top of page

Stories for the future of Europe
Join us in exploring the possibilities of the future! Share your future perspectives, discover other people’s visions, and engage in a dialogue on what Europe and the world may look like in the future. We collect, share and distribute your visions in our stories database.
Share your visions of the future!
Your ideas matter – shape the future you want! Share your visions of tomorrow and join us in creating a narrative that inspires citizens, policymakers, and foresight experts. Together, we can co-create the future.
Write your future story and answer a few questions
Find out what others think by exploring other contributions
Take a look at the #ourfutures dashboard for some numbers
Your story, and those of others, are presented to EU policymakers
Stories - find your inspiration!
Stories do shape futures. Dive into the video tutorials to explore how future narratives are born. Further below, browse trough a series of inspiring, thought-provoking stories around challenges and opportunities of our futures.

Share your visions of the future!
Get inspiration from the Storiesfrom2050 project
Inside the first self-sustainable city on Mars - by ABIBOO studio
Construction of the city of Nüwa could start in 2054 and will see 250,000 people live inside the rock of a steep cliff. Freeze my body, melt me in 80 years, and send me to Mars. Architecture studio ABIBOO has revealed its plans to create the first self-sustainable city on the Red Planet, which is set to be ready for residents in 2100. The city will be called Nüwa and will be located at Tempe Mensa on one of the Martian cliffs. Its position inside a rock on the steep cliff will protect its residents from radiation and meteorites (cool!) while still giving them
Play the videos to learn how future narratives are born and how they can be rewritten
Play the videos to learn how to use the OurFutures dashboard for analysis or workshops
See more tags
#OurFutures stories by EU citizens
Embraced to the future of Europe 2040 (Abrazado al futuro de Europa 2040 )
For a not very distant future, my fundamental concerns lie in three very broad grounds such as: climate change, health and social well-being and, finally, the current fragility of democracies in different areas. In order to be able to address the various improvements to these problems, we must first have a real, effective and conclusive awareness of each and every one of the different bodies that make up our society. As regards so, we can explain how? with regard to ‘clim clim’, nations must carry out an immediate action plan aimed primarily at regulating the emissions produced by the various companies at global level. On the other hand, in relation to health and well-being, the competent bodies must carry out health-related measures that are more effective in promoting equity between the healthcare body and the community, avoiding long waiting lists in the primary atenci, and widespread unrest. Last but not least, we must be strongly involved in today’s democracies and avoid the risk of the vulnerability of citizens’ rights as a whole, moderating the rise of authoritarian and radical movements.
There is a need to focus on: in current problems or whether there is a future in 2040? (¿Dónde debemos poner el punto de mira: en los problemas actuales o en si hay un futuro en 2040?)
We will live in barely 20 to us? I remember my adult life without being in a crisis. As regards I've had to live together with the rental bubble and the struggle to have the right to housing, as established by the Constituci, One where I work in dignity to live and not live for work. In this context, we are not forgetting about the climate crisis and looking for less polluting cars, if you can buy them, or we want to transport it on a voluntary or collaborative basis.
As a journalist, in the last few months, I have been able to moderate a debate by the Dy logos on the Future, organised by the Espa government, and have covered the Conference on the Future of Europe in Warsaw or have been able to follow a plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on the ground.
In all of these events, I have been aware of the fact that the young people feel little room for reactionn to change the situation.
Our parents’ general generation was not so informative and was not so aware of the temperature we can have in the summer in Espa a in 2040. Or the scarcity of water that we already live, not only for our crops, but also for drinking or cooking, with the restrictions that are common in many parts of our geography. to continue to tackle the very near future.
We must focus today on: in the high inflaci and energ crisis in Europe? Or if there is a future to continue to live with the current comfort and what we are now, in 2040?
Indeed, I hope that with urgent measures we are in time to reverse some of the serious effects of climate change that we already see, for example with the objectives of the 2030 Agenda or the European Green Deal.
Be aware of our consumption – for example meat and rope –, encourage water saving, take measures such as reducing or achieving zero emissions, commit to circulating the economy, reduce waste and recycle and reuse other materials, seeking new uses, and invest in the use of clean energy so that it can continue to be an energ island. These are measures with which we can live better in 2040, but in order to achieve well-being in the future, we must strive now.
Futuro ideal
I would like to see it as a world where social media do not promote impossible beauty fees, and where reality, the other side of life where nothing is perfect and there is sadness and problems.
I would also like to see a future where governments demand action against climate change, a world where environmental education and sexuality education are promoted.
It is also a world that does not abuse technology and continues to maintain physical contact with people, as technology is distant from us.
Think upside down
I see a lot of opportunities for the future. When we think upside down, we can solve more issues than we think. When we work with new and bright ideas and innovations and address issues differently a lot of things can happen.
Ecoducts for humans instead of animals. Airplanes that suck electricity from the sky. People are not allowed to kill animals, only the weak once, like how it works in nature. Abandon plastic, and work with alternatives. Reward people instead of punishing them. Send love, also to insects.
For a better future, better education. (Para un futuro mejor, una educación mejor.)
Nelson Mandela dec ‘a’: It is the powerful weapon m -s that you can use to change the world.
I would therefore like to see this future marked by a change in the current educational paradigm, promoted by international institutions such as the UN and the EU, which would base training on looking for a global citizen and promoting the values of freedom, democracy, environmentalism, respect for different cultures, equity, a sense of global unity, solidarity and solidarity.
