The EFI BioGateway provides a roadmap to the circular forest-based bioeconomy
The webinar introduced ways of using horizon scanning and invited the audience from forest research and forest organisations to collaborate.
On 17 November 2025, EFI and the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) organised their first joint webinar on horizon scanning. Bringing together participants from diverse fields and interests, the webinar presented hands-on experiences with horizon scanning in research.
During the webinar, we heard examples of how different actors use horizon scanning.
What are wild cards in horizon scanning? Find out how Finland is preparing for the future.
Can you remember autumn 2019 and what expectations you had for the forthcoming 2020s? What would you have responded to somebody picturing you in the possible implications of a global pandemic, Russia attacking its neighbouring country, or Trump pushing even more provocative ideas into reality?
Two foresight reports released in September 2025 illustrate the questions that policy-making institutions ask today when navigating an unstable world. The most likely scenarios or single-risk impact analysis no longer suffice amid the complex systemic challenges.
The European Commission’s strategic foresight report “Resilience 2.0” was released this autumn as the first of its kind for the 2024–2029 Commission. Annual foresight reports have been produced since 2020 to inform EU policy priorities and long-term policy thinking on cross-cutting themes.
This time, in addition to synthesising global developments and EU-specific challenges, the report also highlights relevant emerging signals of change. But what are the signals?
These signals are emerging trends and issues that may appear marginal today but could become important for the EU in the future. They are collected in an inter-institutional horizon scanning process led by the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS).
In Finland, since 1993, each electoral term, the Government submits to the Parliament a Report on the Future. The first part of this report of the current Government came out in September 2025 (in Finnish), which describes four alternative future states:
The report explores how to prepare for these futures today.
The inter-institutional work is based on a systematic analysis of change factors, critical uncertainties and alternative paths of development up to 2045. The report also contains wild cards – unlikely events that, if realised, would have direct impacts in Finland. Wild cards are introduced to test whether the four scenarios capture very different types of developments.
It is not by chance that weak signals and wild cards gain visibility in strategic foresight reports. Without making a thorough analysis of the possible implications of such developments, short descriptions included in the reports illustrate raised alertness to early warnings.
Instead of mere outlooks, foresight reports encourage exploration of ‘the imaginable’ in addition to the evidence of past trends and change factors:
On the horizon: race to space. Technology is being developed to source critical minerals and raw materials from space, solar geoengineering to reduce global warming, and dual-use infrastructures to tackle space debris. Who leads the race for investments and for accruing knowledge and evidence also defines the rules of the game?
Wild card: collapse of the Gulf Stream! What if climate change adaptation in Europe becomes protection against frost in agriculture and food supply, in water supply and the transport and energy infrastructures?
On the horizon: understanding the dark biosphere and deep-sea ecosystems. Science and technology advance in deep seas and deep underground. This opens doors both for improving nature protection and for the overexploitation of new resources.
Wild card: rise of Africa! What if Sub-Saharan countries break out of poverty and turn an abundance of resources into an economic miracle, improved governance and population growth? What kind of multi-polar world could we see?
On the horizon: a penny for your thoughts. Neural data collected by biometric wearable devices can be combined with algorithms that enable steering of opinions and behaviours at the scale of individuals and societies. Boom by improved sustainability or doom for humanity?
Wild card: FinTech world! What if the digitisation of financial services and money led to an era of FinTech companies, cryptocurrencies and microloan platforms? Who is better off without central banks?
Signals are of little value unless we assess their future implications in a specific context and take action today. Strategic foresight tools are adjusted to the world where we live: in a stable system, outlooks are useful at least in the short term, while in turmoil, such analogies can be destructive.
The EC strategic foresight emphasises a clear understanding of long-term trends and emerging issues as a basis for major policy initiatives. Signals of change are raw materials for scenarios to wind-tunnel policy making.
The Finnish Report on Future develops a shared understanding of the crucial questions concerning the future. None of the four scenarios is assumed to happen. Instead, scenarios are proposed as a framework for regular monitoring of the operating environment, its changes and possible implications.
Strategic foresight seeks:
- Improved preparedness and rapid response capacity
- Stress-testing strategies and assessing possible implications beyond the direct impacts of decisions
- Capacities and a foresight culture for regular scanning and scoping
- Long view to trigger curiosity for new ideas
Discussion about weak signals or wild cards does not pave the way for a specific event to occur but instead builds the capacity to think beyond trends and the impacts of known change factors. Which questions do you consider important for us to be asking today?
