Insights Wrap-up 2025: trade, innovation, and new urban horizons

By Lorenzo Bona

Over the past year, our Insights have focused on trade and its fundamental role in human progress; the deep-rooted human drive for innovation and continuous problem-solving; key aspects of socio-economic networks that enable the circulation of new information; and situations in which uncertainty takes on radical forms that escape probabilistic calculation.

Given the central role of cities and urban environments in the history of human civilization, special attention has also been devoted to how collaboration and creativity can make architectural elements, buildings, and cities more capable of improving the quality of life of their inhabitants.

The conclusion is clear: today’s challenges in international trade appear to signal, as many suggest, a reconfiguration of globalization, not its end.

Economic fragmentation – through tariffs, geopolitical tensions, or regulatory barriers – tends to narrow choices, raise costs, and limit the ability to fully leverage exchange relationships.

Yet even in a reconfigured form, globalization continues to offer significant opportunities for human progress, including expanded access to materials, craftsmanship, technologies, and cultural creation.

Strengthening local partnerships while building international networks appears to be one of the best strategies firms can adopt to stay well-positioned, learn from emerging trends, adapt, innovate, and prosper.

At the same time, strategies rooted in multi-professional and cross-cultural collaboration among key actors in the construction sector – such as architects, designers, builders, and fabricators of architectural products – appear as some of the most effective ways to guide cities toward more sustainable development paths that can enhance the quality of life for the people who live and work in them.

In radically uncertain times, collaboration, creativity, and entrepreneurship form the foundations of resilience and remain the primary forces capable of sustaining economic growth and development, fostering more sustainable cities, and ensuring long-term progress.

Looking ahead to 2026, as research reminds us,  uncertainty is not a barrier – it’s the playground of innovation and entrepreneurship. While risks should be managed, the unknown invites imagination, creativity, and bold action.

Happy New Year!