and provides knowledge and analysis for a broader, national research prioritisation exercise. The paper analyses the implementation of The irish foresight exercise
Research limitations/implications The concept of grand challenges is still relatively new. Practical implications Not all research and innovation priorities are linked to grand challenges.
This article presents some recent experience of how national research and innovation systems use futures to construct responses (such as new investment priorities) to emerging global challenges and opportunities.
was the focus on translating future-oriented knowledge (from drivers and trends) into grand challenges for the national research and innovation system.
and Member States to focus European research on the major challenges facing our world. According to the Lund Declaration:
European research must focus on the Grand challenges of our time moving beyond current rigid thematic approaches. This calls for a new deal among European institutions and Member States, in which European and national instruments are aligned well and co-operation builds transparency and trust.
and consulting team that examined the implications of global drivers and trends for national research and enterprise policy-making in Ireland.
and the research areas that will be required to address the challenges and meet the opportunities''(Project Terms of Reference).
It was one of the projects undertaken by Forfa's to provide analytical support to a national research prioritisation exercise.
the 12-month exercise has had the aim of identifying up to 20 priority areas for the allocation of public funding of research and development over five years.
which could inform the work of the Research prioritisation Steering Group. The aim was to synthesise the materials into a collection of 12 (or so) challenges.
and B the challenge has potential for a set of research implications or the potential for applications of research results.
The final output incorporated the grand challenges identified for Ireland, with emerging implications for the research system. 4. Project results:
The research implications developed were based on the consultants'experience in research prioritisation exercises, international comparators and the inputs from the Roundtables. 4. 2 Participants'views of global drivers and trends:
the challenge of developing a more resilient societal system was identified, with potential implications around social research on resilience,
and technology and to enable smaller Irish companies to absorb and then exploit research results? Gain a broader understanding of creativity and innovation and their role in the application of research within enterprises and more broadly across society Establish better ways of judging
Through targeted research and development, it was put forward that Ireland could pilot new approaches for dealing with challenging areas such as energy and healthcare. 5. Conclusions With the increasing recognition of the concept of grand challenges over recent years,
the research community amongst others has been challenged to rethink the way in which it serves the broader needs of society.
Although this is not a final assessment of how the project has been used to inform research priorities, there are some important implications for foresight practice in RTDI and grand challenges.
They do not constitute decisions made by Forfa's nor any other organisation involved in the research prioritisation exercise.
1995), Norway (Nordic Innovation Centre, 2007), Canada (National research council Canada, 2005) and other developed countries have accumulated significant experience with such projects.
National research University Higher School of economics, Moscow, Russia. This study was implemented in the framework of the Programme of Fundamental Studies of the Higher School of economics in 2011. been active in the development of long-term strategies for the rational use of natural resources and in the sphere of environmental protection.
The natural resources sector includes numerous players (federal and regional government agencies, public and private companies and industrial enterprises, R&d centres, environment protection organisations,
1. the research focus, meaning the main research objective of the study; 2. the main results, where we specify the key received results of the project
B Indirect impact This means that the project results (such as lists of priorities, the most important research topics, policy recommendations) were used for informing policy-makers.
B Direct impact (medium) This means that the project results were used directly for decision-making at Ministry level (corresponding decisions could concern the forming of a research agenda, budget allocation, etc..
B identification of R&d areas that are most important and promising to Russia; B estimation of possible timeframes for major S&t breakthroughs;
B evaluation of the position of Russian R&d centres in the international S&t landscape; and B determination of the most relevant steps to be taken to support the development and commercialisation of science and technology.
representing all leading R&d and industrial centres. More than 150 experts were recruited to assess development prospects for the Rational Use of Natural resources area.