Author: paivi.pelli @efi.int
EC Strategic foresight https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/strategic-foresight_en
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS) Horizon Scanning project https://espas.eu/horizon.html Horizon Scanning | ESPAS
France24 news article about the Finnish future report in brief, 26.9.2025 by Louise Nordström From climate collapse to the end of NATO: Finland outlines scenarios for the world in 2045 = https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20250926-from-climate-collapse-to-the-end-of-nato-finland-outlines-scenarios-for-the-world-in-2045
Committee for the Future, Parliament of Finland https://www.parliament.fi/EN/valiokunnat/tulevaisuusvaliokunta/Pages/default.aspx
Featured image: AvigatorPhotographer and Alesmunt from Getty Images, and Изображения пользователя Writerfantast / edited in Canva
Explore the conversation between Teppo Hujala and Päivi Pelli on the future of forest research and horizon scanning.
Today’s world is characterised by disruptions. The changing climate, geopolitics, and technological development signal several possible directions for the future bioeconomy. Recent research papers demonstrate that horizon scanning is a scientifically proven method, for example, in identifying and prioritising emerging research topics, as well as handling critical issues in forestry.
In this conversation, Teppo Hujala from the University of Eastern Finland and Päivi Pelli from the European Forest Institute invite forest researchers to develop more systematic horizon scanning.
You can listen to the conversation or watch it with subtitles – the audio plays even if your phone screen is locked.
If you are interested to learn more, contact: teppo.hujala @ uef.fi or paivi.pelli @ efi.int
Bengston, D.N., Hujala, T. & Butler, B.J. The “Coming Age of Wood” and Family Forest Owners: An Implications Wheel® Exploration. Small-scale Forestry 19, 145–157 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-019-09423-7
Mauno, T., Pelli, P., Bengston, D.N., Pykäläinen, J., Hujala, T. 2025. Interactive Horizon Scanning of the Forest Bioeconomy with a Nested Business Environment Framework. Futures & Foresight Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/ffo2.70015
Developing narratives for future bioeconomy needs a combination of facts and ideas, to a certain extent, giving up the idea of a steering wheel for the transition.
Bioeconomy can be understood as a part of current economic systems that is based on biological resources and processes. Bioeconomy, however, is already envisioned as a new system state where resources and production are organised in a novel way, and technologies are applied to count in the social and ecological bases of economic activities.
Gradual changes and a radical transition toward a bioeconomy progress side by side. It is challenging to model such changes: path dependencies slow down profound system changes, regardless of the ambitious goals set for a transition.
At the beginning of the 2020s, many international organisations, governments, central banks, private financiers and companies highlighted their commitment to mitigate climate change.
In 2024, the consultancy company McKinsey analysed sustainability reporting to understand how companies consider nature in their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategies in the Fortune Global 500 Companies. The report concluded that companies’ nature-related commitments have broadened from addressing carbon emissions to include water, chemicals and plastics, biodiversity, forests, and nutrients or nitrogen oxides.
Now, in 2025, news headlines, particularly those from the United States, illustrate again quite a different outlook, with companies backtracking on their environmental pledges. Yet, uncertainty is bad for business. Companies consider both the short-term and long-term transition risks associated with investments and transition opportunities that drive business growth. This underscores the need for enhanced data, tools and skills for imagining the (yet) unimaginable.
Horizon scanning is a method for systematic detection and assessment of signals, early warnings and signs of change. These signals are data for monitoring the ongoing changes, such as emerging trends. They serve as material for envisioning possible futures, including drivers of a radical change. Developing narratives for a future bioeconomy needs a combination of facts and ideas, to a certain extent, giving up the idea of a steering wheel for the transition.
The three horizons framework is a sensemaking tool for system changes (Sharpe et al. 2016). The three parallel lines of possible developments illustrate three narratives toward future: Horizon-3 as the new system state which will eventually replace the present, Horizon-1 system (H1), and Horizon-2 as the space where the ideas to sustain the present system (H2-) compete with the ideas to speed up the emerging new system (H2+). In other words, the future bioeconomy can be found in the present both as the visionary ideas of a radically different system state, the gradual changes of the dominant system, and the tensions between these two.
The future bioeconomy can be found in the present, embodied in the visionary ideas of a radically different system state, the gradual changes within the dominant system, and the tensions between these two.
System changes are not linear or predictable. Horizon scanning enhances data and skills to think differently. In essence, signals are like pockets of different futures already in the present:
For example, the horizon scan of future places (Urban Foresight, 2024) collected a database of nearly 300 trends that will impact the future of British towns and cities. As is often the case, weak signals were the hardest to find, while current trends and drivers were the most numerous.
