in transitioning territories from the ongoing work of the research collective AcclimaTerra. Since 2011, the Regional Scientific Committee on Climate Change, which became AcclimaTerra in 2015, has been synthesizing scientific knowledge on the impacts of climate change at the scale of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. Futurs-ACT aligns with the desire to expand AcclimaTerra’s initiative and to promote climate change adaptation research at the regional level.
In February 2020, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regional Council approved the creation of the Futurs-ACT regional research network.
