Is There A Future After The Belo Monte Dam? Building Futures Scenarios For The Volta Grande Do Xingu In Amazonia, Brazil

The Belo Monte Dam is being built in Amazonia, Northern Brazil, and once completed, it will be one of the four largest hydroelectric power plants in the world. The power plant is a major infrastructure project in Brazil that should contribute to the country’s energy security and benefit the economy. As any large construction, it also has potential drawbacks. Due to its location, Belo Monte already have and will continue to disrupt ecossystems and human lives. The negative impacts of the dam have created polemic discussions among different interest groups. This controversy is investigated in this paper in its various aspects: political, ecological, cultural, social, and economic. The findings of this research are presented in the form of scenarios of alternative future possibilities for the region. This Master’s Thesis aims at helping different interest groups to envision alternative futures with these scenarios, and to provide tools to create change towards their preferred futures

Is There A Future After The Belo Monte Dam? Building Futures Scenarios For The Volta Grande Do Xingu In Amazonia, Brazil

The Belo Monte Dam is being built in Amazonia, Northern Brazil, and once completed, it will be one of the four largest hydroelectric power plants in the world. The power plant is a major infrastructure project in Brazil that should contribute to the country’s energy security and benefit the economy. As any large construction, it also has potential drawbacks. Due to its location, Belo Monte already have and will continue to disrupt ecossystems and human lives. The negative impacts of the dam have created polemic discussions among different interest groups. This controversy is investigated in this paper in its various aspects: political, ecological, cultural, social, and economic. The findings of this research are presented in the form of scenarios of alternative future possibilities for the region. This Master’s Thesis aims at helping different interest groups to envision alternative futures with these scenarios, and to provide tools to create change towards their preferred futures.</p

Precursors to a 'Good’ Bioeconomy in 2125 : Making Sense of Bioeconomy & Justice Horizons. First Foresight Report of the BioEcoJust Project

The Bioeconomy today is a field full of promise, brimming with potentially transformative solutions, and developments still only in their infancy. The aim of this report has been to convey the findings of the BioEcoJust foresight research to date, and especially to highlight the core critical thinking involved in approaching the future of the bioeconomy for the next 100 years. The BioEconomy and Justice (BioEcoJust) is funded by the Academy of Finland BioFuture 2025 programme and aims to develop a future-oriented ethical and justice framework useful in assessing long-term bioeconomy developments. The consortium has two research teams, representing Practical Philosophy (Aalto University) and Futures Studies (University of Turku)

Energy Research Infrastructures in Europe and Beyond: Mapping an Unmapped Landscape

European research and innovation policy highlights the importance of transnational scientific collaboration, International collaborations in science concentrates and magnifies resources for conducting research and foster innovation. Often, individual institutions, or even individual European countries, cannot provide the right capabilities by themselves. Joint facilities and Research Infrastructures (RIs) are therefore of high importance, and through Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe nearly €5 bn EU funding is set aside for these institutions. Considering the large-scale funding and the perceived importance of RIs, a better understanding of their roles, functions, and usefulness is highly relevant to of European integration studies. While ‘Research Infrastructures’ has become a fixed terminology of EU-policy, conceptually defining RIs remain a matter of academic debate. We contribute to the “what is an RI?”-discussion by synthesizing existing literature and presenting novel empirical data from the energy domain mapping of the Horizon 2020-project Research Infrastructures in the International Landscape (RISCAPE). We provide insights into the process of mapping an hitherto largely unknown landscape of global Energy RIs. These insights touch upon both definitional issues relevant to the RI-field and methodological concerns for future landscape analyses. Finally, the article suggests that when it comes to energy research, RI-terminology might be misplaced as a catchall modern synonym for “gold standard world-class science”.</p

INTERNATIONAL ENERGY RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES: MAPPING THE GLOBAL LANDSCAPE OF ENERGY RIS (RISCAPE): Based on Finland Futures Research Centre’s contribution to the Horizon 2020 project European Research Infrastructures in the International Landscape (RISCAPE)

This e-book is an expanded version of the Energy Domain Report originally written for the project European Research Infrastructures in the International Landscape (RISCAPE), funded by the European Union. The domain report is also available in a shorter version, as well as a single chapter in the consolidated common project report. The full project report by Asmi et al. (2019) is available at https://riscape.eu/riscape-report/ The book is structured into three main parts. First, a preface introduces the report and highlights the field of Research Infrastructures (RIs) in connection with Futures Research. RIs are facilities that provide resources and services for research communities to conduct research and foster innovation. Due to our long history of researching energy futures, Finland Futures Research Centre led the mapping process of energy RIs The second part of this e-book presents an expanded version of the RISCAPE Energy Domain Report with its mapping of international Energy Research Infrastructures. The final list of mapped international energy RIs contains 37 organizations. The third and last part of this e-book consists of a postface and discussion on methodological considerations that can be useful for conducting similar mapping analyses in the future