Under the heading “Investing in healthy futures”, these environmental trends were identified:
Rather than deep diving into the identified trends, the horizon scan of future places demonstrates that signals are contextual and interpreted for a purpose.
Climate change, urbanisation, globalisation and digitalisation are examples of megatrends over the past decades. Tensions, detectible for their outlook, help quantify what-if questions for the analysis of the future bioeconomy.
In turn, signals of change are crucial for developing alternative narratives toward possible futures, including a profoundly different future system state. Take the example of how nature has been addressed in recent economic, social and technological developments.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity (TEEB), as well as the Dasgupta Review caught wide attention on how we should account for nature in economics and decision-making.
Impacts and dependencies of economic activities on the state of nature tend to be overlooked. To this end, an international standard for integrating economic and environmental data has been adopted (SEEA), and accounting frameworks, such as the natural capital accounting and ecosystem accounting, have been developed (UNEP 2025).
Furthermore, environmental footprint and biodiversity footprint methods have been developed to assess the environmental impacts of products, processes and organisations. Making the costs of depleting ecosystems visible on economic terms could also translate the opportunities of protecting and restoring nature into economic equations.
On the other hand, a call has been made for the rights of nature. The inherent value of nature for nature itself is part of the Indigenous Peoples’ heritage. Over the decades, personhood rights have been granted for rivers, forests, and mountains – for example, Mount Taranaki in New Zealand (Taranaki Mounga, 2025).
At the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2025, the idea was put forward that, in the current situation, the global climate and hydrological cycles should also be granted environmental legal status.
The Earth Species Project illustrates how the application of AI and machine learning can open new ways of engaging with nature. In the Futures podcasts (2025), Jane Lawton envisions how such interaction could help us understand within wider nature but also involve ‘voices’ of other species in questions concerning conservation or rights-for-nature debates. Acoustic ecology research has already explored the restoration of aquatic and terrestrial ecological communities after disturbances (Znidersic and Watson 2022).
These snapshots and the possible futures they evoke inspire, yet also leave a somewhat uneasy feeling. This is the field of horizon scanning: detecting and assessing signals of change to prioritise those that need further scrutiny and/or that give food for thought on what could be possible.
Come and share your ideas! What do you consider an early warning or sign of an emerging trend that bioeconomy research and education has not yet paid due attention to, to assess potential system changes?
This article provides a brief introduction to the horizon scanning workshop by the European Forest Institute (EFI) and the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) at the European Bioeconomy Scientific Forum (EBSF) in June 2025 in Joensuu, Finland.
To learn more, contact Senior Researcher Päivi Pelli at paivi.pelli @ efi.int
Earth Species Project https://www.earthspecies.org/
Future podcast (2025) Decoding Animal Communication w/ Jane Lawton, January 23, 2025. Dubai Future Forum https://futurespodcast.net/episodes/bonus-jane-lawton
McKinsey & Co. (2024) Corporate commitments to nature have evolved since 2022. December 10, 2024 Article / McKinsey’s Agriculture Practice https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights/corporate-commitments-to-nature-have-evolved-since-2022#/
Sharpe, B, Hodgson, A, Leicester, G, Lyon, A, Fazey, I (2016) Three horizons: a pathways practice for transformation. Ecol Soc 21:47. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08388-210247
Taranaki Mounga (2025) Te Ture Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua and Taranaki Maunga – Questions & Answers, February 12, 2025 https://taranakimounga.nz/news/te-ture-whakatupua-mo-te-kahui-tupua-and-taranaki-maunga/
UN Environmental Programme (2025) Natural capital accounting and valuation of ecosystem services NCAVES FAQ https://www.unep.org/topics/teeb/natural-capital-accounting-and-valuation-ecosystem-services/ncaves-faq
Urban Foresight Place Kits by Urban Foresight https://www.placekits.com/futureplaces
Urban Foresight (2024) Future Places – A Horizon Scan of Future Trends for the UK’s Towns and Cities. Urban Foresight Ltd for Innovate UK. https://iuk-business-connect.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Horizon-Scan-Future-Trends-for-UK-Towns-Cities.pdf
WEF (2025) Environmental personhood: what is it and why should nature be given legal status?
