Guaranteeing access to food for a growing human population – based on sustainability criteria and in the face of the climate change threat – is the main challenge for twenty-first-century agriculture. The solutions are inevitably complex, require a variety of coordinated measures, and are dependent on the development of technologies.

Adults and older people have most likely always wondered how the young will manage to survive in the world they are left with, and at this point in history, this is a central question in our debates. In order to resolve it, we must resort to one of the main tools we have devised to try to understand the world we live in, the one we call science.

On the occasion of the 100th issue of Mètode, we present reflections on some of these challenges, such as food and energy production, the processing of information, genetic modification, or synthetic biology.

What challenges are awaiting science in the short and medium term, in technical, social and even ethical terms?