years

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The Big Picture trends, drivers, wild cards, discontinuities and weak signals Ozcan Saritas a,,*Jack E. Smith b a Manchester Institute of Innovation research, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, M13 9pl Manchester, UK b Federal Foresight & Innovation strategy, Defence

R&d Canada, 305 Rideau St.,8th Floor, CJ02 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1a 0k2 1. Introduction One of the recurring items of feedback from previous FTA Symposia

drivers of change and prospective discontinuities that might be expected within 5 10 or 15 years. The rationale for this concern tended to be expressed in these terms:‘‘

an opportunity to contribute to a value-adding Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 A r T I C L E I N F O Article history:

Available online 19 november 2010 A b s T R A c T Following work done in the UK, Canada and now starting across Europe,

what to expect between 2010 and 2025 as the character of the 21st century begins to become firmly established.

What are the shaping forces, or sources of change and what might be their impacts,

Futures experts (attendees of the FTA 2008 Conference) were invited to state their opinions on these questions by considering the trends, drivers, wilds cards,

presents its methodology and discusses the results of the survey in a greater extent. 2010 Elsevier Ltd.

Global Futures Forum Vancouver April 2008, Europe@2025 European commission. Contents lists available at Sciencedirect Futures journal homepage:

The originators of this survey used the responses to lead a plenary discussion at the 2008 FTA Conference,

In its Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004 2014, the UK Government committed to establishing a Centre of Excellence in Horizon scanning

at least insofar as they usually endure as influential shapers for at least 4 5 years until succeeded by others.

as well as persistent problems or trends''(http://horizonscanning. defra. gov. uk last visited on March 14, 2009.

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 293 Potential trends Possible new trends grow from innovations, projects,

just a few years ago, alternative medicine remained an outcast from modern medicine. Now it has links with big business

policies and business focus over periods of several years that usually have global reach. What is interesting about trends is that normally most players,

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 294 As one can see there are subtle differences from trends.

and forces that change from year to year and may be amenable to stakeholder actions and strategic choices by way of one's investments, new alignments, infrastructure, R&d,

The attacks of September 11, 2001, which created significant shocks to the global security, airport screening and intelligence systems and practices;

'Steinmueller 8 also has an excellent overview of wild cards in the 2008 RAHS Booklet on Foresight:

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 295 Building on Petersen's work, Barber 9 developed an additional wild cards

rapid progress of ICT and biotech End of Moore's Law 100 years life expectancy Environment:

An example from the 1960s is the introduction of the electronic calculator. In a very short time, slide rules and mechanical calculators disappeared and, in some cases,

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 296 Recent reports about accelerated arctic ice shelf melting and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere

so for example, James Hanson's presentation to the US Congress in 1988 about possible global warming on the horizon,

or in technology terms, the speed of take up of‘‘Mosaic''(precursor to Netscape) as the first Internet browser in 1993,

Weak signal examples In the 1980s the first mention was made of global warming and climate change;

The collapse of the Berlin Wall and subsequently the Soviet union was weakly discernible in the mid 1980s through assessments of military capacities and responses to the‘‘Star wars''initiatives;

The growing importance of nanotechnology was first apparent as early as 1986 when Eric Drexler issued his first book on the subject. 4 http://www. metsafoorumi. fi/dokumentit/newsletter3 05. pdf. 5 http://hosting. fountainpark. com/strategysignals/.

/O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 297 3. Big Picture Survey 3. 1. Motivation and approach Up until the Future-oriented technology analysis

(FTA) 2008 Conference, previous FTA meetings tended to focus on methodology, policy linkages and success factors for Foresight design & delivery.

The Scientific Committee of the FTA 2008 Conference heard that some attendees felt that an opportunity had been missed to discuss future Foresight determinants

1. Years of Foresight experience; 2. Country of residence; 3. Affiliation-type of organization represented. Then, the in the second part, the respondents were asked to identify a list of trends, drivers of change, wild cards/shocks, weak signals and discontinuities.

2008 2015; 2016 2025; beyond 2025.3.1.2. Data set Total surveys submitted: 293; substantive completion: 106 (about 50%of FTA Conference attendees;

Respondent Distribution Charts by: years of experience, country of residence and affiliation;(3) 15 STEEP Categories for each domain of interest:

i e. trends, drivers, shocks, discontinuities and weak signals=75 cells of content (Table 1; Qualitative review of Foresight (content) insights and patterns;

3. 1. 3. Further analysis Analysis of each of the Domains of Interest according to%distribution by years of experience, country of residence, affiliation;

J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 298 e g. do those with more years of experience tend to use greater differentiation in their scoring?

Results can serve as baseline for a more quantitative-reactive survey next year likely generating a higher return rate requiring less time to formulate original ideas. 3. 2. Analysis of the results 3. 2. 1. Descriptive statistics

The majority of respondents engaged in Foresight activity 5 10 years as expected a quite experienced group of professionals (Fig. 2). The survey respondents were mainly from Academia and Governmental bodies (Fig. 3). 3. 2. 2

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 299 The diagram illustrates that:

The respondents with more than 15 years of experience constituted the largest single group, comprising more than a quarter of the total of all respondents clear evidence of the substantial experience present at the FTA Conference.

