On May 21-23, Dr. Pawel Marczewski and Jan Klapa, representatives of the Lukasiewicz – ITECH Strategy and Analysis Department, participated in the GLOBSEC Forum 2026 in Prague – one of the most important European congresses on international politics, security and strategic challenges.
The event brought together nearly 2,500 participants from 80 countries, including representatives of public administration, international organizations, the expert community, business and think tanks. For three days, discussions focused on key challenges for Europe and the world: defense, the economy, social resilience, the future of the international order and models for fostering innovation.
The growing role of technology in shaping the security and positioning of states clearly resonated in this year’s GLOBSEC agenda. Among the topics discussed were the development of artificial intelligence, technological rivalry among superpowers, access to rare earth metals, space security and Europe’s ability to build technological autonomy.
As the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, emphasized in her speech: “Europe has scientific capacity and research facilities. We have a powerful industry. We have the talent, skills and creativity of our people. All we need is a little more confidence to bring all this European strength together. To really use all of our strengths to our advantage.”
A particularly relevant thread was the discussion of the European paradox in the AI race. Europe has significant difficulties translating its scientific potential into deployments and scaling the technology.
The resilience of supply chains and the dependence of economies on raw materials and key industrial components was also an important topic. In this context, it was emphasized that geopolitical tensions can affect not only energy security, but also the chemical industry, fertilizer production, pharmaceuticals or the mining sector.
Much space was also devoted to Europe’s defense industrial base – defense spending in Europe is growing, but production capacity is still not keeping up with the scale of needs. The example of Ukraine shows that modern security depends not only on the level of funding, but also on the speed of adaptation, industrial resilience and the ability to rapidly implement innovations.
Participation in the GLOBSEC Forum 2026, along with the very strong representation of Poland this year, was an extraordinary opportunity for Łukasiewicz – ITECH to deepen its reflections on topics of particular importance to our business: technological security, state resilience, innovation development and the strategic role of science and expert analysis in decision-making processes. The conclusions present in the debates here will certainly not be without influence on our scope of analytical work.
The coming decade will be a test of Europe’s technological autonomy, ability to respond to crises and build social and industrial resilience. It is also a challenge for analytical and research institutions that support the creation of public policies based on knowledge, data and a long-term perspective.
