Issue Cross-cutting trends versus a government organised by policy column

Summary

The report finds that, although ministries and implementing agencies in the Dutch central government each produce their own trend studies, the national outlook is consequently assembled policy domain by policy domain. Demography, labour shortages, digitalisation and AI, geopolitics, climate and the living environment, and social cohesion reinforce or collide with one another and require several ministries to act at once. Without a common reference frame, the report argues, these intersections stay unspoken and surface only late, while interdepartmental decisions end up being taken in reaction to events. Against that background, a group of ministries emerging from the government-wide strategy council (SBR) and the Chief Science Officers network launched this government-wide trend study in autumn 2025, the previous comparable exercise dating from 2013. Pointing to Finland and to the EU's ESPAS as examples of institutionalised long-term thinking, the report presents itself as the first edition of a recurring cycle.