The World Economic Forum’s network of Global Future Councils is the world’s foremost multistakeholder and interdisciplinary knowledge network dedicated to promoting innovative thinking to shape a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable future. Each council’s insights are taken forward by the Forum’s ongoing initiatives, communities and meetings to ensure impact.
The Network is an invitation-only community. Members join for a two-year term. It works as a time-bound think-tank and convenes around 600 of the most relevant and knowledgeable thought leaders from academia, government, international organizations, business, and civil society, grouped in expertise-based thematic councils. The current term started in March 2023 and will end in December 2024.
Mission
The Network helps to identify and disseminate transformative ideas with the potential for global impact. The Global Future Council members provide strategic insights, scientific evidence, forward guidance, and multidisciplinary understanding of major issues through three pillars:
• Fresh ideas and innovative thinking: Nurturing cutting-edge and disruptive ideas and developing the foresight to identify and shape key areas
• Grounding in expertise and evidence: Providing a foundation for data-, evidence-, fact- and research-based public-private cooperation
• Interdisciplinary and systems approach: Connecting the dots between established and frontier issues and integrating thought leaders from business, academia, civil society, government and international organizations
Find out more about the Network of the Global Future Councils.
Future Focus 2025: Pathways for Progress from the Network of Global Future Councils 2020-2022 offers a positive and inspiring agenda around which a sustainable and inclusive recovery can ...
Artificial intelligence (AI) has great potential to benefit society, but the technology’s full potential can only be realized if it is representative of the diversity of populations it im...
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted whole economies. Immersive media businesses, which focus on technologies that create or imitate the physical world through digital simulation, have been no...
Companies face increasing scrutiny of their social and environmental performance from consumers, communities, workers, governments and investors. Business leaders are being urged to consi...
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been met with unprecedented trade and other economic sanctions. Some members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have revoked Russia’s most-favoured-...
More than half of the world’s GDP – US$44 trillion – is at immediate risk due to nature loss. Fortunately, investing in nature allows us to not only mitigate future environmental catastro...
The growing shift in corporate governance requires organizations to break down silos and create more deliberate alignment and collaboration across critical functions, including ESG/sustai...
This White Paper, from the Global Future Council on Urban Mobility Transitions, evaluates road pricing mechanisms and calls for an acceleration towards equitable, clean and financially re...
To achieve the goal of a safe climate, we will need to both dramatically reduce emissions to achieve absolute zero greenhouse gases and simultaneously start reducing the stock of pollutan...
Synthetic biology is a frontier field that employs science and engineering approaches to design biologically based parts, novel devices and systems as well as redesign existing, natural, ...
Published under the auspices of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Clean Electrification, this Insight Report invites policy-makers, regulators and investors to place great...
The financial system is playing a critical role in facilitating the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. As the recovery is largely digital-led, members of the Forum’s Global Future Counc...
Climate change is one of the greatest global challenges. The accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly from anthropogenic emissions, is changing Earth’s climate at ...
As companies around the world increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) in their decision-making processes, there is an ever greater risk of creating or reinforcing unfair bias. This ...
The World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Data Policy liaised with the Global Future Council on Media, Entertainment and Sport and the Global Future Council on AI for Humanity t...
The highly asymmetric impact of the pandemic has reinforced historical inequalities within and between countries and is now giving rise to a highly divergent recovery. Technological chang...
In collaboration with Deloitte
This report, co-authored with Boston Consulting Group, is the second in our series for the Net-Zero Challenge. It showcases the opportunity that all companies have for huge climate impact...
世界経済フォーラム「第16回グローバルリスク報告書」は、人々の健康を脅かす持続的なリスクや新たなリスク、失業率の上昇、デジタルデバイド(情報格差)の拡大、若者の失望、地政学的展望の緊張と脆弱性の高まりなどによる社会の分断がもたらすリスクを分析しています。数多くの企業とその従業員が未来のマーケットにおいて取り残される危険性があります。また、人類の脅威である環境破壊は、社会の...
Cities cover 3% of the earth’s land surface yet they create more than 70% of all carbon emissions. To keep global temperature increases to 1.5°C or below, cities have to achieve net-zero....
The simultaneous disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis in nearly every country around the world has forced societies into a moment of pause and reflection on what is truly of value. Re...
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a rapid transformation of the global financial system: Businesses, small and large, needed almost-instant liquidity, individuals embraced digital and c...
COVID-19 is a watershed moment for the digital transformation of business. The rules for success have changed and are ever more reliant on harnessing the power of digital models to create...
The Future of Nature and Business, the second of three reports in the World Economic Forum’s New Nature Economy series, provides the practical insights needed to take leadership in shifti...
A series of reports showing the relevance of nature loss to boardroom discussions on risks and opportunities. These insights provide pathways for business to be part of the transition to ...
A Community Paper by the Global Future Council on Quantum Computing.
A Community Paper by Global Future Council on New Network Technologies
The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Toolkit explores the practical opportunities and risks that rapidly emerging technologies represent for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The to...
Look out: Nature Risks on the Rise
This is the year to become an 'imperfect environmentalist’. Climate anxiety is growing and it is a very real issue that many people are facing.
「耐え難い痛み、苦しみ、心の傷が、ケープタウンの道路交通安全担当者を夜も眠れないほどに悩ます理由です。」これは、先頃ケープタウンで開催された国連ハビタットの「世界都市交通安全アライアンス(Global Alliance for Cities on Road Safety, ACRoS)」の都市間交流会で、ソロムジ・ムドランガソ氏が語った言葉です。
Asegurar el futuro de los sistemas alimentarios e hídricos del mundo es fundamental para el buen funcionamiento de la sociedad.