Dr Popper has worked as expert or consultant for the European Commission, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank, United Nations Economic and Social Council, UN-REDD, among others. He has also been Director of iKnow; Leader of the Mapping activities of the European Foresight Platform (EFP) and Principal Investigator of MIoIR Horizon Scanning activities in the Centre for Workforce Intelligence (CfWI).

Dr Popper has been Scientific Coordinator and Principal Investigator in several European Union funded foresight initiatives and his main areas of work include: ‘foresight’ as an instrument of policy, the development of foresight and horizon scanning methodology, the design of forward-looking activities and their evaluation. He has been member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Rationales for the European Research Area and other foresight advisory boards.

As for his teaching, Rafael has been Co-Director of postgraduate courses on foresight at the University of Manchester and Co-Director of Executive Education courses for Foresight organisers, sponsors and practitioners. He has been guest lecturer in many European and Latin American countries and he has designed and delivered short courses and keynote speeches for a large variety of audiences in the public, private and academic sectors.