The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) initiated an elaborate multi-method strategic foresight process in early 2022 to consider and prepare for a broad array of potential future scenarios, in order to improve ECDC’s preparedness and resilience to future threats. This was in recognition of the volatility and complexity of the dynamic systems surrounding public health. By identifying priorities for public health preparedness, research, training and workforce development, the project intends to inform long-term public health planning within ECDC itself, within the EU public health policy arena and by other stakeholders.
This process started by horizon scanning for important global trends relevant for public health (‘megatrends’) and assessing their underlying driving forces (‘drivers of change’). It then interpreted the impact, uncertainties and implications of possible alternative pathways of change towards 2040 (‘driver trajectories’) to develop images of different possible futures from the resulting operational conditions, as well as their associated challenges for infectious disease prevention and control (‘threat scenarios’). Finally, it concluded with imagining what a robust
future organisation would look like under such conditions, to assess what actions should be taken in the meantime (‘back-casting’) and stress-testing these actions under the range of plausible operational conditions (wind-tunnelling).
This report was prepared as part of the project “Future Infectious Disease Threats to Europe: A Foresight Approach” ECDC/2021/003.
