Global Megatrends Research Articles

Pre-service teachers co-constructing narratives about the future of education

ABSTRACT This study examined the kinds of narratives that nine pre-service teachers shared in online collaborative learning discussions about the future of education in relation to global megatrends, namely digitalisation and ecological sustainability. We also analysed how they positioned themselves in the future of education. We used data-driven qualitative analysis and narrative analysis, and we report our findings partly as non-fiction comic strips. We found that the pre-service teachers (1) viewed digitalisation in education through antonyms and ambivalence, (2) emphasised critical media literacy, (3) viewed ecological perspectives through a main and counter-narrative (taking root more deeply vs. not everyone needs to get excited) and (4) emphasised the role of action. In terms of positioning, we found dynamic tensions between passive and active stances. We discuss our findings in light of teacher identity and education for democracy and sustainability. The results can be used as thinking tools in teacher education.

China’s grand strategy within 21st-century megatrends

The main aim of this study is to identify possible components of China’s grand strategy and check how they can influence global megatrends. Based on a literature review, four grand strategy components are identified: 1) building up military power, 2) consolidating power at the peripheries and pushing for more control over disputed territories, 3) expanding economic influence through the Belt and Road Initiative, and 4) establishing new standards in digital technologies and promoting cyber sovereignty. These strategic tools can directly affect the following megatrends that are commonly mentioned in the literature: shift of economic power, emerging markets, new economic order; digitalisation; globalisation; deglobalization, trade reduction; diversity of governance, trust in the political system; and scarce resources. Using data taken from Google Trends it is shown that in the 2004-2023 period the trends of Chinese grand strategy terms correlate most with terms that represent the following three megatrends: digitalisation, globalisation, and scarce resources.

The Challenges, Motivations and Countermeasures of Higher Vocational Teacher Cultivating in the Post-information Age

Global mega-trends such as automation, digitalization, green transformation and ageing population are bringing structural changes to labour markets around the world. However, most of existing researches are functional and cannot deal with the structural issue of vocational teacher training in the post-information age. This study focuses on the cultivation of higher vocational education teachers, analyzes the specific impact of the challenges and motivations of the cultivating of higher vocational teachers in the post-information age, and further discusses the countermeasures of the training path. The study proposes that the rapidly changing labour market, the aging of the teachers, the profound linkage with the labor market, and the increasingly complex system of higher vocational teachers' skills are all challenges to the cultivation of higher vocational teachers in the post-information era. The methods of enhancing teachers' motivation, focusing on teachers' teaching skills, fostering their innovative pedagogical methods and strengthening the top-level design of their human resources will promote the cultivation and development of vocational teachers' resources.

The Empowering Innovative Mathematics Curriculum and Industry Collaboration in Gearing Malaysia for IR4.0 Era

This paper aims to illustrate the global megatrend of IR4.0 and points out their impacts and gaps faced by today's industries and mathematics applications. Meanwhile, in responding to the MoHE Education Framework 4.0 plan and direction, this paper adopts the qualitative approach to review and investigate the needs of transformation in mathematics curriculum, gears up to the change of industry requirements and adapts to the shift of market demands and operations landscape. Therefore, the outcome of study urges to form a closer tie or partnership between industries and mathematics collaboration in industrial research and problem-solving. With this, the role of industrial mathematics has to become part of the necessity for Malaysia's leading mission to achieve the status of a developed nation. In conclusion, based on the missing links between mathematics and industries, the paper recommends the realignment and rebranding of existing university mathematics curriculum and formation of the National Industries and Mathematics Community (NIMC). It expects industrial mathematics will be one of the key boosters besides engineering and technologies fields, to produce the industries talents and expertise, which will contribute to Malaysia's mission in IR4.0, the migration of industries into high-value services and technological intelligence-based productions era.

