Despite all their differences, many of today’s governments were shaped by ideas that were innovative and even revolutionary when they were conceived several centuries ago. Meanwhile, science and technology, on the one hand, and people’s lives, on the other, have changed considerably. This requires the development of a more sophisticated understanding of the future.

The understanding of ‘anticipatory’ in the title ‘anticipatory governance’ should not be confined to the restricted territory of forecasting; knowing how to develop a non-bureaucratic organizational structure is part of the challenge, as well as the awareness that systems of governance have been shaped before the discovery of complexity and should be adapted to the management of complex environments.

While the diagnosis is shared, there is no real consensus on the therapies to be adopted. This conference will explore ways for moving from an essentially reactive bureaucratic organization to an anticipatory one.