New Foresight Centre Study Identifies the Most Destructive Global Trends for Humankind
A team of researchers from the HSE International Research and Educational Foresight Centre has examined how global trends affect the quality of human life—from life expectancy to professional fulfilment. The findings of the study titled ‘Human Capital Transformation under the Influence of Global Trends’ were published in Foresight.
Unlike most recent studies, which focus on the impact of one or several isolated trends on human development, the HSE Foresight Centre team, led by Anna Grebenyuk and Yulia Milshina, analysed 48 global trends classified into six categories: health; education and labour; society and values; economy; policy and regulation; ecology and the environment. Around 400 international and Russian experts from various fields took part in a Delphi survey, assessing both the strength and the direction of each trend’s impact in order to determine whether it contributes to or hinders specific components of human capital.
Such a broad scope enabled the researchers to develop an index measuring the impact of trends on different aspects of human life, including both general skills required for successful integration into society and profession-specific competencies.
Only six trends received an unequivocally positive assessment across all 12 components of human capital: the transition to lifelong learning (+12), the growth of digital literacy (+12), the development of the creative economy (+12), the transition to sustainable development (+12), the introduction of intelligent technologies in city/house infrastructure management (+12), and online education and digital technologies in education (+10).
The most destructive trends identified by experts include the spread of unhealthy lifestyles (–12), the expansion of digital control (–11), and rising inequality (–10). Trends such as the polarisation of society and the fragmentation of the internet and technological ecosystems also fell into the ‘red zone,’ with scores of –11 and –5 respectively.
The study found that most trends cannot be assessed unambiguously in terms of their benefits or harms for individuals. For instance, the socially charged trend towards labour automation and robotisation appears broadly neutral (+2) for human capital. The researchers explain this by noting that the positive effects of introducing robots—such as improved quality of life and enhanced safety—are offset by negative consequences, including rising unemployment, violations of human rights, and declining levels of social trust.
The strongest interdependence between trends and human capital was observed in the following aspects of human life:
Level of education and competencies (the demand for professional skills is growing faster than education systems can meet it)
Living conditions (comfort, safety, and infrastructure quality are highly dependent on political and economic factors)
Opportunities for professional fulfilment (labour market flexibility and access to retraining depend more on socio-cultural and psychological factors than on economic ones)
Unemployment, inequality, and environmental pressure are the least affected by the aggregate impact of global trends. This does not imply that they are resistant to global challenges; rather, it highlights their direct dependence on political and institutional decisions at the national level.
The authors of the study emphasise that the proposed approach is not merely an academic exercise but a tool for strategic planning. Since trends rarely operate in isolation, policy decisions must take these bundles of effects into account in order to amplify positive outcomes and minimise negative consequences.
For example, the model suggests that reducing unemployment requires investment in lifelong learning and new forms of employment, rather than attempts to counteract automation, as it is social trends that exert the strongest positive influence on the labour market.
At the same time, increasing life expectancy depends primarily on the transition to preventive and personalised medicine, the integration of digital technologies into healthcare, and the development of participatory (collaborative) medicine, rather than on economic incentives alone.
The proposed methodology allows impact indices to be recalculated as new data emerges, making it a flexible tool for long-term forecasting. The same trend may manifest differently in developed and developing countries. Moreover, trends themselves evolve, and certain technologies—such as artificial intelligence or neurointerfaces—may fundamentally transform the very subject of assessment over time.
An open database of global trends in human capital development is available on the website of the HSE Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Centre (in Russian).
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