Dans une étude préparée dans le cadre de la conférence de Londres sur le cyberespace organisée par le Foreign Office britannique, le McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) synthétise les conclusions de plusieurs travaux antérieurs pour montrer qu’Internet est devenu un des moteurs de l’économie mondiale. Internet est déjà un contributeur majeur à la croissance du produit intérieur brut (PIB) des économies les plus avancées, mais dispose d’un potentiel de croissance inentamé dont peuvent tirer profit les pays riches ...

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iKnow est l’un des six projets de prospective financés par le 7e programme cadre de la Commission européenne dans le domaine des sciences humaines et sociales. Le projet s’est déroulé de novembre 2008 à octobre 2011 et a été réalisé par un consortium de huit organismes sous la direction de Rafael Popper du Manchester Institute of Innovation Research. Le projet avait pour ambition de relier les connaissances disponibles dans les domaines influençant le futur de la science, de ...

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As a cradle of civilizations, the Mediterranean region has always been a source of fascination and played a major role in Europe commercially, culturally and geopolitically. Moreover, the countries of the southern and eastern rims of the Mediterranean are today seeing profound social and political upheavals that are likely also to affect the northern rim, making their futures uncertain, to say the least. In such a context, it becomes essential to have solid foresight analyses of the region.
Long before the Arab revolutions of spring 2011 began, the European Commission had launched a wide-ranging foresight exercise on the Mediterranean region up to the year 2030, entitled EuroMed-2030. This was driven by a group of 20 international experts and submitted its findings in December 2010. Domenico Rossetti di Valdalbero, Perla Srour-Gandon and Spela Majcen present the main lessons to be gleaned from the exercise here. After reviewing the major trends in the region (in demographic, economic, cultural, scientific, agricultural and energy terms), our authors stress the principal tensions and uncertainties that are likely to influence the future of the Mediterranean zone (socio-economic inequalities, democratic and reforming aspirations, tensions between hostile states, divergent views of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation etc.). From this starting point, they present the four transitional scenarios identified by EuroMed-2030 — “Managing Conflict”, “Engaging in Win-Win Projects”, “Deeper Economic Integration” and “Towards a EuroMed Community” – as well as various flagship initiatives and more concrete recommendations that may well accompany them.

Peut-on prévoir le lieu et la nature des crimes avant qu'ils ne se produisent? Ce rêve, imaginé par Philip K. Dick dans Minority Report, pourrait peut-être devenir réalité. Plusieurs villes américaines expérimentent en effet la « police préventive », grâce à des logiciels alertant les agents des risques d’actes criminels dans un futur proche.

Jean-Claude Guillebaud, ancien grand reporter au Monde, est éditeur (Éd. des Arènes), écrivain et éditorialiste au Nouvel Observateur. Après avoir consacré, entre 1995 et 2009, sept ouvrages à décrire le "désarroi contemporain" suscité par le changement historique et anthropologique que, selon lui, nous vivons, il s'attache désormais à rendre plus intelligible ce qu'il désigne comme "une refondation du monde". Jean-Claude Guillebaud est venu présenter son dernier ouvrage, le huitième de la série, "La Vie vivante. Contre les nouveaux ...

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La révolution tant attendue du livre numérique est-elle en train de se produire ? Aux États-Unis, il se vend désormais plus de ebooks que de livres papiers. La croissance du marché est facilitée par la baisse des prix et la diversification des supports de lecture, mais reste cependant beaucoup plus lente en Europe.

Le paysage médiatique a longtemps structuré l’opinion publique en France et, en général, dans les démocraties. L’arrivée d’Internet est un bouleversement dans ce contexte : ce nouveau média prend une place de plus en plus grande et sera probablement le plus important dans 10 ou 20 ans, quand les jeunes générations seront à l’âge de la maturité.

Annoncés dès 2006, les services de paiement sans contact par téléphone portable doivent faire face à des obstacles techniques, et aux réticences des consommateurs et des commerçants . Pour accélérer le décollage de ce marché très prometteur, plusieurs acteurs ont multiplié, au cours des derniers mois, les offres et les services de transaction sur mobile.