February 13, 2025. Article by Elisabeth Mills, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/02/environmental-personhood/
Znidersic, E., Watson, D.M. (2022) Acoustic restoration: Using soundscapes to benchmark and fast-track recovery of ecological communities. Ecology Letters 25(7), 1597-1603. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14015
Featured image: Background by Pgiam from Getty Images Signature; man illustration by Sensvector; woman illustration by artbesouro / edited in Canva
Learn more how horizon scanning looks beyond the accustomed sources of evidence on past trends, drivers and change factors.
Stock exchanges go up and down, and the economy and society at large face multiple uncertainties. In geopolitical turmoil, resilience and competitiveness are used as keywords for strategic thinking in Europe – emphasis on green shift to clean industrial transition, security investments and resource self-sufficiency. But did we foresee this coming? After all, in hindsight, very few things come as a total surprise.
Explorative scenarios are useful tools for considering possible futures and monitoring multiple outcomes simultaneously. Even if the worst-case scenario did not occur, there would be preparedness for turbulent times, too.
At the beginning of 2020 and in the aftermath of COVID-19, several scenario exercises were carried out to explore possible implications of the pandemic. For example, the insurance company Lloyds published, together with the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies, their scenarios for global politics in the era of climate diplomacy. The purpose was to help insurers, risk managers, and contingency planners build models to mitigate transition risks.
‘Green Globalisation’, ‘Climate Anarchy’, and ‘Green Cold War’ scenarios illustrate three profoundly different narratives of cooperation, chaos and competition. The latter was identified as the most likely future: a future characterised by competition between blocs for energy, technology, and market dominance.
Rather than judging past scenario reports on how well they combined signals and emerging trends to foresee where we are in 2025, such work can help us rethink how we got here. Imagination is needed to keep surprises within the analysis of the future. Some signals, called weak signals, make sense only in hindsight, at their best. Unlikely but potentially significant events are the field of horizon scanning.
Horizon scanning is a systematic analysis of signs of change, emerging trends and early warnings. It is a typical first step in foresight or scenario analysis. Horizon scanning looks beyond the accustomed sources of evidence on past trends, drivers and change factors. The radars focus on the debatable sphere of already detectable emerging trends and drivers of future conditions – incidents and forces that could change the future into something other than we can foresee.
Horizon scanning builds on methods to collect a wide number of signals (longlist), and then, stepwise distils these data into the most significant signals (shortlist) and assesses their implications for today. Interaction with experts and stakeholders is crucial. Signals are not evidence, but they need interpretation within a specific context:
There are several tools to organise signal detection and assessment. The most crucial step in horizon scanning, however, is to think of the potential implications of the short-listed signals.
Futures wheel, impact wheels or implication wheels are examples of simple tools to structure discussions in cross-disciplinary or multi-stakeholder interaction. Starting from a focal issue, such as a trend, event or decision, successive tiers of consequences are visualised into a map of possible developments over time. The purpose is not to model cause-effect chains for fully-fledged scenarios but to support imagination. The consequences explored from one tier to another grow exponentially, and attention becomes drawn to longer-term indirect implications.
For example, the USDA horizon scanning team (Bengston et al. 2020) used the implications wheel to explore abrupt climate change as the focal wild card issue. Direct implications were first defined by a small team, and the successive tiers of implications were then explored in a stakeholder workshop. The exercise resulted in 224 direct and indirect implications, including both positive and negative outcomes. Horizon scanning can be an initial step to strategic foresight and improved preparedness for the future. The USDA team emphasises the educational role of futures methods: they “help individuals and collectives stretch their imaginations and achieve ownership and agency of the complex and wicked problems at hand.”
Other exercises, such as the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS) led by the Joint Research Centre and the European Parliamentary Research Service, use a similar method to explore the weak signals collected in their regular horizon scanning. The latest ESPAS newsletter (Issue no.7, March 2025) summarises futures wheels for three emerging issues, namely, neuroethical world, diplomatic non-immunity, and weather manipulation and its conspiracies. For each weak signal, a “what if” question is concluded:
What if the EU were to consider the potential of neurotechnologies specifically in the General Data Protection Regulation?
What if EU shone a light on all those threatening diplomatic immunity and supported the development of an international diplomatic immunity score?
What if the EU were to consider the development of geoengineering know-how as an essential capability to ensure its own long-term resilience?
Thus, these questions seek to widen the radar for possible implications of weak signals for policy making. Asking “what if” challenges the prevalent assumptions and can innovate our thinking about the future.
Horizon scanning is a typical step at the beginning of futures analysis – before delving into cause-effect chains and the quantitative analysis of past trends, drivers and change factors.
