“Connectivity has become a defining feature of the modern economy and one of the significant trends of the 21st century. This is reflected in the increasing demand for resources to be invested in linking communities, economies and countries.“

(World Bank Group – Japan G20 Development Working Group – January 2019 / https://www.oecd.org/g20/summits/osaka/G20-DWG-Background-Paper-Infrastructure-Connectivity.pdf)

“Connectivity is not a sexy term. But get beyond the drab catchphrase and the significance is apparent. It is about ports, electricity grids and telecommunications networks – the critical infrastructure that is, in the words of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, vital to the resilience of economies and political systems around the world…“

(Noah Barkin, Watching China in Europe – November 2020 / https://www.gmfus.org/blog/2020/11/02/watching-china-europe-november-2020)

flowfutures is an initiative combining foresight and horizon scanning practice to explore connectivity, supporting infrastructures and the security, mobility and circulations of critical global strategic flows.

In a period of challenges to the form and processes of globalisation, and emerging uncertainties in relation to the demand drivers and access options to strategic assets and their supporting supply chains, we are seeking to research how existing structures and patterns of connectivity and the security of the flows they enable may be changing. These considerations can now also be framed within the context of the continuing worldwide SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic.

We are interested in a broad range of strategic  ‘flows’ across resources, energy, food, finance, data, transport, technology and people.

We are interested in issues of national and supply chain security and broad definitions of critical infrastructure, encompassing those across the US Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (16 sectors), the UK Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (13 sectors) & the EU Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection (EPCIP). 

Our approach is informed by a number of interlocking background perspectives:

1) 

“That today, and in the foreseeable future, there is and will continue to be a growing focus on mobility, circulations and flows, and thus also on the security of flows – namely on the sites, spaces, technologies, and practices of flows…”

2)