B current level of Russian R&d; B world leader country; B support measures for Russian R&d;
B expected timeframes for commercialisation and implementation; B support measures for commercialisation; and B possible results.
the most important required support measures are improvement in the research infrastructure, increasing budget R&d funding and training (percentages imply the percentage of experts who marked the measures as being most important;
experts could choose more than one answer. These issues were analysed deeply in the FS2 framework. 3. 2 National S&t Foresight:
and most promising research areas offering significant innovative potential. This foresight methodology consisted of various expert techniques (surveys
including R&d level, contribution to innovative relevant projects, availability of human resources (researchers, engineers and technicians), required level of funding and fixed assets.
Table II Characteristics of most developed technology groups in the‘‘Rational Use of Natural resources''thematic area Technology group Index of R&d levela Cumulative effectb Monitoring and control systems,
this index shows an average estimation of R&d level according to aggregated expert opinion. bcalculated as sum of the number of answers for the two top scores (among the following possible answers:‘‘
and major promising research topics were identified. At the same time, the FS2 results showed that the Russian management system in the natural resources area could be more effective
analytical and expert studies (see Figure 2). More than 100 experts from leading research centres and companies took part in the study,
and increasing the budget for R&d funding and training; these issues were the focus of FS2. So FS1 and FS2 were connected not only by
B estimates of the level of Russian R&d vis-a vis the world leaders for major S&t areas;
B possible time periods for obtaining R&d results, their commercial use and expected outcomes; and B measures to support R&d and their commercialisation for all major S&t areas.
These FS1 results were used as an information source for many political purposes: B revision of National S&t priorities and Critical technologies;
B identification of research projects to be funded within federal and sectoral goal-oriented S&t programmes; B designing sectoral strategies for industries;
and research projects as a basis for the selection of projects to be funded. So in terms of our scale, the results of FS2 had a medium direct impact on policy-making
importance, current level of Russian R&d, support measures and others A large database of promising S&tareas, estimated by nine criteria by 2, 000 experts.
In particular the results showed that the most important support measures are improvement in the research infrastructure,
and increasing the budget for R&d funding and training The evaluation of required resources (human, financial and infrastructure) for the most important and well-developed topics and their market prospects FS2 The evaluation of technology groups (as combinations of the most important and well-developed topic on the basis of the results of FS1) by the following criteria:
of markets and segments where Russia can improve its position Detailed description of chosen groups The most important innovation projects The most important research projects In particular,
design of large-scale innovation projects identification of research projects to be funded within federal and sectoral goal-oriented S&t programmes designing sectoral strategies for industries regional priorities for innovation development priorities
National research council Canada (2005),‘Looking forward: S&t for the 21st century'',Foresight Consolidation Report, available at www. nrc-cnrc. gc. ca/Nordic Innovation Centre (2007),‘Foresight in Nordic innovation systems'',Nordic Innovation
Research limitations/implications It would be a significant contribution if this structured analysis could be applied more broadly across different geographic regions or across research areas in foresight reports.
This research may help to solve the practical difficulties faced during the secondary analysis of foresight studies in foresight preparatory studies by providing a consistent classification framework to make comparison and aggregation of future technology options from different countries/regions.
Te-Yi Chan and Cheng-Hua Ien are based in the Trend Analysis Division, Science and Technology policy Research and Information Center (STPI), National Applied research Laboratories (NARL), Taipei
In some Asian countries such as Japan, South korea and China, foresight has been taken as a tool for priority setting or R&d agenda setting.
In general, CTI is competitive intelligence within the R&d arena (Herring, 1993; Ashton et al. 1994). ) It has been defined as:..
i e. to guide R&d decisions. In looking at the timeframes associated with CTI, they are of a shorter duration to foresight
''foresight activity was regarded as a‘‘search tool''to identify their strengths in R&d, and in particular to identify innovation potentials
and Technology policy Research institute (STEPI) Technology foresight Research team, National research Center for Science and Technology for Development Time horizon 2035 2030 2020 Original category Energy and resources Energy
or in the R&d agenda setting process, it may therefore be strategically important to identify what kind of technologies are rated as important for these three countries;
Therefore, not only policy makers at the national level but also researchers who are conducting a research agenda can use such a structured analysis result to see the future trends in their proper scope
Therefore, regional characteristics may bias the results of the research. This kind of bias may be compensated for by including opinions from other regions such as Europe or America.
