About us
Institutul de Prospectiva is a research organisation (NGO) founded in 2012 in Romania, with the mission to stimulate future-awareness aimed at addressing the challenges of contemporary societies. To this end, we implement tailored foresight exercises supporting strategic orientation in the public sector, with a focus on foresight for R&I policy at European and national level, as follows:
- Currently, Prospectiva is part of the project Eye of Europe, aimed at nurturing the European R&I foresight community.
- Prospectiva is also part of the Foresight-on-Demand (FOD) consortium, tasked with advising the European Commission and fourteen other EU organisations on science and technology policy programming for a period of four years (April 2014 – March 2028).
This is an extension of the previous successful cooperation within the Foresight on Demand framework contract (2019-2023); during this period Prospectiva has contributed to numerous projects, on components related to horizon scanning, large scale Delphi consultations, scenario building, co-creation workshops, speculative design, and the elaboration of various briefs, in-depth case studies and reports. These projects addressed a range of themes, among which the future of food, of retail, of ecosystems’ flourishing, and even of the human condition. - Previously, Prospectiva has been involved in several H2020 foresight projects related to R&I policy.
- Moreover, the organization’s core team members have collaborated with the R&I funding agency in Romania, coordinating the foresight exercises for the elaboration of the national research and innovation strategy for 2006-2013, 2014-2020, and for 2021-2027. A common characteristic of such exercises is the scale of participation, which usually involves hundreds of persons in face-to-face interactions and thousands of contributors in Dynamic Argumentative Delphi online consultations.
Besides its work in foresight in the field of R&I, Prospectiva has coordinated a fully-fledged foresight process supporting the elaboration of national strategies for Fishing and Aquaculture and for the Romanian Mountain Areas.
In its efforts to extend future literacy, Prospectiva has participated in the FOReSiGHT Erasmus+ project (2020-2023), engaging students from four EU countries in foresight for entrepreneurial thinking.
Visit our Projects page to get to know some of our work. Under Resources you’ll find our technical reports, articles and other materials.
Meet the team
Dr. Radu Gheorghiu is a foresight practitioner, trainer and theorist committed to promoting future oriented communities. To this end, he has devised a horizon scanning mechanism which combines human evaluators and machine learning, and developed the consultation method Dynamic Argumentative Delphi. Both tools have been extensively used in large scale foresight exercises in Romania and at European level. He coordinated large-scale foresight consultations for the elaboration of three national Research & Innovation strategies in Romania (2006, 2013, 2021), with the former including citizen workshops. He has published on foresight methodologies, including scenario building techniques, and more inspirational materials mostly connected to the future of digital and bionic technologies.
Bianca Dragomir has been working in foresight for the last ten years, contributing to European foresight projects with components related to horizon scanning, scenario and vision building, and large online expert consultations. In addition, Bianca has participated in designing and facilitating face-to-face co-creation workshops in Romania, in fields such as public administration, RDI policy and education, some of which involved citizen engagement.
Her practice in foresight - particularly its functions of imagining and deliberating potential futures - capitalizes on her experience as an academic debater and seasoned trainer: a former national champion and European vice champion, over the last decade she has taught debate to students from Europe, the Middle East, and South-East Asia, and to corporate employees in Romania. In 2015, Bianca was delegated Romania’s youth representative to the United Nations.
Dr. Liviu Andreescu is Professor of Public Policy with the Faculty of Administration and Business at the University of Bucharest. He is an expert on research and higher education policy and has published extensively in this field, as well as more generally in social and political science. He was one of the core-team contributors to the development of Romania’s national strategy for R&I (2014-2020), and has published on the methodology of such strategy-making processes.
Dr. Adrian Curaj is a former minister of education, science and innovation in Romania. He is currently head of the UNESCO Chair on Science and Innovation Policies at the National University of Political Sciences and Public Administration and has been for many years the director of the Executive Agency for Funding Higher Education, Research, Development an Innovation. Adrian has been working as a consultant with the World Bank, UNESCO, UNIDO, ETF and EC for studies in Tertiary Education, Science and Innovation, and Foresight. He has been actively involved as project/country/or group leader in many research projects (including FP7, H2020, SEE, INTERREG projects). He published in foresight, higher education, as well as science and innovation policies. He was the initiator of the Bologna Process Researchers Conferences (2011, 2014, 2017). Adrian is also a fellow to the World Academy of Art & Science (WAAS).