CSIRO Goes in for Prognostication: Megatrends and Megashocks. (April 24, 2010)

CSIRO has released Our Future World: An analysis of global trends, shocks and scenarios, a 22-page report on what trends and challenges are to come the way of our children and their offspring.

The compilation of the analysis is the work of Dr Stefan Hajkowicz and Dr James Moody of CSIRO's Development Group. They have reduced the predictions of some 100 trends nominated by 40 colleagues first to 19 and subsequently amalgamated into 5 interacting "megatrends": a trend being defined as an important pattern of economic, social or environmental activity that will change the way people live and the science and technological products they demand. They point out that the concept is dynamic as the database continues to grow as "new trends are being
added".

A megashock they define as: "a significant and sudden event; the timing and magnitude of which are very hard to predict," and go on to explain: "Our megashocks are based on the work of the World Economic Forum (WEF, 2009) which identifies, and evaluates, 36 global risks under the categories of economic, geopolitical, environmental, societal and technological. We have reviewed this work and identified eight risks particularly important from an Australian science and technology perspective."

Providing the rationale for their efforts, Drs Hajkowicz and Moody write in their introduction: "The trends, megatrends and megashocks are designed to inform a wide range of strategic science planning activities within CSIRO. We hope that after consultation with key experts and stakeholders this material can help inform Australian industry, government and community decisions."

Below we reproduce the listings of megatrends and and megashocks.

It remains to be seen what utility and what influence, if any, their efforts will have on government policy as regards, for example, the shaping of university/governmental compacts and the attempts by government as well as the private sector to pick winners when it comes to the resourcing of research, development and innovation.

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