Calof, J. and Smith, J. 2010),‘The integrative domain of foresight and competitive intelligence and its impact on R&d management'',R&d Management, Vol. 40 No. 1, pp. 31-9
the key to R&d'',Journal of Business strategy, Vol. 15, pp. 10-12. Kayal, A. 1999),‘Measuring the pace of technological progress:
which is under the National Applied research Laboratories (NARL). Her research interests include foresight, technology roadmap, and patent analysis.
Hai-Chen Lin is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: hclin@stpi. narl. org. tw Dr Te-Yi Chan received BS, MS and Phd degrees in Computer Engineering from Chung Yuan Christian University
which is under the National Applied research Laboratories (NARL). He works on data processing and text mining, and adopts these mechanisms to conduct research into science and technology development trends.
His research interests include foresight, data mining, and learning technologies. Cheng-Hua Ien received A MS degree in Food Science and Technology from Taiwan University in 1983.
which is under the National Applied research Laboratories (NARL). Her research interests include foresight, technology roadmap, and patent analysis.
VOL. 15 NO. 1 2013 jforesight jpage 73 To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail:
A, Ed. Corporate Financial center, Sl. 1112,70712-900, Brasília-DF, Brazil c Institute of Economics, Research centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H
Hungary d Manchester Institute of Innovation research, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9pl, UK e National research University, Higher School of economics, Moscow, Russia
Further, actual FTA projects exploit results of scientific research and also use scientific methods when analysing the past
FTA EXPERTS and other policy analysts, nonetheless, aim at distilling scientific results from FTA projects and publish them in journals or books.
and plan their R&d strategy accordingly 7. Qualitative techniques, in contrast, can establish casual relations (without which models can be misleading),
and that is a major benefit for decision-makers, be they directors of research institutes, deans and rectors of universities, business people, or policy-makers.
Attila Havas (Phd, 1997) is a Senior Research fellow at the Institute of Economics Research centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (http://econ. core. hu/english/inst/havas. html),
and regional editor of the International Journal of Foresight and Innovation policy. His academic interests are in economics of innovation theory and practice of innovation policy, and technology foresight.
He has contributed to international research projects on STI policies, innovation, as well as on foresight and prospective analyses, and been a member of several EU expert groups.
Ozcan Saritas (Phd) is a Senior Research fellow at the Manchester Institute of Innovation research (MIOIR formerly PREST;
a Research Professor at the National research University, Higher School of economics, Moscow; and the editor of Foresight:
perceptions on the expectations of different audiences, methodological preferences of the (mixed methods) researcher, structure of the research project, different timelines for different method types, skill specialisms, the nature of the data, ontological differences,
In addition, a short-term research agenda could help addressing practical incompatibilities that hamper the combination of different methods.
A possible item on such research agenda could be screening specific sectors where quantitative FTA APPROACHES are represented traditionally stronger, in view of identifying good practices.
Overcoming the barriers identified calls for additional research efforts but also as importantly, for more practical experiment.
New research efforts are required to devise methodological and conceptual frameworks, approaches and tools that intrinsically (ex-ante) integrate qualitative and quantitative thinking,
Guide to Research infrastructures Foresight, European commission, Brussels, 2007.27 F. Scapolo, A l. Porter, New methodological developments in FTA, in:
A compared R&d-based and patent-based cross-impact analysis for identifying relationships between technologies, Technol.
Nonreactive Research in the Social sciences, Rand mcnally, Chicago, 1966.50 S. Sarantakos, Social research, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1993.51 D. Silverman, Interpreting Qualitative data:
Econ. 405 (1996) 422.56 W. K. Olsen, Triangulation in social research: qualitative and quantitative methods can really be mixed, in:
Res. 33 (7)( 2004) 14 26.61 A. Tashakkori, C. Teddlie, Mixed Methodology, Combining Qualitative and Quantitative approaches, Applied Social research Methods Series, 46, Sage
He has been involved in a diversity of European-wide research projects (the most recent one on Visions for the European research area)
She works at the European commission Directorate General Joint research Centre (JRC) in Brussels, where she is involved in the setting up of a corporate intelligence function called Anticipation at the JRC.
