Scenarios for the Ecuadorian entrepreneurial ecosystem towards 2040

This study examines plausible long-term futures for Ecuador’s entrepreneurial ecosystem toward 2040 using a foresight approach grounded in the voluntarist tradition of the French School. The study adopts an integrated analytical design that combines structural analysis, actor-based analysis, and dual morphological analysis to explore how key drivers, governance dynamics, and institutional conditions interact under deep uncertainty. The empirical assessment is supported by a panel of high-competence experts selected through a structured evaluation of knowledge and argumentation capacity. The results identify five strategic drivers located in the zone of conflict—financing, entrepreneurial education, collaboration culture, access to international markets, and public governance—whose interactions shape the system’s long-term dynamics. Actor-based analysis highlights asymmetric power relations and convergence patterns among dominant and bridging actors, delineating the system’s capacity for coordinated transformation. Building on these findings, the morphological exploration generates internally coherent structural and transformational configurations that organize plausible future states and clarify alternative pathways of ecosystem evolution. The cross-integration of these configurations results in five narrative scenarios, ranging from fragmented and transitional trajectories to a consolidated, innovation-oriented ecosystem. Rather than forecasting outcomes, the scenarios function as analytical devices that illuminate critical tensions, leverage points, and strategic choices relevant for anticipatory governance and public policy design in Ecuador’s transition toward a science- and technology-based entrepreneurial ecosystem.