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 300 Table 2 Examples of trends.

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 301 years experienced groups. We believe that this strong contribution from the more experienced contributors supports the basic assumption behind the survey that such a gathering of experts would constitute a uniquely defined relevant cohort worthy of sampling

Furthermore, high impact assessment is more prevalent among the more highly experienced respondents(>10 years. Likelihood and time horizon assessment.

The time of occurrence for most of the trends was considered to be from 2016 to 2025.

Respondents believe that around 30%of the trends will occur in the short term (before 2015.

the survey respondents generally expect that the highest controversies are likely to emerge from 2016 to 2025.3.2.2.3.

The majority of the respondents from Australasia (60%)stated that the trends will occur in the short term (before 2015.

More than half of the respondents from North america and the EU countries suggested a medium time horizon (between 2016 and 2025) for the occurrence of the trends identified.

Whereas, the majority of respondents from Academia and NGOS (51%and 58%respectively) considered that the trends will occur between 2016 and 2025

whereas the majority of the respondents from business envisaged shorter time horizon for the emergence of trends (between 2008 and 2015.

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 302 Fig. 7 shows the frequency distribution of drivers of change and the most widely cited ones.

A balanced distribution is observed among the respondents with 1 3, 5 10 and over 15 years experience.

except the respondents with 10 15 years experience, who considered that about one third of drivers have low probability of occurrence.

All respondents from less than 1 year experience to more than 15 years considered that the majority of the drivers will occur between 2016 and 2025.3.2.3.2.

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 303 Impact assessment. There was a general consensus among all respondents around the globe that around 65%of the drivers will have high impact

The majority of respondents from the EU member and associate countries and North america considered that around half of the drivers will occur between 2016 and 2025.

J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 304 affiliations expect high likelihood of occurrence.

The majority of the all respondents (around 50%)consider that the drivers will emerge from 2016 to 2025.

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 305 include those identified in Table 4 that would have unknown implications because of they were to appear,

As the years of experience increased, the time horizon for the occurrence of wild cards tended to remain between 2016 and 2025.

Respondents with no experience expected that the wild cards would occur after 2025, whereas the respondents with maximum 3 years of experience had a shorter time horizon (2008 2015).

Affiliation time horizon. Regarding the affiliation of participants, the time of occurrence for wild cards indicates parallelism between the respondents from Academia, Business and Other affiliations,

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 306 3. 2. 5. Discontinuities The orientations of discontinuities are represented with the following radar diagram

years of experience and country of origin) demonstrates particular significance with respect to the differentiation and sophistication of responses.()

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 307 3. 2. 5. 1. Joint assessment of Foresight experience and discontinuities.

Over 33%of the discontinuities were defined by the respondents with over 15 years experience. Respondents with 5 10 years experience also contributed significantly (over 27%.

%Impact assessment. The majority of the drivers identified were identified as likely to have high impact on the STEEP systems with the rest of the drivers (approximately a quarter of them) likely to have medium impact.

Different from the other groups, respondents with 5 15 years experience considered that more than 50%of the discontinuities will occur with the realisation time between 2016 and 2025.

Inexperienced respondents(<1 year) considered that most of the discontinuities will be observed in the short run (before 2015

whereas the most experienced respondents expect that the discontinuities will occur in the medium run (2016 2025.

On the other hand 67%of the respondents from Australasia considered the likelihood of occurrence medium. 45%of North american respondents expect that the discontinuities will occur after 2025,

whereas most of the EU member country respondents suggest that the discontinuities will emerge between 2016 and 2025.

and deniers create discontinuity Global security issues rise, e g. nuclear crisis O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 308 2016

to 2025. These differences suggest some further survey or focus group opportunities to probe the differences in perception of discontinuities. 3. 2. 5. 3. Joint assessment of Foresight affiliation and discontinuities.

This time Academia and Business suggested that most of the discontinuities would emerge from 2016 to 2025

whereas students and Governmental respondents expected a longer time horizon (beyond 2025. 3. 2. 6. Weak signals The radar diagram below (Fig. 12) shows the orientations of the 171 weak signals identified by the respondents of the Big Picture Survey.

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 309 Good response with 171 weak signals;

The respondents with a Foresight experience longer than 1 year expect most the majority of the weak signals to emerge in the medium term future (2016 2025),

whereas the inexperienced respondents have a longer time horizon (beyond 2025). This is likely due to the familiarity that older

The majority of the Business respondents have a longer term time horizon (beyond 2025) compared to the respondents from Academia

and Governments who consider that most of the weak signals will occur in the mid-term (2016 2025).

J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 310 4. Conclusions and implications on policy and strategy The following implications from the outputs of the Big Picture Survey

Another paper dedicated to a further elaboration of the BPS results is planned by the authors in 2009.