Deep Learning Test Platform for Maritime Applications: Development of the eM/S Salama Unmanned Surface Vessel and Its Remote Operations Center for Sensor Data Collection and Algorithm Development

In response to the global megatrends of digitalization and transportation automation, Turku University of Applied Sciences has developed a test platform to advance autonomous maritime operations. This platform includes the unmanned surface vessel eM/S Salama and a remote operations center, both of which are detailed in this article. The article highlights the importance of collecting and annotating multi-modal sensor data from the vessel. These data are vital for developing deep learning algorithms that enhance situational awareness and guide autonomous navigation. By securing relevant data from maritime environments, we aim to enhance the autonomous features of unmanned surface vessels using deep learning techniques. The annotated sensor data will be made available for further research through open access. An image dataset, which includes synthetically generated weather conditions, is published alongside this article. While existing maritime datasets predominantly rely on RGB cameras, our work underscores the need for multi-modal data to advance autonomous capabilities in maritime applications.

A Multi-Criteria Approach for Quantifying the Impact of Global Megatrends on the Pulp and Paper Industry: Insights into Digitalization, Social Behavior Change, and Sustainability

Background: The pulp and paper industry (P&PI) is undergoing significant disruption driven by global megatrends that necessitate advanced tools for predicting future behavior and adapting strategies accordingly. Methods: This work utilizes a multi-criteria framework to quantify the effects of digitalization, changes in social behavior, and sustainability as three major megatrends transforming the P&PI industry, with a specific focus on hygiene tissue products. Thus, the research combines a comprehensive literature review, insights from a Delphi study, and topic modeling to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the present and future impacts of these global megatrends. Results: The findings suggest an urgent need to identify alternative raw materials to prevent potential supply chain disruptions. Moreover, due to shifts in social behavior, it becomes critical for businesses to substantiate their sustainability claims with hard data to avoid the risk of a “greenwashing” perception among consumers. Conclusions: This study provides decision support for strategic planning by highlighting actionable insights, quantitative predictions, and trend analysis, alongside the examination of consumer and market trends. It aims to incorporate diverse stakeholder perspectives and criteria into decision-making processes, thereby enriching the strategic planning and sustainability efforts within the P&PI industry.

Sustainability of learning at work: experiences of police, hospital, and ICT personnel

ABSTRACT Global megatrends, such as digitalisation, and contemporary crises have highlighted the importance of continuous development and learning in the work context. Learning can be inspiring and motivating but also stressful when generating competence that is not applicable or has poor utilisability. In this study, we approached the ambivalent nature of learning at work from the sustainability perspective. According to the literature, sustainability of learning can consist of four broad aspects: transferability and continuity of learning, well-being, and temporality. We aimed to examine experiences of learning among personnel in three work-life contexts: preventive police work, hospitals, and information and computer technology (ICT). Using theory-driven thematic analysis, we revealed a variety of aspects of sustainability of learning and their different emphases in the three studied contexts. The main finding is that learning and well-being are closely intertwined and temporally framed in sustainability of learning. Based on this finding, we discuss practical implications and future research directions.

“Actively Shaping Global Megatrends with Printed Electronics”

“Actively Shaping Global Megatrends with Printed Electronics”

Global and Regional Threats to Human’, Society’, and State’ Security

"The phenomenon of national security is considered in the context of the changing world order, globalization and deterritorialization as global megatrends. The question is raised about the possibility of de-actualizing the national level of security research. The conceptual landscape of the concept of national security has been explored, traditional and new challenges to the state and society, which complicate the policy of ensuring both national, global, and regional security, have been ordered and analyzed. It is concluded that concepts, sources, methods, and types of national security policy need to be rethought, in accordance with new types of threats, their hybridization and complexity. It is shown that the development of modern theory and policy for ensuring human (personal) security is caused not only by changes in philosophical and ideological ideas about the phenomenon of security, but also by changes in approaches to the practical activities of states to ensure human security."