International Energy Research Infrastructures: Mapping the global landscape of Energy RIs (RISCAPE)

This e-book is an expanded version of the Energy Domain Report originally written for the project European Research Infrastructures in the International Landscape (RISCAPE), funded by the European Union. The domain report is also available in a shorter version, as well as a single chapter in the consolidated common project report. The full project report by Asmi et al. (2019) is available at https://riscape.eu/riscape-report/ The book is structured into three main parts. First, a preface introduces the report and highlights the field of Research Infrastructures (RIs) in connection with Futures Research. RIs are facilities that provide resources and services for research communities to conduct research and foster innovation. Due to our long history of researching energy futures, Finland Futures Research Centre led the mapping process of energy RIs The second part of this e-book presents an expanded version of the RISCAPE Energy Domain Report with its mapping of international Energy Research Infrastructures. The final list of mapped international energy RIs contains 37 organizations. The third and last part of this e-book consists of a postface and discussion on methodological considerations that can be useful for conducting similar mapping analyses in the future.</p

Future Landscape of the Colombian Agri-Food Sector 2030: The Return of Andean Native Crops : Results from the 3rd and 4th Futures Workshops of the PECOLO Project in Colombia 

The PECOLO project (Native Crops for Sustainable and Innovative Food Futures in Peru and Colombia) was developed as a collaboration between the University of Turku, Finland (UTU), the National Agrarian University La Molina, Peru (UNALM) and the University El Bosque, Colombia (UEB). The objective of the project is for higher education, research and innovation environments to support the establishment and maintenance of sustainable, innovative and profitable value chains for Andean native food plant crops. As part of its strategy, the project focused on transferring tools and methods of future studies and foresight. A series of futures workshops were conducted during the project. With the help of these tools and methods, and through the participation of different interest groups, a set of alternative future states for the Colombian agri-food sector was developed and presented (publication one). Based on the desirable scenario presented in the first publication, a road map and action plan were then developed by the interest groups. This publication presents the results of the last two workshops (3 and 4) of the project. Diverse categories of actors were involved in these workshops, including participants from academia, civil society, public entities and international organizations related to agri-food systems with a significant role in Colombia.</p

A Scenario for the desirable future of the Peruvian agrifood sector 2030, focusing on Andean native crops : results from the 1st and 2nd futures workshops of the PECOLO project

The Andean region is exceptionally rich in biodiversity, harbouring an important centre of domestication of global food crops, such as potato, quinoa, corn, peanut and tomato. Such biodiversity provides a great potential to discover or, reintroduce, nutritionally rich local varieties and utilize them to develop innovative food applications. Utilization of native plant crops provide promising solutions to address the wider sustainability goals, such as rediscovering crops more resilient to the changing climate and providing local source of nutritious food. Diversification of the local diets with local grains enables better nutrition and can also contribute to food security in areas where food production is threatened by climate change. ‘Native crops for sustainable and innovative food futures in Peru and Colombia (PECOLO)’ is a collabo-ration project between University of Turku, Finland (UTU), Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina, Peru (UNALM) and Universidad el Bosque, Colombia (UEB). From UTU, Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC) of University of Turku coordinates the project. In addition, Functional Foods Forum and Department of Biochemistry of University of Turku participate in the project. The PECOLO project has a special focus on the development of innovation environments around Andean native crops. Futures research and foresight methodologies are used as novel tools for developing innovation environments in cooperation with academic, public and private sector organizations and NGOs. In addition to the development of innovation environments, the project has capacity-building and mobility components in specialized topics in food science such as nutrition and functional foods, and in sustainability issues along the food value chain, such as environmental impacts of food production, sustainable diets and food waste and loss. This publication is the first of the two publications for Peru that will be published as an outcome of the PECOLO project’s four step futures process around Andean native crops. The publication covers the methods and the results of the 1st workshop, which focused on horizon scanning of the current state of the agri-food sector, as well as the methods and the results of the 2nd workshop, which focused on development of scenarios for the Peruvian agri-food sector with a special focus on Andean native crops. The second PECOLO publication (published later in 2019) will present the roadmaps and action plans for the agri-food sector stakeholders in Peru and Colombia