Corporates – Insight Foresight Institute

Futures of Food Consumption in 2035 in Europe: On Sustainability, Health and Technology

Insight Foresight Institute (IFI) is a partner of the Consumer Observatory of the EIT Food, supported by the European Union. The Consumer Observatory is considered Europe’s central hub for current and future consumer insights on agrifood topics. IFI coordinated a foresight exercise that explored the future of food consumption and the agrifood ecosystem in Europe in 2035, with a particular focus on emerging technological opportunities and on the spectrum of (un)sustainable and (un)healthy consumer choices.

Exploring alternative scenarios broadens one’s perspective, extending it further into the future and revealing potential threats and opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked or dismissed as improbable. While scenarios often include both a future end-state and the pathway leading there, in this case, the narratives (written in the present tense, as if already set in the future) each portray a different day in the year 2035. During the summer and autumn 2024, Insight Foresight Institute organised online workshops to develop four alternative future scenarios:

Scenario A: Green and me – A day in the European high-tech food ecosystem in 2035.

Scenario B: Frugal and local – A day in a European localised food sector driven by community values in 2035.

Scenario C: Cost and control – A day in a European decayed food ecosystem focused on industrial efficiency in 2035.

Scenario D: Highs and lows – A day in a European unequal high-tech food ecosystem in 2035.

The analysis of the four scenarios for food consumption led to the identification of a number of issues that could be relevant for today’s decision-makers.

Guiding consumers towards one-health choices.
Embracing innovative (new and ancient) mood-related food ingredients.
Prioritising animal welfare.
Mainstreaming precision nutrition.
Scaling up localised food systems.
Embracing soilless agriculture.
Empowering farmers and prosumer communities.
High-tech risks.
Balancing global vs local dynamics.

Additional information

Totti Könnölä, Insight Foresight Institute. “Futures of Food Consumption in 2035 in Europe: On Sustainability, Health and Technology”- EIT Food Consumer Observatory, co-funded by the European Union. Published in August 2025.

Acess to full briefing paper

Futures of Food Consumption in 2035 in Europe: On Sustainability, Health and Technology

Geopolitical & industrial decarbonisation scenarios to identify R&I opportunities for the EU

As part of ‘the Eye of Europe’ Horizon Europe Project, Insight Foresight Institute organised an in-person stakeholder workshop on ‘Geopolitical & industrial decarbonisation scenarios to identify R&I opportunities for the EU’ on 10-11 April 2025 in Madrid, Spain. The event consisted of debating around a primary issue on the EU’s agenda: how to navigate geopolitical issues to keep decarbonising the continent towards sustainable and competitive sectors.

The workshop gathered more than 30 experts specialised in different areas related to circular economy, decarbonisation, sustainability, innovation, geopolitics etc. The objective was to use foresight methods (scenarios and roadmaps) in order to plan different strategies to navigate industrial decarbonisation. For that matter, three different small groups were created:

Energy Security and Supply moderated by Attila Havas.
Critical Raw Materials moderated by Totti Könnölä.
Manufacturing in Hard-to-Abate Sectors moderated by Karl-Heinz Leitner.

Participants attended this two-day workshop which started with introductory presentations by experts from public institutions such as the European Commission or the Spanish Ministry of Industry. Once participants were put into context, the common scenario work began in the mentioned small groups. The second day, the debate was focused on roadmpaping for R&I needs and emerging areas. The findings and conclusions were gathered in the final plenary and will soon be published on a report.

The dynamic teamwork carried out by participants with such different backgrounds allowed to gather diverse outcomes from the exercise. The decarbonisation process of the European industry has already begun, and it is crucial to consider every factor in order to apply the adequate strategies. From the Insight Foresight Institute’s team we would like to thank all the participants that attended those two days to debate about the future of the decarbonisation process in Europe.

New strategic alliance with Experience & Wiser

Madrid, January 2025 – Insight Foresight Institute (IFI) and Experience & Wiser (E&W) have joined forces to make the business sector more innovative and sustainable. This agreement aims to provide joint solutions to entities in areas such as talent management, international business strategy, and sustainable innovation.

About Experience & Wiser

E&W is a consulting firm specializing in business strategy and talent management. The firm’s core activity focuses on helping companies tackle challenges in these areas. Experience & Wiser develops strategic plans to enhance business positioning through talent attraction and retention.

More information at: https://www.e-w.es

An innovative approach to the business future

Insight Foresight Institute firmly believes that building a sustainable future largely depends on integrating new technologies and sound business management, both strategically and in terms of human capital. The alliance with E&W enhances IFI’s ability to translate advanced research into tangible strategies that drive business development on a global scale.

Executives from both entities have identified key areas in which they will collaborate after forming this alliance:

Sustainable Growth Strategies: Designing strategic plans that guide businesses toward long-term success.

