A host of bold projects – breathtaking in their ambition – will be re-shaping the global landscape. To name just a few: In Abu Dhabi, the $22 billion zero waste, zero carbon Masdar City will be approaching completion. Japan’s Shimizu Corporation, working with countless research firms and government agencies, has plans for an underwater city – the ‘ocean spiral’ – to house 5000 people in a giant sphere containing homes and businesses resting just below the ocean’s surface, with a factory powering the city by using microorganisms that convert carbon dioxide into methane. And beyond our world, NASA and its counterparts in China, Europe, Japan, India, Russia and elsewhere, alongside a burgeoning private sector space industry, aim to meet the awesome challenge of sending humans into Mars orbit in the decade of the 2030s and make popular space travel a reality.

Can these ambitious goals actually be achieved? What new, disruptive innovations – some not even on the radar today – might open up uncharted possibilities for building a better world? And what as yet unexpected human challenges might lie ahead, driven by technological overload, bad science or unforeseen social and economic upheaval?

Led by Director of Studies Dr James Bellini, and drawing upon leading-edge sources from around the futurist community, Project 2030 will be a research-based narrative describing the unfolding future landscape of this breakthrough decade. It will pinpoint those nascent technologies and little-known scientific discoveries set to have transformational impact on the shape of tomorrow’s world. It will identify the earliest signs of potentially game-changing shifts in public attitudes and the functioning of the consumer marketplace.

And in this Century of the City, it will monitor the evolving realities of what is now a rapidly-growing urban world – both positive and unedifying. The epic journey to Horizon 2030 – and beyond – starts here, on this site. Look out for regular updates.