Strategic Foresight and Global Governance of Critical Technologies & Socio-technical Systems:
Implications for Peace and Security 2025-2050
Monday, March 24 – Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Hintz Alumni Center, Penn State University
Watercolor painting of the USS Constitution by Gordon Grant, 1927. IMAGE CREDIT: USS Constitution Museum Collection
“In calm waters, every ship has a good captain.” – Swedish Proverb
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE
To introduce students to strategic and systems thinking so that they may learn to appreciate the global governance challenges of critical and emerging technologies and the impact on infrastructure systems. The workshop will focus on autonomous systems, which transcend many critical civil and defense-related infrastructures.
How do technologies that create autonomy become integrated into critical infrastructure systems, what are the social and technical risks generated, who are people and groups that bear the risks and rewards, and what are the strategies and policies needed to manage a spectrum of risks to individuals, organizations, and society? What are the ethical, legal, and social implications of autonomy and autonomous systems?
PARTICIPANTS
Participants will include students and faculty from Chalmers University of Technology and Penn State’s College of Engineering, School of International Affairs, Smeal College of Business, ROTC, and others from across the University. SIREUS (Students, Innovators, Researchers, Entrepreneurs, United States, Sweden) network partners will be invited.
ADDITIONAL OBJECTIVES
Workshop participants identify possible joint research projects on trustworthy, human machine engineering systems and autonomy, together with enabling technologies such as 6G, which are a part of the convergence research agenda and accelerator. The systems engineering research projects and socio-technical systems analysis would include the identification and management of risks and the related ethical, legal, and social implications.
Questions to explore are related to communications latency, machine learning and edge computing, and test and real-world validation. The proposed research would link to education.
Industry from Sweden and Pennsylvania identify increased and expanded ways to collaborate as partners with Penn State and Chalmers for proposals on research and education that have civil and defense related applications. The collaboration will include broader workforce development, including critical trade skills, as well as exploring opportunities for technology transfer, supply chain risk and vulnerability analysis, and advanced manufacturing.
WORKSHOP SPONSORS
The workshop is hosted by the Penn State Center for Security Research and Education.
Co-sponsors from Penn State are the Applied Research Laboratory, Smeal College of Business, the School of International Affairs, Materials Research Institute, Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, ROTC, the Larson Transportation Institute, and the College of Engineering.
Co-sponsors from Sweden are AstaZero and the Chalmers University of Technology.
CONTACT
Darryl Farber, dlf112@psu.edu