Futures4Europe Conference 2026: Daring to Imagine Otherwise
📍 Rome, Italy
📅 30 September – 1 October 2026
🎟️ Participation free for selected contributors
The Futures4Europe Conference returns for its second edition in Rome, building on the inaugural gathering held in Vienna in 2025. Rooted in the Futures4Europe platform — Europe’s online hub for foresight — the conference continues the work initiated through the EU-funded Eye of Europe project.
At a time marked by systemic crises, accelerating transitions, and inherited imaginaries that no longer serve us, Futures4Europe 2026 invites participants to re-open the future. The conference positions imagination not as a soft add-on, but as a collective force shaping how societies sense, interpret, and act toward what lies ahead.
Call for Contributions
🗓️ Deadline: 1 May 2026, 18:00 CET
The conference welcomes proposals from foresight practitioners, research and innovation experts, policymakers, artists, and future-sensitive creators. Around 50 contributions will be selected and invited to join the conference in person in Rome.
Submissions are encouraged that challenge dominant narratives, expand futures literacy, and experiment with new ways of probing the possible.
Core Themes
Imagination in Anticipatory Practice
How imagination shapes futures thinking, from cognitive and emotional processes to the methods that enable or constrain them.
Collective Imaginaries and Myths of the Future
How shared narratives, metaphors, and cultural production shape expectations — and how foresight can disrupt and renew them.
Plural Futures and Inclusive Foresight
Perspectives grounded in diverse epistemologies, including Indigenous, postcolonial, feminist, ecological, and AI-mediated approaches.
Foresight, Imagination, and Policy Action
How futures enter decision-making, and how scenarios and visions translate into institutions, governance, and strategy.
Experiential, Embodied, and Affective Foresight
Immersive, artistic, and embodied approaches — from role-play and performance to installations and XR — and their ethical implications.
Formats Welcome
Academic papers and presentations
Visual essays, films, and video narratives
Installations and performative contributions
Posters and interactive formats
Foresight labs, tools, rituals, and facilitation methods
Contributions from early-career foresight practitioners and artists are especially encouraged.
Practical Information
Participation is free for contributors with accepted proposals
Travel and accommodation are not covered
The full programme and general registration will open later in 2026
A space to think otherwise, imagine collectively, and explore how futures can be reopened — not predicted, but shaped.