ProductionConsumption2.0

Short description of the future field

ProductionConsumption2.0 belongs to the new future fields, which have been elaborated within the Foresight-Process as focal issues in future research activities. Interviews with experts at home and abroad as well as an online survey and bibliometric investigations led to the following definition and delineation:

Definition and Delineation

The new future field of »ProductionConsumption2.0« aims to establish long-term sustainable production and consumption paradigms. »2.0« here stands for the »new generation«. This future field involves research into new ways of supplying products and services to suit market needs in the face of changing basic global conditions. At the same time, it addresses one of the biggest challenges of the future: maintaining the ecosphere, which is also vital to human survival.

Research focuses on transformative socio-technical innovations extending to sustainable industrial and social patterns of materials use. Researchers in established areas in production, services and environmental research, as well as biotechnology and the materials sciences are all working with great drive on aspects of sustainable forms of value creation. They cannot however adequately make the necessary systemic changes to the entire structure alone.

This future field therefore develops methods and concepts that enable it to consolidate these areas into a system perspective, to analyse it integratively and evaluate new patterns. Procedures for mediating the interaction of actors and institutions in the innovation system have also been examined. This is characteristic of a change of track. The anchoring of knowledge and skills and establishing of learning spaces for transformative innovation in the innovation system is after all a central element of this future field.

More on this topic

Report

The complete chapter on this new future field from the Foresight report is available for download here.

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