Systemic Model of Leadership Approaches

AbstractThis paper introduces a Technical Leadership Model designed to address the challenges posed by diverse businesses, the global context, and the technological landscape. The model's development involved a synthesis of cognitive studies on organizational leadership and a literature analysis of INCOSE SE Vision 2035 [Vision 35]. This vision offers insights into present and future Systems Engineering challenges, global megatrends, technological shifts, and a roadmap for enhancing competencies, skills, theoretical foundations, and collaborative opportunities within the systems engineering community.The research was spearheaded by a team within Cohort 7 of the INCOSE Technical Leadership Institute (TLI), aided by coaches and other cohort members. Through structured interviews, surveys, and workshops, these cohort members engaged senior organizational leaders to gather their viewpoints. These insights were amalgamated with the pre‐existing Leadership Model initially developed by a distinguished TLI coach with support from Cohort 1 in 2015 [Godfrey 2015]. The outcomes and conclusions are derived from a diverse range of collaborative methodologies utilized to forge this shared model. Moreover, input from senior leaders across various industries, organizations, and INCOSE TLI members, projecting future leadership trends, enriched the model. This body of work yields an enhanced, collective leadership model encompassing behavioral attributes such as vision, emotional intelligence, communication, effective team management, and an additional layer of dynamism.

IMPORTANCE OF GREEN INVESTMENTS FORTOURISMDESTINATIONDEVELOPMENTFOR TOURISM DESTINATION DEVELOPMENT

Climate change is a well-known global megatrend, a macroeconomic and geostrategic force aff ect-ing the present and future of the Earth, the global economy, tourism, business, heritage, society and individuals. Timely awareness of these threats by all states, taking responsibility and joint eff orts to combat climate change is the only soluƟ on. Eco-innovaƟ ons play a major role in ensuring sustainable development in the new era. The process of tourism growth poses new challenges for researchers. Our research object is related to sustainable challenges, green economic development, rate of sustainability of tourism resources in the tourism cluster. Eco-ini-Ɵ aƟ ves, green economy iniƟ aƟ ve, green investments in business, environmental protecƟ on and preservaƟ on of a safe environment for future generaƟ ons are signifi cant in the aspect of sustainable management of the desƟ na-Ɵ on. Environmental protecƟ on issues, green producƟ on, green skills detecƟ on, shadow side detecƟ on, widening possibiliƟ es and introducƟ on of new perspecƟ ves are important tasks of research. The methodological basis of the work is qualitaƟ ve research methods, interviews with selected focus groups, data analysis, and processing of analyƟ cal material presented in open sources.

Assessment of Trends in Higher Education Needs in Kenya

The need for quality and relevant tertiary education is much more urgent now than ever. This is occasioned by the advancement of society’s agenda for social, economic, technological, and moral development. The study was designed to assess the tertiary education needs of the youth in Kenya, analyse the state of students’ college education financing in tertiary institutions, establish the status of the quality of facilities in tertiary level educational institutions, establish the ability of college education to address skills required for youth employability, collate the views of participants on the incorporation of value based education in tertiary institutions, and establish the responsiveness of college education to challenges related to global megatrends. The mixed-method approach was adopted to guide the study to cater to its qualitative and quantitative aspects. The participants of the study included college students (350), graduates (125), and educators (49). Students were sampled using systematic random sampling while college educators and graduates were sampled using snowball sampling. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics while thematic analysis was used for qualitative data. The findings revealed growing trends in the shift in career choices for more practical and solution-based courses for the contemporary generation of young people. Financing education remains a major challenge for many college students. Education offered in many tertiary colleges inadequately addresses the challenges caused by global megatrends and the integration of value-based education in their curricular offerings. The overall quality of the institutions in the region was found not to be competitive by the global practice.

Economic Transformation To Get Out of the Middle Income Trap Condition To Reach Indonesia Gold 2045