Boosting Innovation and Corporate Entrepreneurship: Encouraging creativity and disruptive ideas to drive transformation and differentiation within the sector.

Talent Development and Organizational Resilience: Providing tools for organizations to manage change and strengthen their human teams in the face of new challenges.

Statements from the executives of both entities

Totti Könnölä, CEO of Insight Foresight Institute, states:

“To advance towards a more sustainable economy, it is essential to adopt technological and social innovations, but also to develop new skills and transform the way we work. The alliance with Experience & Wiser allows us to enhance our vision and enrich the solutions we offer to companies and institutions.”

Olga Ramírez, Managing Partner at Experience & Wiser, adds:

“This alliance strengthens our ability to support companies in adapting to an increasingly competitive and changing environment. Together with IFI, we will be able to offer our clients a broader vision and more innovative solutions to anticipate challenges and build a sustainable and competitive future.”

Press Contact

Experience & Wiser: contacta@e-w.es

Insight Foresight Institute: info@if-institute.es

IFI joins AMETIC, our president to lead the innovation commission

AMETIC’s Board of Directors has ratified the incorporation of IFI as a new associate to AMETIC and appointed José Manuel Leceta, the president of IFI’s high-level advisory board, as the president of AMETIC’s innovation committee.

AMETIC is the association representing the digital industry sector in Spain, from SMEs to large global companies in the fields of Information Technologies, Telecommunications, Electronics Industry, Digital Content and Services, Digital Transformation, Enabling Technologies, Banking, Energy, Sustainability, etc. AMETIC is also made up of other sector associations at a territorial level and technology parks.

The Innovation Commission deals with cross-cutting innovation activity that is fundamental for promoting an internationally competitive digital industry. The work of the commission focuses on public policies to support R&I, deployed in the State R&I strategies and plans and the instruments defined therein, as well as in international R&I programmes such as Horizon Europe, Digital Europe Programme, among others.

For more information

https://ametic.es/comisiones/comision-de-innovacion/

Transformative governance of innovation ecosystems

The CEO of IFI, Totti Könnölä publishes with Aalto University professors in a leading research journal ‘Technological Forecasting and Social Change’ a paper on transformative governance of innovation ecosystems.

New lens for policy and management

The framework of transformative governance developed in the paper, offers a powerful new lens for policy and management contexts which are characterised by complexity and uncertainty, both within vertical policies (e.g. research, energy, mobility or health) as much as within more horizontal policies (e.g. entrepreneurship or innovation).

Apart from designing of specific policy measures, the framework can be harnessed for shaping the general conditions of transformative innovation policy and associated governance structures, for instance by overcoming bottlenecks related to both innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Furthermore, it can be used for assessing and designing policy mixes to support the development of innovation ecosystems into desired directions. In fact, we look for new collaborations to apply this framework in policy/management analysis and the design of new measures.

Transformative innovation policy

The paper addresses transformative innovation policy, which has recently emerged at the intersection of innovation and socio-technical transition research. It has provided valuable heuristics to guide policy; but it has also led to the recognition of major challenges in the management of uncertainty and complexity.

Traditional policy responses to control markets have become a source of inertia and a point of vulnerability addressing challenges associated with digital platforms, financial crises and the covid-19 pandemic as well.

In this paper, we address these challenges by linking transformative innovation policy with research perspectives from (i) complex adaptive systems, (ii) ecosystems, and (iii) adaptive and participatory governance. Specifically, we develop a conceptual framework for transformative governance.

Transformative governance

Ecosystems tend to evolve towards excessive concentration of power and techno-institutional lock-ins, on the one hand, or the dissolution of the ecosystem to fragmented and chaotic markets, on the other. To address this challenge, we develop transformative governance.

Transformative governance seeks to improve the adaptiveness and resilience of the ecosystem and orchestrates socio-technical transformation based on the balanced presence of diversity, connectivity, polycentricity, redundancy and directionality.

In effect, the framework help design and assess policy measures which exhibit the desired five features in the three succession stages, thereby fostering more balanced ecosystem development.

Case study on emerging mobility ecosystem

We present an illustrative example by applying the framework to a Finnish policy reform in which the lack of balanced attention to the ecosystem features catalysed major shortcomings in an emerging innovation mobility ecosystem. Finally, we explore the implications for the design of individual policies and policy mixes that arise from the recognition of the complexity and the holistic policy impacts on the ecosystem and society at large.

The paper results from the international Platform Value Now project, funded by Finland’s Strategic Research Council focusing on understanding the fast-emerging platform ecosystems, their value creation dynamics and requirements of the supportive institutional environment.

This paper is available here to download free of charge. For more information contact Totti Könnölä.

Könnölä et al. Transformative governance of innovation ecosystems

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