Our.Future: Visegrad 2025

Scenarios for the Visegrad Group 2025

12 October 2021

A collaborative project of STRATPOL — Strategic Policy Institute (Slovakia), Visegrad Insight, Res Publica Foundation (Poland), Robert Schuman Institute (Hungary), and Centre for Security Analysis and Prevention (Czechia).

Our.Future:Visegrad 2025 PDF

‘The future is not someplace we are going, but one we are creating.’ Which global trends will mostly shape the regional environment? What development should we expect in technology and economy and what ideas will move public opinion in Visegrad? How should we most effectively strengthen Visegrad cooperation in the coming years? The project seeks to promote the V4 through imaginative exploring of its near and midterm future and the analysis of the past and present developments in the region. Forward-thinking, discussing the common future, favouring innovation and creativity are the best ways to support mutual understanding between V4 citizens. The project is completely unique in its scope and multidisciplinary approach. By focusing on the past, present, and future developments we aim to provide a complex look at the V4, effectively promoting the V4 and raising public awareness of the V4 cooperation.

Every cooperation needs to be built on mutual respect. Mutual respect grows our mutual understanding. But how can we understand each other? We believe the best way to achieve it is to have a dialogue about our hopes, dreams but also the fears and worries we hold for the future. Then we will be able to look for common ground.

The project includes various public debates and workshops across the V4 region, tackling past developments in the region and future scenarios of future cooperation of the Visegrad Four countries — Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary.

Questionnaires

The aim of this project is to produce policy road maps. They will offer recommendations for the ideal yet possible development of the V4 region in the next five years regarding the quality of life, sustainability, and regional cooperation. This ideal future will be delivered in a form of imaginative scenarios and defined as an end-state for our policy road maps. To help craft these maps, we have put together a set of questionnaires to present to experts from each country.

Five crucial areas were identified — economy, society, security, technology, and the environment. Based on analytical reports by leading official institutions, agencies, and think tanks we have selected seven key challenges for each area as the most critical for the V4 countries in the coming years.

The questionnaire design is based on a modified version of the Delphi method. Three questions are asked about each challenge. The first is a closed question inquiring about the scale of probability, desirability, attainability, and urgency of a particular sub-topic or policy. The second question offers the respondents space to expand on their choices made. The final question is open. There is a space for comments and proposals for key changes at the end of each questionnaire.

After completing two rounds of questionnaires, the responses will be aggregated and used to craft scenarios and road maps for the ideal development of the V4. This quality input will help us ensure the high value and feasibility of the final road maps.

 

Partners: 

 

 

Supported by:

 

Contact:

Matej Kandrík, Director, STRATPOL — Strategic Policy Institute
Feature Photo: Lubos Houska from Pixabay

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