Professor Alexander Sokolov is Deputy Director of the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge and Director of the International foresight Centre at the Higher School of economics (HSE) one of the most prominent national research universities
and make their R&d strategy accordingly. 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Technology life cycle Patent Indicator Cathode ray tube Thin film transistor liquid crystal display Nano-biosensor 1. Introduction The rapidly changing economic environment
either over time or in terms of cumulative R&d expenditures. But using one indicator only to present technological performance would be problematic.
A research team from MIT 11 studied the development trends of power transmission technology and aero-engine technology by S-curve modelling.
We count the respective numbers for each of these two indicators in DII by priority year. 2. 1. 3. Inventor This indicator indicates the amount of human resources invested in R&d of one particular technology.
Technology observers can make their R&d investment decision by using the proposed approach. The result shows that NBS is in a growth stage.
Technology managers might informtheir NBS R&d investments by analysing patent application data from 1997 to the present to identify hot research topics or technological gaps.
For somenbs related companies that have enough money for R&d, it is a good time to invest in NBS to pursue potentialmarkets. 4. Conclusions How might technology life cycle analysis based on patents contribute to FTA?
He is also a Director of R&d for Search Technology, Inc.,Norcross, GA. He is the author of some 220 articles and books,
and proposed a research agenda for future research. But these authors have not considered in detail the new capabilities
I hope that the following text commenting briefly on each of these points should serve as a basis for establishing an effort toward an international research agenda on the subject 3...to complete the puzzle 3. 1. To point 1:
however, that although this methodology is being used by a few research groups worldwide, it is impossible to make justice to all efforts of all groups found in the literature,
As a first step toward a research agenda for future development of TFA I propose the realization of an international seminar in this field (Evolutionary theory of technological change) bringing together specialists in evolutionary model building and digital Darwinism to discuss the existing approaches
His research interests are exploration and analysis of dynamically complex systems under deep uncertainty. In his Phd research, he focuses on long term decision-making under deep uncertainty using the Exploratory Modeling and Analysis method.
His current research interests are adaptive policy making and the use of optimization in policy-making. Jan Kwakkel received a Ph d. from Delft University of Technology.
This area of research might contain useful techniques for further reducing the results and supporting the interpretation.
The case also showed that further research on time-series clustering is necessary to facilitate the interpretation of results.
Kristian Borch b, Ted Fuller c a SVR, Research centre of the Flemish Government, Boudewijnlaan 30, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium b Department of Management Engineering
and using scenarios and orienting innovation systems and research priorities 6. Technological forecasting & Social Change 80 (2013) 432 443 Corresponding author.
and conclude with suggested points of departure for further research. 433 P. De Smedt et al.//Technological forecasting & Social Change 80 (2013) 432 443 2. Material and methods How can we learn about orienting innovation systems from future scenario practice?
and Health technical committee of the European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical research (Cost.
The main research questions were: What methodological issues are salient in relation to the identification of emerging trends and change?
Hence, the social dimension in innovation should be acknowledged as a legitimate research area and linkages with social systems of innovation and social innovation stakeholders should be strengthened
so that innovation experiments include the inherent social dimension within the research community 15.3.2. Futures thinking Futures thinking is used for medium to long-term strategic analysis and planning.
This technique is used often in national foresights to guide innovation and national research policies 58 60. All the above describe approaches to futures thinking during which (potential) inputs for scenarios can be produced.
The 3rd SCAR foresight exercise (see Appendix 1) also falls into this group with its focus on research priorities
In the project report, the insights of the foresight exercise are used to articulate the research priorities. Still, the implementation could be improved with regards to knowledge dissemination e g. education
Developing and using scenarios can be considered a field of applied research, i e. where particular methods are applied to‘solve'particular puzzles.
