#EuropeIf …

A role-play workshop about the future of Europe

6 May 2022, 09:00-13:00 CET via Zoom

Imagine Europe in the year 2050.

What if GDP is replaced with a quality of life index?

Beyond GDP has been in discussion for decades. In the mid-2020s a process started to phase out GDP and step by step replace by a (territorial) quality of life index. This was based on the work carried out by e.g. OECD, Eurostat and ESPON and allows for nuancing the composition of index in accordance to the preferences of the people in a place. The shift was most noticeable in Cohesion Policy, where the allocation of funding was shifted from GDP to the quality of life index. Other policy domains at European and national level followed swiftly.

How will Europe look like? Where does this take us, and what does this mean for territorial development in Europe? What may be the impacts on the territories? On the economy? On its people? Could you think of different possible scenarios?

Imagine yourself in 2030. Together with an international and multidisciplinary team, the new President of the European Union has asked you for plausible scenarios on how the replacement of GDP with a quality of life index is expected to evolve until 2050, and what the territorial implications will be.

Are you interested in exploring this future of Europe? Are you keen on foresight processes? We hereby invite you to ‘Europe if…’, an innovative and interactive role-play workshop, with inspiring colleagues to provoke thinking out-of-the-box, stimulate food for thought, develop creative ideas and imagine different futures for Europe.

At this workshop about 20 to 30 people will come together to explore what Europe could look like if GDP were replaced with a quality of life index.

Setting the scene

To start with when entering the workshop every participant will receive a particular role to play. This could e.g. be the quality of life officer in a national ministry of health. Once all participants have familiarised themselves with the their roles of the day, the actual workshop starts

In the course of the workshop, participants will be guided through different steps for developing territorial scenarios. Participants will be split in different groups, with each group preparing a scenario for Europe in 2050 based on a particular understanding of quality of life and how it could replace GDP. During several discussion rounds with the other groups, different facts, key trends, challenges and possible policy pointers will be discussed. At the end of the session the scenarios of the different groups and their territorial implications will be compared and discussed.

Role profiles, instructions, relevant maps, facts and figures and relevant trends will be prepared to stimulate the discussion. No prior preparation by the participants is necessary. If you are interested in exploring the future of Europe with a territorial foresight focus, just bring your curiosity, open mind and willingness to engage in a role-play workshop and slip into a role’s shoes! All you need to do is register, long on the workshop and make sure you are availableto discuss on 06 May from 09:00 to 13:00.

The programme

The workshop will run via Zoom and make use of the online collaboration tool Mural. The preliminary programme for this highly interactive workshop looks as follows:

09:00     
    Registration to the platform.

09:15     
    Familiarising with your fictional character.

09:30     
    Welcome and introduction to the day.

10:00     
    Step 1 – Group work – Your understanding of quality of life.

10:15     
    Step 2 – Group work – Your main trends & drivers affecting quality of life.

10:30
    Step 3 – You receive your task. Sorting out the next steps and tasks ahead.

10:45     
    Step 4 – Information collecting round 1. Interactions with the other groups.
    Step 5 – Information collecting round 2. Interactions with the other groups.
    Step 6 – Information collecting round 3. Interactions with the other groups.

11:30
    Step 7 – Go back to your group to develop conclusions.

12:00  
    Step 8 – Present your scenario to the plenary.

12:30
    Step 9 – Joint discussion about key lessons for Europe concerning possible
    implications of GDP is replaced with a quality of life index.

13:00
    The end – Now you can prepare for Europe day on 9 May.

Register

If you want to join, please register here (Opens in a new window). 

As there are limited places available, please register only if you are sure you can attend and fully engage with the workshop for the entire morning of 06 May 2022, 09:00-13:00 CET. Registrations will be accepted on a first come, first served basis.

Following the registration, we will send you an invitation with the Zoom link to the meeting and further instructions, in the next days. For those not familiar working with the online collaboration tool Mural (Opens in a new window), we will also send a link to a test page and some instructions.