From Megatrends to Strategic Foresight at Local Level-Addressing Urban Resilience
18. June 11:15-12:30
Room 2
Global megatrends such as climate change, rapid technological development, and geopolitical shifts are fundamentally reshaping the risk landscape for cities. Yet most local governments lack the tools and institutional capacity to anticipate these shifts — let alone act on them proactively.
This session makes the case for strategic foresight as an essential competency at the local level. The EU is increasingly stressing the necessity of foresight in policy and planning, yet the practice remains unevenly developed across cities and regions. Bringing together perspectives from NURI and cities in the Baltic Sea Region, the session traces the journey from global megatrends to locally grounded scenarios — exploring participatory processes, practical methodologies, and the collaborative networks needed to build sustained foresight capacity.
The session is guided by two central questions: How can local and regional authorities translate evolving EU climate resilience policy into effective, locally grounded strategies? And how can cities strengthen institutional capacity and partnerships to co-design and deliver resilient development pathways?
Speakers from Tallinn and Ystad offer varied perspectives — a larger city grappling with polycrisis complexity, and a smaller municipality navigating resource constraints and the need for inter-city collaboration. Together they illustrate why foresight is not a luxury for well-resourced capitals, but a shared necessity for cities of all sizes.
Speakers
Head of Development, Tallinn Municipal Police
Merlin MÄngel, Head of Development, Tallinn Municipal Police
Merlin Mängel is a Development Manager at the Tallinn Municipal Police, representing the City of Tallinn in advancing integrated approaches to urban resilience, public services and crisis preparedness. With more than a decade of experience in public sector innovation, service design and organizational development, she has led initiatives focused on human-centred governance, cross-sector collaboration and future-oriented change management.
Her work combines strategic thinking with practical implementation, helping organizations adapt to rapidly changing societal needs, technological developments and emerging urban risks. Merlin has extensive experience in bringing together different stakeholders — from city departments and public authorities to universities and international partners — to co-create resilient and user-centred solutions.
Development Strategist - Urban Planner, Municipality of Ystad
Patrik Faming, Development Strategist - Urban Planner, Municipality of Ystad
Patrik Faming is an urban planner with over 30 years of experience in community planning and planning and architecture issues, with a background in municipal organisations and the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning and as a consultant. He has held roles as a project manager, strategist, leader and manager, which gives him a broad and deep understanding of how community development is planned and implemented in various organizational contexts. Patrik has also been a member of ArkDes's (Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design) advisory board, appointed by the Ministry of Culture, which has given him experience of strategic issues linked to the designed living environment and the interaction between national policy and local development. With a strong commitment to sustainable community development, he sees physical planning as a central tool for meeting societal challenges and creating viable and resilient environments in both cities, villages and rural areas.
Co-founder of the Nordic Urban Resilience Institute
Silvia Haslinger Olsson, co-founder of Nordic Urban Resilience Institute
Silvia Haslinger Olsson has over 10 years of experience in the field of urban resilience and is co-founder of Nordic Urban Resilience Institute. Since 2013 she has been focused on collaborative projects in urban resilience, addressing societal challenges together with politicians, the private and public sector and academia. Previously she has been working with cluster strategy and innovation at the Regional Development Agency in Southern Sweden.
Since 2022 Silvia has been contracted as a resilience expert, supporting Ukraine cities in their effort of recovery planning, based on resilience and sustainability principles.
Currently Silvia is also heavily engaged in the Baltic Sea region with activities such as foresight on urban risks.
Moderators
Co-founder, Nordic Urban Resilience Institute
Magnus Qvant, Co-founder, Nordic Urban Resilience Institute
Magnus Qvant is co-founder of the Nordic Urban Resilience Institute (NURI), an institute specializing in how compounding stressors, conflict, climate change, and rapid technological shifts affect municipalities. He has over two decades of experience in urban resilience, civil preparedness, and crisis management across local, national, and European levels.
Magnus has led resilience and risk analysis processes with Ukrainian cities under the UNDRR MCR2030 framework and Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, supported climate adaptation implementation through the EU Covenant of Mayors Policy Support Facility, and served as a strategist for the City of Malmö on resilience. He is a member of the MCR2030 Europe and Central Asia Coordinating Committee and an adjunct lecturer in civil preparedness and crisis management.
This year, Magnus presents in the session on strategic foresight at the local level, drawing on NURI's ongoing work with Baltic Sea Region cities.