Frans
Björkroth
Contact
Areas of expertise
Biography
I work as a Project Researcher at the Centre for Collaborative Research CCR at Turku School of Economics, University of Turku. I hold a Master of Social Sciences in economics, and my work combines economics, technology foresight and experiential learning.
My path into research began at Tampere University, where I worked as a research assistant in the EurOMo pilot project, mapping media ownership and regulation in Finland as part of a European research effort. The work gave me a grounding in applied, data-driven analysis of how industries are structured and regulated.
I joined the University of Turku in 2023 to develop the NWoW simulation platform, designing simulation templates for research and teaching. Since then, my work has expanded into AI-assisted technology foresight, industry analysis, and research, development and industry collaboration projects. I have authored industry studies of the Finnish event industry, and I have contributed to foresight work for the Parliament of Finland's Committee for the Future. I work closely with companies, public-sector organizations and other societal actors, and I also design and teach courses built around experiential learning.
Research
My research focuses on how emerging technologies change societies and organisations, and on how we can study and prepare for those changes. I approach this from two directions.
The first is technology foresight. With the Parliament of Finland's Committee for the Future, I have worked on the AI-assisted Radical Technology Inquirer (RTI) method. This work produced the reports Humanoid Robots from Now to the 2040s and Societal Transformations 2026–2045: 100 Anticipated Radical Technologies, 20 Regimes, which assess how disruptive innovations could reshape society over the coming decades. A central question for me is methodological: how artificial intelligence can be integrated into research in a way that is transparent and critical, and that adds real analytical value.
The second is experiential learning. I design gamified simulations that let students and organisations work through complex, realistic situations, such as changing regulation frameworks, technological developments or industry change, and learn from the consequences of their choices. These simulations serve both as teaching tools and as environments for research.
My background in economics ties these together. I am interested in the economic and structural consequences of new technologies, and in building tools that help people understand and act on them.