GGF 2035 Dialogue Sessions

Over the course of 2020 and 2021, the 27 fellows will meet in three dialogue sessions and will look ahead to the year 2035 to explore the futures of climate-related conflict, media and information, and the politics of inequality.

Session 1: Research and Scenario Foundations (Online)

The first session of round six of the Global Governance Futures (GGF) program, GGF 2035, took place online from October 26 to 30, 2020. The grogram brought together fellows from nine countries: three each from Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa, and the United States. The fellows were joined by three senior fellows who participated in the working groups’ discussions on the futures of climate-related conflict, media and information, and politics of inequality. During the first session the fellows were introduced to the program’s foresight methodology and completed the first steps – collecting influential factors collection and conducting anuncertainty-impact analysis.

The fellows also got a chance to meet invited experts, who gave their input on the working groups’ topics and helped the fellows to identify blind spots in their thinking. We were happy to be joined by Kate Guy (The Center for Climate and Security), Joshua Busby (The University of Texas in Austin), Renée DiResta (Stanford Internet Observatory), Alice Krozer (Cambridge University), and Luanda Mpungose (The South African Institute of International Affairs) to the program.

On the last day of the session, the cohort engaged with Suzanne Maloney, vice president and director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. Suzanne shared her perspectives on the 2020 US general election and the future of US-Middle East relations with a special focus on Iran, followed by a lively Q&A session with the fellows.

Over the course of the session, the fellows had a chance to interact with each other for the first time and to learn about each other’s perspectives on the working groups topics. Dialing in from 10 different time zones, they proved that a purely virtual setting does not have to be barrier for engaging discussions and creative thinking. Now we look forward to the second session and are excited to meet everyone again soon.