Many instances of conflict stem from the deterioration of intergroup relations: one community or bloc begins to mistrust another, leading to reduced cooperation and overt frustration that ultimately become outright antagonism. In response, social scientists have formulated interventions that aim to improve such relations by reducing bias, hostility or negative behaviours. This approach has had some success, as measured by improvements in key psychosocial variables such as trust and inclusivity.

Future Horizons:

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5-yearhorizon

Intervention science matures

Continued development of intervention scienc” aims to create repeatable, context-sensitive approaches to intergroup conflict, in collaboration with local community members and with an emphasis on demonstrable real-world effectiveness, backed up by new sources of funding.

10-yearhorizon

Careful deployment of interventions begins

Interventions are deployed after careful assessment of particular actors (leaders who may exploit them, for example) and contexts (which may affect delivery and efficacy), while also recognising their mutual interactions to ensure net benefit. Researchers will move even more toward collaborating with cultural institutions (museums, for example) and municipal leaders to inform the broader community about conflict narratives and opportunities for community investment.

25-yearhorizon

Refined, customisable interventions improve intergroup relations

A full taxonomy of highly refined interventions can be deployed to improve intergroup relations, customised to particular circumstances and with full understanding of the appropriate timing and targeting for maximum effect.

However, this has also highlighted the need to optimise interventions for particular contexts. Interventions may be categorised by what they hope to achieve, how they hope to achieve it and how they can be delivered, but this needs to be supplemented with greater consideration of precisely what attitude or behaviour they are targeting, who they are trying to reach and how effectively they can be delivered within a particular operating environment. They also need to account for the level at which they operate — of individuals (for example, education), groups (exchange programmes) or societies (anti-discrimination laws).⁵

To achieve this, there will need to be greater structure and cross-disciplinary collaboration in the design of interventions. Perhaps most important, any research efforts will need to be developed and delivered in collaboration with local community leaders and citizens. Interventions at one level can have effects at different levels (anti-bigotry museum exhibits can encourage social mixing, for example) and over different timescales. They can also interfere with each other. That means they need to be carefully implemented in a way that allows them to be compared on a more systematic basis. Evaluation will need to be comprehensive and holistic (with great sensitivity to the possibility of unintended consequences), and geared towards practical solutions rather than improvements in some relatively abstract social variables.

Optimisation of intervention research - Anticipation Scores

The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:

The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.

This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.