In this way, and with this education, we are moving towards better governance and greater transnational collaboration on global challenges. For example:With the purchase of vaccines against covid and its COVAX initiative to donate vaccines to other people in need, the importance of the values discussed above and of the partnership.
We all face the current global problems and together our duty to solve.
A values-based education leads to a synergy of change towards a better future, such as defend to Nelson Mandela. However, it should be noted that this change is to be made. it is always imposed by other means. This is why, for a better future, better education is needed.
Individuals with a voice in a sustainable world
The topics I am more concerned about are sustainability and representation. In the first place, I would like to see a future where every individual has worked to achieve a lifestyle that is more respectful to the environment. The Climate crisis is a situation that can only get worse if we do not act immediately. Being conscious and informed about it is not enough, therefore there must be a radical change starting as soon as possible. In that better future, I would also love everyone to have freedom of speech, all people to have a voice with which to fight for their rights. Our society is cruel and performed discriminatory practices since it is very beginning, therefore allowing those on the fringes to speak for themselves is something necessary and fair to achieve.
The Europe of the SDGs (La Europa de los ODS)
In the event of a At 2040, we live in a sustainable Europe, where we are no longer dependent on fuels in which we are no longer dependent on fuels, where we no longer depend on sources of energy that are damaging to the planet and we have pleaded for clean energy. A smoke-free Europe in which the largest number of industries no longer emit polluting gases, in which ciudadan@s and educad@s from schools advocate recycling, the use of transport and respect for the fauna and flora in their surroundings. The highest level of SDGs has been met, eradicating many problems such as poverty and social exclusion, boosting equal opportunities for all. A Europe that is open to aquell@s who are looking for help, with inclusion programmes, so that, on an equal basis, ciudadan@s can grow personally and professionally. In conclusion, a Europe that has gone beyond the largest one of hardship we are facing today and we have learned from our past mistakes and move together towards a better Europe, working together with all the members.
Scientific research as a hub for the future's needs
In my desired future, science would become the cornerstone of the EU budget. With a better scientific knowledge of the world around us, Europe would drive good reforms not only in the primary and the secondary sectors of our economies, but also in health and education. In the primary and secondary sectors, it would allow us to become more competitive by taking advantage of our already great potential for developing high-level technologies in comparison to other regions. This way, the EU would become more efficient in every economic activity (which also means less environmental impact) and, also, more strategically independent. In health, quality of life for our elders would be increased, hopefully to the point of partially preventing aging. By achieving this, people would remain socially and workwise functional for more years. Apart from the inherent personal and social direct advantages, this would avoid the long-term budget crisis that lots of European states can face as their populations get older. As for education, pedagogy and psychology, helped by new technologies, would guide the adequate reforms, adapted to each country, that prepared the youth to become highly skilled, global citizens. Having this kind of citizens would, in turn, boost the EU economy (through increased adaptive enterpreneurship) and also the quality of its political aspect: it would promote critical attitudes and a proactive citizenship.
Refilling the "emptied Spain"
The lack of job opportunities in rural areas of Spain has caused the migration of a large part of its population from rural areas to larger cities. This situation has caused what is known as the "emptied Spain", where a great part of Spanish small villages are being abandoned and only the elderly stay there. This reduction of population also carries the reduction of services offered in these areas (such as banks, supermarkets, education or health care) leaving the scarce number of people that still live there with even more reasons to migrate.
However, these small villages already have the infraestructure for larger numbers of people to live there, as most of them have a lot of houses that used to be inhabited but are now empty. A change I would like to see implemented in my home country is a better distribution of the Spanish population throughout the whole territory of the country, so that the congestion that bigger cities are experiencing now could also be solved and people that enjoy the benefits of living in rural areas could have the opportunity to make a life in there.
Politicians and other leaders should be the first ones to encourage this new migration tendency, as the current dinamics are deeply related to economic and job related issues, and opportunities should be created in rural areas. People that are currently online-working could also receive incentives to move to rural areas and establish in there. This way, the current "emptied Spain" could be refilled and the Spanish population would be more fairly distributed.
2040's EU: The true and welcoming land of opportunities
I hope and expect that our empathy for those from afar will increase in the next 20 years, and the international mobility of vulnerable people will not be as difficult and exhausting as it is today.
On the one hand, I would like 2040 to be a year in which those who are forced to flee their homes due to human or climatic catastrophes do not face unnecessary obstacles in their flight, resulting from prejudice and discrimination. I close my eyes and I see reception centres which respect and promote human rights, politicians that do not trade with border control measures, administrations that protect vulnerable people, laws that do not curtail human rights under any pretext or justification, and judicial systems that do not deviate from such red lines.
In addition, I also hope that those who cannot develop their full potential in their home country will be able to access the facilities we have in Europe, either to bring that talent back home or to stay in the EU. At present, the legal pathways to access the EU territory are mainly focused on people with higher education, entrepreneurs or people with some purchasing power. However, I believe that the ideal is to open up more circular migration channels through which those who do not have much can have a better future. This is not only "in our interest" because it would reduce irregular immigration, but I believe it should be an obligation, as a significant world power.
In my vision of an ideal 2040, mobility should be open to all - not a headache for those who need to flee or a utopia for those who cannot afford it.
Stories
Heading 2

bottom of page











