This FutureScape issue brief, authored by Senior Fellows Peter Engelke and Robert A. Manning, is the first in a series related to The Transatlantic Partnership for the Global Future, a project organized in cooperation with the Government of Sweden, to bring together experts from government, business, and academia to address critical questions relating emerging technologies to global challenges and explore their effects on transatlantic relations in the near- and long-term.
The world is currently undergoing a Third Industrial Revolution, one which challenges the long-term economic vitality of the transatlantic community. In the midst of this third revolution, Europe and the United States face growing threats from structural risks that, if left unaddressed, will undermine chances for long-term recovery from current economic difficulties. If Europe and the US are to remain competitive, a comprehensive strategy for ensuring long-term economic resiliency is required. This strategy must address structural weaknesses which constrain innovation, high-skilled education efforts, and effective labor utilization. Without improvement in these core areas new generations of workers will be ill-equipped to face developing trends. Transatlantic leaders will have to pay heed to these structural threats while reimagining their social contracts to compensate for current developmental weaknesses.
FutureScape is a signature series of issue briefs from the Strategic Foresight Initiative dedicated to exploring and analyzing the societal, political, and economic effects of emerging technologies in the coming decades, with research and insights from leading technologists and policy-centered actors.