Thirdly, we want to emphasize that the social dimension in innovation systems should be acknowledged as a legitimate research area
so that social innovation experiments inform the research community. Acknowledgments The authors are grateful to the COST Action A22 network,
Currently Peter works at the Research centre of the Flemish Government where he is in charge of foresight and sustainability assessment.
6 and rank high with regard to R&d spending and output indicators such as publications and patent applications 7,
since the U s. National science and Technology Council published its first vision for nanotechnology research and development and Germany established its public funding program.
and developed a vision for nanotechnology R&d. This started in 1998 when the National science and Technology Council (NSTC), the principal executive body responsible for coordinating science and technology policy,
The resulting report most explicitly related to future orientation was the IWGN workshop report on nanotechnology research directions
which included a Vision for Nanotechnology research and Development in The next Decade 1. Vision building at this stage was accompanied by early cooperation and coordination between and among agencies and departments of the federal government.
proposed themes for R&d support and stated their planned contributions of their programs to the nanotechnology initiative.
what kinds of nanotechnology research should be funded 36 (S. Kaplan, J. Radin, Bounding an emerging technology: para-scientific media and the Drexler Smalley debate about nanotechnology, Soc.
41 (2011) 457 485). 4 Participating agencies included the Department of commerce (DOC), Department of Defence (DOD), Defence Advanced Research projects Agency (DARPA), Department of energy (DOE), Department of transportation
446 P. Schaper-Rinkel/Technological forecasting & Social Change 80 (2013) 444 452 support nanotechnology education, research and development the fastest will thrive in the new millennium 1. These statements illustrate that the report
Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) into nanotechnology R&d programs and supported centers for nanotechnology in society.
entitled Nanotechnology research Directions for Societal Needs in 2020 3 combined retrospective and future-oriented analysis documenting developments in nanotechnology from 2000 to 2010
and presented a vision for progress in nanotechnology from 2010 to 2020 3. Besides redefining the R&d goals for nanoscale science and engineering integration,
a research program to integrate natural science and engineering investigations with social science and policy research from the outset 44.
focused on interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale and was dominated by a science-centric ecosystem. The second foundational phase (2011 2020) is planned to be focused on the integration of nanoscale science
they address R&d (Advance a world-class nanotechnology research and development program), innovation (Foster the transfer of new technologies into products for commercial and public benefit),
The pluralistic nature of the US R&d system, the diverse, dynamic nature of US national political bodies and the limitations of US foresight history makes centralized goal-setting across many
The nanotechnology related activities of BMBF, the main public agency in Germany in charge of promoting pre-commercial research and development,
the aim of these forecasting exercises was to identify new and promising fields for research funding, to deliver a sound and broad information basis for funding decisions in these research fields
They were established to bridge the gap between science and industry from the very beginning of R&d activities 48.
Especially industrial players such as Bayer, Degussa, Siemens, Zeiss, industry-oriented organizations of applied science such as Fraunhofer-Institutes,
The German research system is characterized by its high level of institutional fragmentation 53 and this institutional fragmentation can also be observed with regard to the governance of science, technology and innovation in the field of nanotechnology. 4. Comparing the US and Germany 4. 1. Timing and intervention Between the late 1980s and the late 1990s,
Efforts to identify promising areas of science and technology as early as possible have given rise to efforts to monitor emerging technologies on a global scale.
The vision-building process of 2010 served as an instrument to pool and coordinate FTA ACTIVITIES among government departments, agencies, and research communities.
and engineering under a broad definition of nanotechnology and served as the foundation in developing long-term R&d visions and strategies.