Prenant acte de l’essor récent et remarquable des investissements de certains pays du monde islamique dans les secteurs de la science et de l’innovation, la Royal Society a lancé en 2010 un projet sur trois ans d’Atlas de la science et de l’innovation dans le monde islamique. Une première étude, consacrée à la Malaisie, a été publiée en mars 2011, et met en lumière les réalisations remarquables de ce pays en matière de science et d ...

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En 50 ans, la biologie s’est transformée : les progrès des biotechnologies, des nanosciences, du génie génétique et de l’informatique ont permis des avancées considérables dans les connaissances du vivant. Les mécanismes moléculaires intervenant au sein des cellules et le fonctionnement des pathologies sont de plus en plus expliqués, de nouvelles cibles thérapeutiques ont été identifiées, de nouveaux outils techniques ont été développés… Ces avancées scientifiques récentes permettent d’envisager une transformation de la médecine traditionnelle en lui offrant ...

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There have been an increasing number of foresight exercises in the field of energy and global warming in recent years, as we have seen from the articles devoted to these questions by Futuribles in 2011 (both in this special issue and in the April number). It is certainly the case that the goals for greenhouse-gas emission reduction are rather ambitious, particularly in France, it being the aim of the 2005 French framework law on energy to reduce carbon gas discharges by a factor of four.

Among these scenarios, the Négatep scenario developed by Claude Acket and Pierre Bacher from the “Sauvons le climat” [Let’s save the climate] Association proposes to achieve this (“factor 4”) goal in France by 2050 by reducing fossil fuel use by 75% and replacing this as quickly as possible with electricity produced from non-carbon-gas-emitting sources – chiefly, nuclear power and renewables. The authors lay out their goals here, backed up by figures, comparing these with the reference scenario. They also show the path that must be followed to arrive at these goals, particularly in the residential and tertiary sectors, and in transport and industry (through control of needs and recourse to alternative energy sources).

They close by comparing the Négatep scenario with two other more recent scenarios aimed also at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, on the one hand in Europe, and on the other in Germany. The comparison confirms that they were right to rely on electricity as a substitute for oil, but gives them cause for concern in respect of the consequences (formidable in their view) that the replacement of nuclear power and coal energy by intermittent renewable energies might have in Europe, both with regard to costs and to the effects on the power network.

Focus : La Voiture de demain : carburants et électricité, du CAS (Centre d’analyse stratégique) Villes du futur, futur des villes, de J.-P. Sueur World Development Report 2011, de la Banque mondiale « La démographie des infirmières à l’horizon 2030 », de la DREES Les Nouveaux Patients, de l’OPS Environnement China’s Energy and Carbon Emissions Outlook to 2050, du LBNL Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas? de l’AIE The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011, du ...

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A little over five years ago, in January 2006, Futuribles devoted a sizeable special number to energy prospects and the greenhouse effect (no. 315). These were already troubling times and the gloomy prospects for the development of energy resources and the problematic of climate change were analysed in a number of articles. According to certain experts, “peak oil” was already reached in that same year of 2006: that is to say, oil production was thought to be at its height and would subsequently be stagnating before a (more or less rapid) decline. Furthermore, gas production ought to reach a ceiling around 2025-2030, as Jean Laherrère showed in these columns last April (no. 373).

In this context and given the undeniable efforts to be made to limit global warming, it has become essential, on the one hand, to act to control energy use and, on the other, to look to other sources of energy production – this second option being doubtless easier to implement than reducing consumption. Incontestably, renewable energies have an essential future role to play in the diversification of the energy mix and its orientation towards sustainable development. Cédric Philibert, a specialist in these forms of power within the International Energy Agency, here outlines their potential and the place they might occupy in years to come.

