Future of Global Supply Chains
A Foresight project examining the future of global supply chains.
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Over recent decades, global supply chains have grown in scale, speed, and complexity. They underpin modern commerce and are vital to the UK’s prosperity and security. Recent events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, have highlighted that supply chains are complex systems, with many interdependencies, and are vulnerable to systemic shocks.
What shocks and trends might global supply chains face in the future and how might they change in response?
The Future of Global Supply Chains in the UK is a cross-government Foresight Project which will help decision-makers across HM Government build resilient supply chains and safeguard growth and prosperity sustainably. We are using the latest analytical and scientific evidence to identify vulnerabilities and develop avenues to long-term resilience.
The Future of Global Supply Chains in the UK Foresight Project aims to:
Provide evidence on the critical long-term uncertainties impacting global supply chains.
By engaging with our network of experts and senior officials across HM Government, we plan to identify issues that are both uncertain in their future development and strategically important for the resilience of global supply chains out to 2040.
Develop scenarios that consider plausible outcomes for these uncertainties and how they could interact.
Taking the uncertainties and projecting how they could play out in the future, we plan to develop four plausible but deliberately stretching future scenarios, outlining different possibilities for how global trade might look in 2040.
Use scenarios to explore potential vulnerabilities to UK supply chains
We propose using the scenarios to better understand potential vulnerabilities in the UK’s supply chains. Our intention is to support policymakers and decision-makers across HM Government in exploring a range of long-term outcomes, informing strategic planning, and assessing the robustness of supply chains under plausible future conditions. We are considering data-driven approaches to examine how supply chains might respond to a variety of future conditions.
We are aiming to bring together these findings in a Foresight report on GOV.UK by spring 2026.
For more information, please email foresight@go-science.gov.uk.
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The text has been updated to reflect the latest information on the project.
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Information updated (after feedback from a stakeholder) to more accurately reflect the plans for the project.
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First published.