Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI

Project

Environmental research and governance in the digital age (UfoUgo)

The ongoing digitalisation of our everyday living environment, of the economy and society at large shows no signs of slowing down. Thereby, digitalisation has turned out as a primary driver of techno-social change in the recent late modernity.

Environmental research and governance are evolving in the digital age, too and may prove to be a crucial factor in the great socio-ecological transformation. This is the starting point for the project “environmental research and governance in the digital age” (UfoUgo), funded by the environment department (Umweltressort).

Horizon scanning was conducted to reveal signals of change relevant to environmental research and governance, condense them into overarching future topics, identify Emerging Issues and derive implications for environmental research and governance.

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The project aimed at working up the subject “environmental research and governance in the digital age“ for the Federal Ministry of the Environment and its agencies through strategic foresight. For that purpose, a horizon scanning process was carried out, encompassing two basic effects patterns of digitization:

  1. How does digitization change the external environment of the Federal Ministry of the Environment and its agencies? How do the target groups of politics change, the political systems themselves, the conceptions of democracy and opinion building processes? How do these changes feed back on environmental research and governance in the future?
  2. Which developments and trends prompted by digitization exist within environmental research and governance, that could be picked up by the Federal Ministry of the Environment and its agencies and thereby change themselves?

An innovative Horizon Scanning methodology was developed to mitigate potential biases through combination of different measures, for example a hybrid (semi)automated-human Horizon Scanning approach.

The Department of Foresight of Fraunhofer ISI lead the project. The Departments of Policy and Society, Emerging Technologies and Sustainability and Infrastructure Systems were involved as co-operation partners.

This Horizon Scanning Report is the first monograph on environmental research and governance in the digital age.

1. The report describes ten digital future topics, from digital earth technologies over digital money to digital statecraft, identifies the associated challenges and analyses their potential relevance for environmental research and governance.

2. Eight cross-cutting Emerging Issues are presented: from dealing with digitally generated knowledge, over the twin transition, to governance of and through digitalisation.

3. In years to come, environmental research needs to account for automated processes for accessing digital content, to reflect human and machine biases in (digital) environmental research, and to pursue new digital entry points and approaches to understanding and influencing the world with anticipatory consideration of its side-effects. Environmental research governance can use more agile and customized funding approaches in the future.

Foremost, environmental governance has the task of fathoming the reach and limits of digitalisation from its own perspective, evaluating them and introducing them into political processes. The environment department (Umweltressort) has its own means for the targeted digitally supported formation of opinion and will, engagement and participation. In the future, environmental administrations will be able to provide actors with environmentally relevant data and algorithms in a more systematic and differentiated way for private, private-sector and public-interest purposes.

With the systematisation of the future topics and emerging issues, the tools are available to take up digitalisation topics in the environment department (Umweltressort) in a structured and effective way in the operative and strategic work. At the same time, there is a need for permanent monitoring and productive uptake of emerging digitalisation issues that can be identified, captured and assessed in horizon-scanning processes.

The results of the horizon scanning for the environment department in tomorrow’s society are published as a UBA report:

Environmental research and governance in the digital age. Results of a horizon scanning for the environment department in tomorrow's society

The innovative methodology of the horizon scanning for the environment department in tomorrow’s society is published in detail as a chapter in a book:

Debiasing with foresight: A horizon scanning process on the digitalisation of research and policymaking - Nomos eLibrary

Moreover, in the UfoUgo project, a non-published idea paper for the transfer of the horizon scanning results encompassing 13 suggestions was written.

Duration

08/2020 – 05/2023

Client

German Environment Agency (UBA)