After presenting the IEA’s scenarios to 2035 and 2050 (which reveal the need for proactive policies to promote renewable energies), he focuses on the two major strands in this sector: wind power and solar energy. He then goes on to the question of what is meant by “renewable”: are these energies 100% renewable or have the supplies to be supplemented, the resources to be stored etc.? He analyses the role renewable energies could play in buildings and in the various sectors of industry and transport and under what technical conditions this might occur. Lastly, Philibert examines the economic aspects: what costs for what benefits? He shows, in substance, that, though the initial investment required is large (particularly in terms of incentive measures on the part of the public authorities), the game is certainly worth the candle in the long term, since “the massive deployment of renewable energies seems to be the key today” for responding to global energy needs and combating climate change.

2011 sera l’année de la mise en place de nouveautés en France dans le domaine de la e-santé. Le dossier médical personnalisé est en effet accessible aux patients depuis avril 2011 et un certain nombre de projets et de mesures se mettent en place pour le développement de la télémédecine.

La découverte des antibiotiques il y a plus de 70 ans a constitué une révolution dans le monde médical, permettant de soigner des infections bactériennes aux conséquences mortelles pour des millions de personnes (tuberculose, syphilis…). Leur usage abusif a cependant conduit au développement de résistances chez les bactéries.

The rapid advances we have seen in recent decades, particularly in information technology or the biotechnologies, suggest that scientific and technical progress is accelerating and that that trend will never reverse. However, as Pierre Morel shows us here, we are living, in scientific terms, on the gains of the 20th century and since then no new theory has been developed that can give rise to a wave of technical innovations such as we continue to profit from today.

Morel begins by reminding us that the convergence between the sciences and technology – that is to say, between a theoretical scientific discovery and its practical consequences (for example, through industrial applications) – is a recent phenomenon and only really began in the early years of the 20th century. After recalling the foundations of modern physics, he shows that all the technical innovations of the 20th century arise out of the mastery of a single one of the four fundamental forces governing our universe: electromagnetic interaction. He then shows that the paths currently being followed by fundamental physics (which he outlines in brief) are not pregnant with concrete applications. For want of genuinely new developments, it is by increasing the complexity of existing systems that we shall be able to go on innovating – in other words, by playing the card of increasing product sophistication.

Investment in R&D and innovation has always been, and still remains, a key requirement for the economic success of states. The developed countries learned this long ago, particularly the triad of the USA, Europe and Japan, which were for a long time leaders in the field. However, for several years now, the relative part played by these countries in global research and development has increasingly been challenged by a number of emerging countries, particularly in Asia. And though the economic crisis of recent years has been the occasion for many developed countries to reassert the essential role of investment in R&D and innovation in recovery strategies, it is not certain that this will actually enable those countries to reverse the latent trend that sees the 19th- and 20th-century pioneers losing their supremacy.

Pierre Papon shows here how global research potentials have evolved and which are the leading countries in this area. He also outlines the specializations of the main global actors in international scientific and technical production. He reminds us, in particular, of the slow (but manifest) erosion of European positions in global scientific competition, even if the quality of production remains intact, and stresses, in parallel with this, the rise of the emergent nations, with China and Brazil at their head. Where industrial research is concerned, the trend, according to Pierre Papon, runs in the same direction and it will perhaps be a USA-China-Japan triad that will take over leadership in the coming years. If, indeed, the fine slogans calling for an R&D-led recovery turn out to be as ineffective as the Lisbon strategy was stillborn, it is highly unlikely that the states of Europe will come out of this crisis unscathed in terms of their international scientific and technical positioning.

We have on many occasions sounded the alarm in Futuribles regarding the situation of France and Europe, where economies have been under par for more than 30 years now and unable to sustain the pace of innovation appropriate for developed countries in the context of the early 21st century. We have, admittedly, seen attempts to re-stimulate these economies, no doubt the most emblematic of these in the recent period being the “Lisbon Strategy”, launched in March 2000, whose main objective was to make the European Union “the most competitive, most dynamic knowledge economy in the world” by 2010. But we are now in mid-2011 and the least that can be said is that the objective is some way from being fulfilled. And, re-reading the diagnosis and recommendations of André Danzin in 1979 (Science et renaissance de l’Europe. Paris: Chotard et associés, 1979), there is reason for concern about the Old Continent’s capacity to face up to the scientific and technical challenges of the present and – most importantly – of the future.