References 1 NSTC, National science and Technology Council, Nanotechnology research directions: IWGN workshop report, Vision for Nanotechnology research and Development in The next Decade, 1999.2 BMBF, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, in:
Strategische Neuausrichtung. Nanotechnologie in Deutschland, BMBF Publik, Bonn, 2002, p. 16 S. 3 M. Roco, C a. Mirkin, M. Hersam, Nanotechnology research Directions for Societal Needs
in 2020, Berlin/Boston, Retrospective and Outlook, Springer, 2010.4 European commission, Green Paper, in: E. Commission (Ed.),From Challenges to Opportunities:
Sci. 41 (2011) 457 485.37 NSTC, National science and Technology Council, Nanostructure Science and Technology, R&d Status and Trends in Nanoparticles, Nanostructured Materials,
Her current research focuses on foresight, governance of emerging technologies, and methods and practices of futuring. 452 P. Schaper-Rinkel/Technological forecasting & Social Change 80 (2013) 444 452
and challenging the research team's own preconceptions. A deepened understanding of the different points of view and perspectives was achieved compared to many other approaches looking for early convergence rather than emphasising divergence.
new types of R&d projects and pathways for integration of policy strategies across diverse policy realms.
and R&d Management Conference Manchester 2nd of June 2010 (INFU workshop). 465 E. Schirrmeister, P. Warnke/Technological forecasting & Social Change 80 (2013) 453 466 References 1 O. Da Costa, P. Warnke, C
critical success factors for the 1990's, R&d Manag. 22 (3)( 1992) 221 239.11 W c. Kim, R. Mauborgne, Strategy, value innovation,
B. Sanders, In and out of sync, The Challenge of Growing Social innovations, NESTA Research report, 2007.14 H. W. Chesbrough, Open innovation:
Operations research Proceedings 2005, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2005, pp. 741 746.29 P. Warnke, E. Schirrmeister, INFU scenario assessment report (deliverable D
combining insights from innovation systems and multilevel perspective in a comprehensive‘failures'framework, Research policy 41 (2012) 1037 1042.
Elna Schirrmeister is a senior researcher and project manager at Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation research since 1999.
research institutes and industry. Philine Warnke is a researcher in the Foresight & Policy development Department of the Austrian Institute of technology (AIT) in Vienna.
The first has been so-called direct measures, grants or fiscal incentives for R&d, the former largely restricted to collaborative grants under the argument that firms needed an incentive to work together on pre-competitive activities,
Fiscal incentives have also been driven by arguments about attracting mobile international R&d investment. The second powerful strand has been a package of measures designed to reinforce research business linkages,
Similar tendencies are visible in investigator-driven Research funding models in most countries evolved but only slowly towards accommodating more interdisciplinary thematic approaches.
or at most to try to stimulate R&d collaborations and networks. Priority-setting methodologies normally begin with a fixed choice set
the research policy landscape evolves less by displacement of the old by the new and more by a process of geological accretion where the structures and policy styles of earlier decades continue, perhaps with some diminution,
the European research Council (ERC) has seen fit to launch an activity targeted at exploitation of results.
but a pattern repeated by research councils and charitable funding organisations. This could be interpreted as a response to uncertainty an attempt to facilitate those most likely by their track record of excellence to achieve breakthroughs that may have a transformative effect.
and applied research where the notion of grand or societal challenges has risen to prominence, most noticeably but by no means exclusively at European level where societal challenges such as health, energy and food security, transport, climate and resources and innovative and secure societies became first a part of the ERA debate 10 and subsequently a central
The lists given above for EU and US research policies consist entirely of well-recognised challenges in
foresight for research and innovation policy and strategy, Futures 43 (3)( 2011) 243 251.10 L. Georghiou, Europe's research system must change, Nature 452 (2008) 935
His research interests are demand-side innovation policy, foresight and evaluation. He is active in policy advice to governments and business and as Vice-president for Research and Innovation at the University of Manchester.
Her research interests are foresight and STI policy with a particular emphasis on small and transition economies.
and R&i policy at the European and international level, serving on a number of EU expert groups. 470 L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena Harper/Technological forecasting & Social Change 80 (2013) 467
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