How well are we set for analysing the future bioeconomy? What do you consider an early warning or sign of an emerging trend that bioeconomy research and education have not yet paid due attention to explore the critical uncertainties for the future?
This article provides a brief introduction to the horizon scanning workshop that will be organised in collaboration between the European Forest Institute (EFI) and the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) during the European Bioeconomy Scientific Forum (EBSF) in June 2025 in Joensuu, Finland.
To learn more, contact Senior Researcher Päivi Pelli at paivi.pelli @ efi.int And learn more about
Bengston, D.N., Crabtree, J. and Hujala, T. (2020) Abrupt climate change: Exploring the implications of a wild card. Futures 124 (2020) 102641 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102641
Bengston DN, Mauno T, Hujala T. 2024. Horizon Scanning: A Process for Identifying Emerging Signals of Change Shaping the Future of Natural Resources Management. Society & Natural Resources. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2024.2335392
Dufva M and Rowley C (2022) Weak signals – stories about futures. Sitra studies 203, January 2022. See also https://www.sitra.fi/en/topics/weak-signals/ (Update of the Sitra Weak Signals report will be published in May 2025)
ESPAS European Strategy and Policy Analysis System https://espas.eu/horizon.html
ESPAS Horizon Scanning Newsletter (March 2025) https://espas.eu/files/horizon/HorizonScanning_ESPAS_07.pdf
Hines, A., Bengston, D.N., Dockry, M.J., comps. 2019. The Forest Futures Horizon Scanning project. Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-P-187. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. 81 p. https://doi.org/10.2737/NRS-GTR-P-187
Lloyds (2022) Shifting powers: Climate cooperation, chaos or competition? Managing geopolitical risk from the climate transition. Lloyd’s emerging risk report 2022. In association with the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies https://www.lloyds.com/news-and-insights/risk-reports/library/shifting-powers-climate-cooperation-chaos-or-competition
Banner image: standret and alesmunt / Adobe Stock
Find out how bioeconomy research and education are using horizon scanning and AI.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report (2025), extreme weather events, misinformation and disinformation, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem collapse were among the highest-severity risks in the short and long term. Similar risks were found in the Canadian Policy Horizons report (2024) for the highest–likelihood, highest–impact disruptions to tackle nationally. But how do we deal with all those issues?
Today’s environment is characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, or VUCA. Decision-makers seek guidance on where to focus their efforts to enhance the resilience and future-proofness of their strategies.
Strategies toward a bioeconomy, for instance, are based on evidence of past trends, analysis of known drivers and change factors for biological resources. Their supply and demand, as well as skills and capacities, are needed for their sustainable management and use. The need for such analysis has not disappeared with the disruptions on the horizon.
In the VUCA world, political, economic, social, technological, and environmental changes make it difficult to define a single “most likely” future outcome. Instead of precise outlooks, an increasing awareness of adaptive skills is needed to explore what is possible.
Horizon scanning is a systematic approach that detects and analyses emerging weak signals, i.e., ideas, events and phenomena that may impact society, the environment and policy. “Risks and disruptions” reports use horizon scanning to identify emerging trends, signs of change, early warnings and drivers of future conditions.
The goal is not to predict future developments but rather to identify key issues that can improve preparedness for them. But how can we better prepare to see beyond what evidence, visions, and strategies direct us to foresee?
The EU Policy Lab’s Risks on the Horizon report (JRC, 2024) illustrates a foresight approach that starts with weak signals and widens the radar to unexpected developments and their implications. The same development pathways lead to risks and create novel opportunities.
In addition, horizon scanning methods have been used to identify emerging research topics, such as the issues of concern for global biodiversity conservation that have been prioritised in annual horizon scans since 2009.
As an example of the top 15 conservation issues for 2025, researchers focused on the possible consequences of European laws and unintended challenges for wood production (Sutherland et al. 2024).
In addition, the Forest Horizons project, which started in USDA Forest Service in 2016, draws attention to the issues affecting forestry. Based on signals collected 2021–2022, 15 signals of change from outside forestry and categorised along three horizons were described (Bengston et al. 2024). For example:
Another study identified 15 issues in the United Kingdom’s Forest management that will need to be addressed within the next 50 years. Among the under-recognised signals with potentially significant impact were the role of soil microbial ecology in forestry and environmental DNA in understanding forest ecosystems (Tew et al. 2024).
Perhaps more important than the findings, as such in these studies, is the observation that the horizon scanning method gains credibility in forest research and practice: signals collection and assessments can be made systematically to deliver valuable insights for the sector and beyond.