Pierre Bonnaure has re-read the book André Danzin wrote in 1979 following a request from the European Commission that he formulate suggestions for using science and technology to re-stimulate Europe. After recalling the context of the late 1970s, Pierre Bonnaure shows here how Danzin’s findings are still topical (Europe falling behind in global competition and failing to innovate). He takes up again the various recommendations formulated at the time which, in many people’s view, still have currency (focussing on high-value-added activities, playing the card of the energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly sectors, investing in information technology and the eco-life sciences). And though some of these – particularly in the area of research organization in Europe – have been implemented in the three decades since Danzin’s work appeared, we must admit that Europeans are still awaiting the “rebirth of Europe” and, if things are left too long, it will no longer be possible to draw on these recommendations to contribute to it.

Depuis 50 ans, les nombreuses découvertes réalisées dans le domaine de la génétique et de la biologie moléculaire ont amené les médecins et les chercheurs à établir toujours plus de liens entre les gènes, l’environnement et les maladies. En parallèle de ces avancées dans la connaissance du vivant, les technologies se sont développées et permettent aujourd’hui de traiter de nombreuses informations et molécules. La médecine prédictive a fait son apparition lorsque la génétique a commencé à permettre la ...

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Les tests génétiques achetables via Internet sont de plus en plus nombreux aujourd’hui. Les progrès techniques en génétique, la diminution du coût des procédures, les facilités de communication et le désir croissant des individus de mieux connaître leurs origines et leur avenir facilitent leur diffusion.

La thérapie génique est au goût du jour et n’en finit plus d’annoncer de nouveaux résultats et de nouvelles cibles. Quels sont les espoirs et les limites de cette méthode médicale encore très récente ?

D’après le second rapport d’étape du Plan cancer 2009-2013 remis au Président Nicolas Sarkozy le 4 février 2011, date de la Journée mondiale de lutte contre le cancer, en France, « l’incidence des cancers est en hausse », mais « la mortalité par cancer baisse ». La hausse de l’incidence est due pour près de la moitié à la croissance de la population et à son vieillissement, mais l’augmentation des facteurs de risque est bien réelle. Parallèlement, la médecine ...

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For several years now, global warming has occupied a leading place in the list of major challenges humanity has to confront and is, therefore, very logically the focus of regular international negotiations aimed at contributing to a solution. For the moment, however, the only international political responses envisaged for curbing climate change attack the identified cause of the problem – greenhouse gas emissions – with the intention of reducing the volume of those emissions in the shortest possible time-frame.

However, as Baptiste Marsollat shows here, other, more technological responses exist which consist not in working on greenhouse gas emissions, but either in capturing/imprisoning these gases or, more ambitiously, in modifying solar radiation to reduce ongoing climate warming. This would mean applying the techniques of climate engineering or geo-engineering. Such a prospect has generated great controversy, but it cannot, for all that, be ignored indefinitely in the thinking on combating global warming.

This article reviews the subject of climate engineering (what is it and to what extent can we do it?) and the role it might play in the battle against climate change. It shows how this – long-tabooed – option is now finding a place within the most official circles in the Anglo-Saxon world. Without concealing the concerns to which it may, more or less justifiably, give rise, Marsollat shows that, faced with a dramatic choice, we might opt in the end for climate engineering as a way to fight global warming. And from a more proactive perspective, he also suggests we should reflect on how appropriate it might be to use it for shaping the planet’s climate and, in that way, for meeting a number of other major challenges.

Les biobanques sont un sujet d’actualité, notamment dans la presse française. Ces structures stockent des données et des échantillons biologiques d’origine humaine, animale, végétale ou encore microbiologique, à visée de recherche fondamentale ou appliquée, ou à visée thérapeutique. Les regroupements d’échantillons ainsi formés (sang, urines, tissus…), appelés collections, servent de support à des projets de recherche en fournissant tout un ensemble de données génétiques grâce à l’analyse de l’ADN (acide désoxyribonucléique), parfois à très grande ...

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