Objectives – The article aims to analyze whether the Economic Transformation carried out by Indonesia will be able to get Indonesia out of the Middle Income Trap (MIT). And whether through economic transformation is able to realize a Golden Indonesia 2045.
 Methodology- In this study, the method used is descriptive and literature study where in descriptive analysis data and information will be displayed by comparing several countries that were originally included in middle-income countries such as Malaysia, China and Thailand as well as high-income countries such as Japan and South Korea. The data and information collected are taken from 1970-2021 from various sources. In this study, the method used is descriptive and literature study where in descriptive analysis data and information will be displayed by comparing several countries that were originally included in middle-income countries such as Malaysia, China and Thailand as well as high-income countries such as Japan and South Korea. The data and information collected are taken from 1970-2021 from various sources.
 Findings – In the short term, Indonesia must accelerate capital accumulation through accelerated investment, especially related to infrastructure, in order to encourage economic growth above 6%. In the medium term, it must develop, utilize innovation and technology in order to increase Total Factor Productivity (TFP). The economic transformation carried out by Indonesia is focused on the triggering factors and 4 (four) "Global Megatrends" otherwise the opportunity to get out of the Middle Income Trap (MIT) condition will take 30 years approximately 2053. Efforts are made by building human resources, strengthening digitalization, improving institutions. Indonesia can get out of the Middle Income Trap (MIT) condition if triggering factors such as export structure, and TFP, innovation and structural (against the background of country-specific characteristics) as shown in figure 8 can be overcome
 Renewal- In this study, it analyzes the efforts made by Indonesia to get out of the Middle Income Trap condition with the vision and mission of Indonesia Emas 2045. This study explains when Indonesia can get out of the Middle Income Trap.

Ethnic diversity fosters the social integration of refugee students

Forced migration has become a global megatrend, and many refugees are school aged. As social integration is key to their wellbeing and success, it is pivotal to determine factors that promote the social integration of refugee youth within schools. Here, using a large, nationally representative social network dataset from Germany, we examine the relationships of refugee adolescents with their peers (304 classrooms, 6,390 adolescents and 487 refugees). We find that refugee adolescents have fewer friends and are more often rejected as desk mates than their classmates. Crucially, however, they are less rejected in more diverse classrooms. This results from two basic processes: (1) more opportunities to meet other ethnic minority peers, who are more accepting of refugees in general and (2) higher acceptance of refugee adolescents by ethnic majority peers in more diverse settings. Our results can help promote the social adjustment of young refugees in school and mitigate the negative consequences of prejudice.

Digital Trends of Criminology and Criminal Justice of the 21st Century

Objective: to define the key trends in the development of criminology and criminal justice under significant broadening of digitalization and using modern technologies.Methods: the priority of analytical method combined with descriptive method provided an optimal set of tools for searching and revealing the main digital trends in the development of criminology and criminal justice in the 21st century.Results: the growing dependence was revealed between criminal-legal science and digital technologies, which leads to the change in essence and types of contemporary criminality, models of criminals’ behavior, methods and mechanism of crime control and prevention in the light of requirements of criminal policy and justice. The dual role of the global digitalization trend is highlighted, the achievements of which are used both by the agencies of criminal justice system (in particular, for crime control, management and prevention) and criminals when implementing their criminal intents. It was determined that the essential transformation of criminology and criminal justice is largely caused by a dramatic development of digitalization in the 21st century, as well as by the modern technologies created on its basis, which appear to be more effective than the standard methods of traditional criminology, including quantitative and qualitative estimations, observation, interviews, polls, etc.Scientific novelty: new spheres of criminal-legal knowledge are introduced, as well as the corresponding disciplines formed exclusively under the influence of digitalization, such as cyber criminology and cyber victimology; algorithmic (computational) criminology, based on actuarial justice and the theory of risks, is highlighted as the most recent trend in criminological science.Practical significance: the account of trends and positive experience gained in the sphere of digitalization determines the successful solution of the tasks associated with crime counteraction, transformation of approaches to the content, goals and methodology of applied criminology and criminal justice. The global megatrend of digitalization essentially changes the appearance of the criminal-legal science, sets the new theoretical and applied directions of its development. Timely upgrade and adaptation of knowledge, skills and capabilities in compliance with the achievements of digitalization will allow criminology and criminal justice to correspond to the tasks of the new millennium.