Artificial intelligence (AI) illustrates a driver around several signs of change that can be identified, but concluding the implications of these developments remains challenging. Both Bentson et al. (2024) and Tew et al. (2024) mention AI among the important signals affecting forestry and smart silviculture.
Steps are taken forward in understanding the natural world with AI. Machine learning opens new lanes to making sense of complex biological systems: AI can learn directly from data and adapt without following explicit human-induced rules.
Machine learning challenges traditional statistical analyses in monitoring the state of nature and its change over time (Wilson 2024). In turn, envision how AI-powered virtual cells could revolutionise the idea of lab work for researchers, as well as education and training hubs involving educators, patients, and the public (Bunne et al. 2024).
Noteworthy collaboration between private companies and science blurs the accustomed borders of where and how AI is used.
For example, Microsoft researchers work on new infrastructures for scientific disciplines on a macro planetary scale, virtual biomes, and a molecular scale for materials science (Microsoft 2024).
MIT, Google and Purdue University have merged AI and tree-growth models with Google’s Auto Arborist data to create 3D models of urban trees (MIT Office of Sustainability 2024). The Tree-D Fusion, as they call it, illustrates opportunities for urban green planning and maintenance, including the development of computer vision.
Several challenges remain regarding the use of AI, not least regarding data, but collaborative development is already ongoing. For example, Computer Vision for Ecology (CV4E) workshops train students and researchers in Ecology and Conservation to use AI.
Not all organisations or regions across the globe are in an equal position to use technological advancements or to face the consequences. Our understanding of how AI will change us humans is still nascent.
For instance, a study analysed over 600 participants using AI tools across diverse age groups and educational backgrounds. The authors emphasised the need for academic programmes and workplace training to mitigate the potential cognitive costs of AI tool reliance and cultivate users’ engagement in deep, reflective thinking processes (Gerlich 2025).
There is so much to explore about horizon scanning and its possibilities. How would you invite others to deep, reflective thinking and analytical reasoning about our assumptions about the future?
What do you consider an early warning or sign of an emerging trend that bioeconomy research and education have not yet paid due attention to prepare for the future?
This article provides a brief introduction to the horizon scanning workshop that will be organised in collaboration between the European Forest Institute (EFI) and the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) during the European Bioeconomy Scientific Forum (EBSF) in June 2025 in Joensuu, Finland.
To learn more, contact Senior Researcher Päivi Pelli at paivi.pelli @ efi.int and read the workshop brochure.
And learn more about
Bengston, DN, Westphal LM et al. 2024. Emerging signals of change that could shape the future of forestry: a horizon scan. Journal of Forestry, 122, 152–158 https://doi.org/10.1093/jofore/fvad046
Bunne, C, Roohani, Y et al. 2024. How to build the virtual cell with artificial intelligence: Priorities and opportunities. Cell 187 (25), 7045-7063 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2024.11.015
Gerlich, M. 2025. AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking (January 03, 2025). http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5082524
JRC. 2024. Risks on the horizon. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Muench, S., Whyte, J., Hauer, G., De Maleville, A. and Asikainen, T., Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2024, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/526889
Microsoft (website) 2024. From forecasting storms to designing molecules: How new AI foundation models can speed up scientific discovery. By Catherine Bolgar. October 8, 2024. https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/ai/from-forecasting-storms-to-designing-molecules-how-new-ai-foundation-models-can-speed-up-scientific-discovery/
MIT Office of Sustainability (website) 2024. Advancing urban tree monitoring with AI-powered digital twins. By Rachel Gordon, November 21, 2024. https://sustainability.mit.edu/article/advancing-urban-tree-monitoring-ai-powered-digital-twins
Policy Horizons Canada. 2024. Disruptions on the Horizon. https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/2024/disruptions/
Sutherland, WJ, Brotherton PNM et al. 2024. A horizon scan of global biological conservation issues for 2025. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2024.11.002
Tew, ER, Ambrose-Oji, B et al. 2024. A horizon scan of issues affecting UK forest management within 50 years. Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research 97(3), 349–362 https://doi.org/10.1093/forestry/cpad047
WEF. 2025. Global Risks Report 2025. World Economic Forum, Elsner M., Atkinson G., and Zahidi, S. Published 15 January 2025 https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2025/
Wilson, N. 2024. Artificial intelligence helps drive new frontiers in ecology. BioScience, 2024, 74, 306–311 https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biae016
Featured image: Candy Box Images / edited in Canva
