stimulated by the "European Look-Out Institutions"
should always present several proposals for the solution
of anticipated needs or crises, It should not try to impose
 any single "model" but simply give the people,
who will have to.make the decisions, much needed
"imagination help", by offering a reasonable number of
feasible alternatives.

d, Informing and educating the public
It should certainly be the function of the "European
Look-Out Institution" to disseminate its findings and
proposals to the public.

Its studies and releases should not only be of general
nature phrased in a language understandable to the layman,
 but also aimed at particular groups in taking into
account their special interest, There could be separate
reports for government agencies, industry, parliaments,
different professions, schools, university departments,
Such special fitting to the "customer" seems to be sadly
lacking in most information services attached to large
organisations, They produce news, but do not know how
to "package" and "sell" them.

The E.L.O.!. should attach a special importance to the reactions
 of the recipients of its information. The institution
 should encourage active and if possible constructive
 criticism and might at a later stage even set up or
instigate a number of "surmising forums" (originally
proposed by B. de Jouvenel) which would discuss future
problems and future legislation before it would be debated
 in Parliament,

Another important service, which the "European Look-Out
 Institution" might be asked to provide would be a
"forecasting service" open to all Parliamentarians or
political parties belonging to member countries of the
Couneil, In that way minority groups, who might find
it difficult to oppose long range proposals of their governments
 for lack of foreknowledge, would be able to
"extrapolate' their present proposals and to offer their
own concepts of desirable (or undesirable) futures,
Finally the E.L.O.l. would have a hand in counselling the
proper educational agencies how to make Europeans
more future minded, more open to the needs, the opportunities
 and the possible danagers of worlds to come.

e, Initiating and supporting research into the future
“Research into the future" (or "futurology" as it is sometimes
 called) is a very new intellectual effort, It is
comparatively speaking now at about the same stage as
"sociology" hundred years ago.

Increased and controlled study of the many different
techniques used for "prognostication", the development
of methodology, the refinement of known and the discovery
 of new ways of forecasting is urgently needed,

Furthermore, there exists so far only loose connections
between researchers into the future all over the world,
Especially the links between West and East are very
weak despite the discernible interest in the new subject
matter shown on both sides.

The E.L.O.I. might act as a "clearing house" and a
"switch board" for the new science (or is it an art?),
but it could also set up a research and trainina centre

of its own (see below about the Celestina Foundation).
The special European gift for imaginative speculation
could secure for "future researchers" on our continent
a secure place or even a pioneering role,

f. Thinking about higher social goals

Our society has been increasingly dominated in the last
hundred years by the effort to produce over more goods
hundred years by the effort to produce ever more goods
for an ever increasing number of consumers,

There are good reasons to think that the supreme position
 of productive purposes will not last for another
hundred years,
It will be of greatest importance for a "European Look-Out
 Institution" to devote at least a segment of its activities
 to a permanent discussion of future social goals,
which should bring together the most original and visionary
 thinkers available,

Only in such a way may we be able to transcend our
captivity by present moods and aims and open up the
immense new world beyond technological achievement
beyond the fulfillment of material needs,
Setting the frame for such a "metanoia" should be the
noblest task of the "European Look-Out Institution" „It
is easy to predict that the initiative of a yearly meeting
 of European thinkers dedicated to this subject matter
would find an excellent response .

IV, The functioning of the "European Look-Out
Institution"
a, The intelligence Unit
This unit of the E.L.O.I, will collect, evaluate and correlate
 the informations, which are its raw material and
its source of energy.
95 per cent of these informations are probably open to
everyone, who cares to call them. The rest concern research
 activities of possible impact on the future, which
are still in the development phase, Again there may be
a considerable amount of this "information in being"
open to the one, who asks for it, if he is interested only
 in the general outline rather than technical detail,
Only a negligible fraction of long range planning by
industry and military would not be available to a "Lookout
 Institution".

Adelson, Helmer and others have argued that huge and
expensive "data banks" are the essential prerequisites
of "Look-Out Institutions" ‚While this may be true for
an ideal E.L.O. 1. it can be argued that future minded intelligence
 unit would reach quite acceptable results by
the intelligent and imaginative use and correlation of
information published every day around the globe in
newspapers, news releases and technical journals, It
would be a pity if perfectionism stating that only large
computerised data bases could "do the work" would
stop us from doing, what we could do now with the
help of a not too big number of continuously "well informed"
 "interdisciplinary minded" and "future oriented"
 human brains.

In evaluating, combining and extrapolating first of all
the steady stream of data provided by the different
branches and services of the European Community,

ARCH + 1(1968)H1