Monolithic Bidirectional Power Transistors

Today’s global megatrends—loosely defined as long-term trends that shape societies and economies worldwide—include, e.g., the transition to a fully renewable energy supply and the establishment of evermore stringent efficiency requirements for industry. Similarly, the trend of rapid global urbanization creates a need for sustainable mobility. The digital disruption contributes to increased electricity demand but on the other hand enables solutions such as smart energy networks or design, control, and monitoring systems supported by artificial intelligence (AI). Ultimately, future energy systems should seamlessly integrate, e.g., renewable energy sources, electric mobility, and industrial plants, i.e., they will be mostly electric.

Kinetic study of plasma assisted oxidation of H2 for an undiluted rich mixture

Non-thermal plasma discharges are considered as an assisted method for supporting conventional thermal processes, because the discharge-generated radicals can be used to benefit them. In this regard, plasma assisted combustion has been investigated extensively, and plasma assisted fuel reforming has expanded its horizons to include plasma assisted chemical synthesis, in accord with a global megatrend—electrification. To scientifically advance this area, plasma-chemical kinetic studies must be conducted, and their mechanisms should consider both electron and gas temperatures to describe electron-induced and thermally-induced chemistry, respectively. Here we present a temperature-dependent plasma-chemical kinetic study for the plasma assisted oxidation of an undiluted rich H2/O2 mixture; it represents our continued effort to establish a foundational plasma assisted reaction mechanism for H2/O2 systems. A plasma-chemical kinetic model (KAUSTKin) and a modified plasma-chemical reaction mechanism were used for the zero-dimensional simulation; a temperature-controlled dielectric barrier discharge reactor was employed for the experiment. Non-linear oxidation behavior was observed in a range of 300–850 K for various discharge powers. To unravel the underlying mechanisms, analysis was broken down to a physical effect, described by the reduced electric field (E/N), and a chemical effect originating from the temperature dependence of the plasma assisted oxidation chemistry. We concluded that (i) the oxidation was initiated by the electron impact dissociation of H2, (ii) E/N governed the degree of H2 dissociation (and thus the degree of oxidation), (iii) the key intermediate was HO2, and (iv) a significant increase in the chain termination reaction, H + HO2 → H2 + O2, suppressed the oxidation (especially in the Negative Temperature Coefficient (NTC)-like regime of 600–725 K). The need to improve existing thermal reaction mechanisms for temperatures below 1000 K was emphasized, and a method for temperature-dependent plasma-chemical kinetic studies to provide a novel and complementary tool for this task was demonstrated.

Future directions in regulatory affairs.

The field of regulatory affairs deals with the regulatory requirements for marketing authorization of therapeutic products. This field is facing a myriad of forces impacting all aspects of the development, regulation and value proposition of new therapeutic products. Changes in global megatrends, such as geopolitical shifts and the rise of the green economy, have emphasized the importance of manufacturing and supply chain security, and reducing the environmental impacts of product development. Rapid changes due to advances in science, digital disruption, a renewed focus on the centrality of the patient in all stages of therapeutic product development and greater collaboration between national regulatory authorities have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This article will discuss the various trends that are impacting the development of new therapies for alleviating disease and how these trends therefore impact on the role of the regulatory affairs professional. We discuss some of the challenges and provide insights for the regulatory professional to remain at the forefront of these trends and prepare for their impacts on their work.

Fertility and ageing – actuarial perspectives

Abstract Fertility, particularly at its current low level in many developed countries and high level in some less developed countries, is a key factor driving demographic, economic, and societal changes at local, national, and global levels. Population ageing due to low fertility and increasing longevity represents one of the most significant global megatrends and risks. Many countries are already experiencing population decline and rapid growth of their elderly populations, with implications for workforce size, economic development, health and pension schemes, and social security arrangements. Actuaries are well known for their work on mortality and morbidity, but they have rarely considered fertility and its proximate determinants, despite their demographic and economic effects. This paper explores key explanations and outcomes of past and projected future fertility trends, and the implications for actuaries and for political and economic decision-makers.

Investment and trade components of Ukraine’s economic diplomacy in the context of global megatrends

Investment and trade components of Ukraine’s economic diplomacy in the context of global megatrends