The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), located in Seville, Spain, is one of the seven institutes of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), a Directorate-General of the European Commission (EC).
Its first project was ESTO, the European Science and Technology Observatory, which after some 10 years of work, developed into two new networks: The institute also co-develops the POLES energy model,[1] with the French research institute LEPII and the consulting firm Enerdata.