Teach the Future at the Futures4Europe Conference
- Lourdes Rodriguez
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
By Lourdes Rodriguez
Co-Executive Director, Teach the Future
This week, I had the opportunity to represent Teach the Future at the Futures4Europe* Conference in Vienna, an inspiring event that brought together more than 140 foresight experts, researchers, and policymakers from 32 countries.
The conference, organized by the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, focused on how future-oriented collective intelligence (FOCI) can better address complex challenges facing Europe and the world, ranging from the climate crisis and democratic fragility to technological acceleration and the broader dynamics of polycrisis. My presentation, “Inclusive Futures: Enhancing Youth Engagement in Collective Intelligence and Decision-Making”, explored a fundamental question:
How can we prepare all young people, not just a privileged few, to meaningfully participate in shaping our collective futures?
Preparing Youth for Meaningful Engagement
If we want young people to participate meaningfully in shaping our shared futures, we must intentionally prepare them to do so. Futures literacy provides the foundation for this preparation. By introducing futures thinking into education, we help youth develop the capacity to engage with complexity, reflect critically on their present, and make meaning in the face of uncertainty.
This isn’t just about empowerment, it’s about cultivating the cognitive, emotional, and perceptual capabilities that enable young people to participate in shaping how we imagine and relate to the future. By developing these capacities, students are better prepared to contribute to collective intelligence in thoughtful, inclusive, and responsible ways.
Futures literacy nurtures this preparation by expanding how young people perceive uncertainty, explore multiple imaginaries, and reflect critically on their role in shaping the present. It supports more conscious, responsible participation in both personal and societal conversations about how futures are imagined, interpreted, and acted upon.
How Teach the Future Brings Futures Literacy to Life
At the conference, I shared examples of how Teach the Future engages young people meaningfully through futures literacy activities in both formal and informal educational settings. These efforts include our FutureWISE program, which supports schools and educators, and our Young Voices Network initiatives, led by Lisa Giuliani, which provide platforms for youth-led participation and expression.
During the talk, I highlighted inspiring youth examples that reflect the impact of these initiatives. These included Ayush Sankaran (India), and Peter Olayiwola and Opeyemi Bakare (Nigeria), all active members of the Teach the Future Young Voices Council.
I also shared the thoughtful contributions of Sofia Londoño and Sadiya, who participated in World Futures Day – Young Voices, a global event that gives young people the space to explore and share their visions of the future.
What We’re Learning: Ongoing Research Insights
Our participatory action research shows that when students are engaged through futures literacy, they experience profound transformations.
These changes are not only visible in what students know or say, but in how they approach complexity, engage with unfamiliar ideas, and reflect on their role in the world. This shift in mindset and confidence can help prepare young people to participate in decision-making processes in more thoughtful, informed, and meaningful ways.
Among the key findings from Teach the Future’s global youth-focused initiatives, carried out in close collaboration with our partners in countries like Brazil, Spain, and Türkiye (to name a few), we observe that young people demonstrate:
A shift from linear, deterministic thinking to open, diverse, and participatory futures
A move from doomerism about the future to hope and increased sense of agency
Enhanced communication skills, with students articulating ideas using systems and complexity thinking
Activation of imagination as a creative and strategic tool
Increased curiosity and research engagement with emerging issues
Strengthened self-awareness, metacognition and responsibility for long-term consequences
An appreciation for the importance of safe spaces where they feel free to imagine and discuss the future openly
A visible extension of futures conversations beyond the classroom, with students engaging their families and peers in dialogue about emerging issues and alternative futures
These outcomes point not just to individual growth, but to a civic capacity that can strengthen our collective intelligence.
Why This Matters for the Foresight and Policy Community
The Futures4Europe Conference made a strong case for broadening foresight practices to include more voices, disciplines, and democratic tools. Our work contributes to this vision by demonstrating that futures literacy in schools can seed collective intelligence from the ground up, reaching communities that formal foresight often overlooks.
When educational systems integrate futures thinking, they become powerful platforms for inclusion, equity, and long-term capacity building. We’re not just helping young people navigate uncertain times, we’re supporting them in expanding how they understand, imagine, and participate in shaping future possibilities.
A Call to the Research Community
Including futures literacy in classrooms holds great promise for empowering young people to engage meaningfully with change. Yet the outcomes it fosters are often intangible, long-term, and highly context-dependent.
Skills such as imagination, anticipation, and agency are difficult to quantify, yet they are essential for youth empowerment, civic responsibility, and democratic participation.
In order to build a stronger foundation for policy and practice, we call on the research community to:
Conduct rigorous, outcome-oriented studies that demonstrate how futures literacy supports student agency, critical thinking, and future-readiness.
Undertake longitudinal research that tracks the long-term impacts on youth decision-making, civic participation, and life pathways.
Foster cross-disciplinary collaboration to co-develop shared indicators that connect education, foresight, and youth development.
Adopt a research mindset that embraces complexity, avoids reductionism, and reflects the long-term, transformative nature of futures thinking.
To support the research, Teach the Future counts on the valuable resource of the Futures Consciousness Scale Young Voices, co-developed with the University of Turku.
If we want ministries of education and policy institutions to invest in futures literacy, we must equip them with the credible, nuanced evidence they need to act.
Looking Ahead
The Futures4Europe Conference showed us how vital it is to ensure that young voices become a recognized and resourced component of collective intelligence.
At Teach the Future, we are committed to building an inclusive future by empowering young people, wherever they are, to take part in the conversations and decisions that shape tomorrow.
Cultivating futures literacy is not only a step toward more inclusive decision-making, it is also an invitation to expand how we understand imagination, agency, and our relationship to change itself.
To learn more about our work or explore collaboration, visit www.teachthefuture.org or contact me at lourdes@teachthefuture.org.
*The Futures4Europe project is part of the EU-funded Eye of Europe initiative, continuing the work begun under European R&I Foresight and Public Engagement for Horizon Europe.
