Project description

Trans-Atlantic Relations Project

Europe and the United States have a long tradition of working closely together. Bertelsmann Stiftung's "Trans-Atlantic Relations" Project focuses on foreign-policy challenges that they confront together. With the wide-ranging agenda that leaders face today, collaborative effort is not an option. It is a necessity. Traditional trans-Atlantic partners find themselves facing many of the same national-security concerns and trans-national threats. A natural opportunity exists for alignment and burden sharing, especially in a time of diminished resources. Instead of simply pledging a commitment to renewed alliances, the Trans-Atlantic Relations Project focuses on how to maximize the benefits of cooperation. How and where can we more effectively share our expertise and benefit from an open exchange of ideas?

Project activities have a practical and pragmatic focus. In a variety of formats we work to deepen and broaden interaction between recognized experts and innovative thinkers on both sides of the ocean. We knit together contacts among senior-level policymakers, leaders of civil society, the private sector, media and academia who work on today's most pressing foreign-policy issues. We aim to promote a deeper exchange of ideas and seek out practical policy recommondations in areas of common trans-Atlantic interest.

The Trans-Atlantic Project works on a wide array of topics. Subjects range from dialogue about Russia, to joint initiatives in the Middle East peace process, or common concern about nuclear proliferation in Iran.  We go beyond traditional security threats to address climate change, the international economy and public health. The project aims to contribute to the trans-Atlantic relationship by building bridges between innovative European and American experts working on all these common concerns.


Shaping a Globalized World

The forces of globalization have changed the world fundamentally, and this change has accelerated in recent decades. Economic globalization, modern communication technology and growing mobility are creating an increasingly interconnected world characterized by growing interdependence and new forms of cooperation that transcend national and cultural borders. As a result of these transformations, we work and feel increasingly like "a global village".

At the same time, the globalized world faces new complex challenges such as climate change, environmental degradation, poverty, pandemics and economic crises. These challenges respect no borders and cannot be solved by any country working alone. They require urgent and coordinated responses across the globe by a multiplicity of stakeholders. Yet, it is increasingly obvious that the current instruments of international problem-solving are insufficient to cope with these problems. Therefore, the project "Shaping a Globalized World" asks how we can organize our political processes and institutions so that they can effectively and fairly deal with global challenges. "In order to work, globalization needs global governance in the form of internationally effective, consensus-driven structures that are not dominated by individual members", Bertelsmann Foundation President and CEO Gunter Thielen has noted, adding "At the same time, global governance must promote collaboration between government institutions and NGOs."

Against this background, the project "Shaping a Globalized World" seeks to develop ideas and suggestions for the political management of globalization and to incorporate those ideas and suggestions into an international debate. Its purpose is to think more deeply about the political agenda of a globalized world, about strategies for action and modes of governance. To this end, the project attempts to examine global-governance issues by gathering the knowledge, experience and viewpoints of individuals, governments and non-state actors from various centers of the globalized world. The project combines the Bertelsmann Stiftung's in-house expertise and wide-ranging program experience with appropriate resources, initiatives and programs of other internationally active institutions, think tanks and foundations. The project is coordinated by an international project team based in Gütersloh, Germany and Washington, DC.

Megatrends

The Megatrends project gathers information on global issues that have a profound effect on world development in the 21st century and examines how these trends interact with one another. Until recently, scientists working in fields such as foresight and analysis generated knowledge exclusively for themselves: The results of research were discussed primarily within closed "expert" communities far removed from broader audiences. Internet and social networks were not embraced.

Today science must become more public in its discourse. As a discipline, it should inform and depend on the public; it should not exist independently of society as a whole. Science has a responsibility to think and speak more broadly. The complexity of today's global challenges, which raise local, regional and global issues, demands a more popular approach to information gathering, processing and solution generation. The answers to tomorrow's problem, if addressed today, require all the collective effort and group-think that can be mustered.

The project's new Internet platform, www.futurechallenges.org, aims above all to make knowledge more accessible to everyone, empowering people and institutions to discuss future challenges.

As a main content driver of the Future Challenges platform, the Megatrends project examines six key, large-scale trends that have an outsized impact on the future: economics, governance, demographics, security, climate and energy. The project provides an opportunity for a global audience to understand our common future and to shape it by using the power of networks and a wide range of online collaboration tools. The project provides a forum for discussing new research, innovative ideas and best-practice examples for many overlapping issues such as:

• Aging populations
• A world population of nine billion by 2050
• Climate change and its local, regional and global implications
• Threatened and disappearing natural resources and biodiversity
• The need for new governance structures to tackle challenges on local, regional and global levels
• The acceleration of international migration
• The march of globalization due to lower transportation and communication costs, trade and investment liberalization, and increasing technology transfer

www.futurechallenges.org does not seek to give away the answers to tomorrow's complex challenges that will face us all. Rather, the Megatrends project and its website offer a venue for raising and discussing the questions that can lead to solutions to these challenges.