So wait for the next iteration in 2010. In summary, the authors are excited by how this information might be dissected further

Our primary conclusion is that it will be very useful to repeat the survey with FTA 2010 if possible,

and extend it to other similar groups, in the next year or two, for comparison purposes.

identifying common strategic choices and questions for knowledge, Science and Public policy 37 (1)( 2010) 7 18.2 S. Rijkers-Defrasne, E. Amanatidou, A. Braun, A. Pechmann,

the EFMN issue analysis, Foresight 10 (2008) 6, 90 102.3 DCDC, The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme:

2007 2036, third edition, Swindon, 2007. Available at: http://www. mod. uk/NR/rdonlyres/94a1f45ea883049db-B319-DF68C28D561D/0/strat trends 17mar07. pdf (last visited on:

January 30, 2009. 4 N. Damrongchai, P. Satangput, G. Tegart, C. Sripaipan, Future technology analysis for biosecurity and emerging infectious diseases in Asia-pacific, Science and Public policy 37 (1)( 2010

) 41 50.5 Wikipedia, Futurology, 2009. Available at: http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Futurology#Weak signals. 2c the future sign and wild cards (last visited on:

March 14, 2009. 6 J. Smith, Presentation at the Centre for Innovation studies, Thecis Breakfast Edmonton Alberta, January 13th, 2009.7 J. Petersen, Out of the blue How to Anticipate Big Future Surprises, Madison Books, 2000.8

K. Steinmueller, Thinking about The Future-Strategic Anticipation and RAHS by Risk assessment and Horizon scanning (RAHS), National Security Coordination Secretariat, Singapore, 2008.9 M. P. Barber,

Wildcards signals from a future near you, Journal of Future Studies 11 (2006) 1. 10 N. N. Taleb, The Black swan:

On discontinuity and scenario development, Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 2, 175 194.12 S. Mendonc¸A m. P. Cunha, F. Ruff, J. Kaivo-oja

preparing for wild cards in the civil aircraft and asset-management industries, Long Range Planning 42 (1)( 2009) 23 41.

O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 311 13 K. Steinmueller, Wild cards for Europe, Z punkt, 2003.

March 14, 2009. 14 R c. Jantz, Technological Discontinuities in the Library: Digital Projects that Illustrate New Opportunities for the Librarian and the Library, in:

66th IFLA Council and General Conference, Jerusalem, Israel, 13 18 august 2000. Available at: http://www. ifla. org/IV/ifla66/papers/006-120e. htm (last visited on:

March 14, 2009. 15 Social Technologies, Discontinuity: Mobility, 2008. Available at: http://www. socialtechnologies. com/Fileview. aspx?

filename=PR DISCONTINUITIES MOBILITTYV2%20ks%20mh%20eds final. pdf (last visited on: March 14, 2009. 16 E. Hiltunen, Weak signals, Presentation given at the Finland futures research centre, 2007.

Available at: http://www. slideshare. net/whatidiscover/weaksiggnal (last visited on: March 14, 2009. 17 Y. Nugroho, O. Saritas, Incorporating network perspectives in Foresight:

a methodological proposal, Foresight 11 (2009) 6, 21 41. O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 312

ART45.pdf

The influence of future-oriented technology analysis: Addressing the Cassandra challenge§Ron Johnston a,,*Cristiano Cagnin b a Australian Centre for Innovation, Australia b European commission, DG Joint research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Spain‘‘Cassandra was a daughter of Hecuba

and King Priam, the rulers of Troy during the Trojan war according to Homer's Illiad. Cassandra was a beautiful young woman, blessed with the gift of prophecy by Apollo,

who was infatuated with her. Unfortunately, she shunned Apollo at the last minute and he added a twist to her gift:

The setting for the interviews was the Future-oriented technology analysis International Conference organised by the EU Joint research Centre Institute for Prospective Technology studies (IPTS) in Seville in October 2008.

Another pointed to the historical limitations of any attempt to Futures 43 (2011) 313 316 A r T I C L E I N F O Article history:

Available online 19 november 2010 A b s T R A c T This paper is based on a series of interviews with nine leading researchers conducted during the Future-oriented technology analysis International Conference held in Seville

on 16 17 october 2008. Analysis of these interviews paints a picture of FTA as an increasingly important approach being adopted in many countries to address the many challenges which are emerging at this time in human history.

as with Cassandra's prophecies. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.§§This paper is based on interviews with nine leading FTA researchers conducted during the Future-oriented technology analysis International Conference held in Seville on October 16 17,2008.

Faculty of engineering, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Tel.:++61 02 9351 3934; fax:++61 02 9351 3974.

''In this context, there is wide agreement that the two years since the 2006 International Seville FTA Conference had seen significant development in FTA capacity across many countries and regions:‘‘

‘‘We have moved from the spectacular mountains of individual foresight studies to the range of foothills of distributed and embedded foresight projects, less visible but probably far greater in volume''.

and evaluating the impact of fta has emerged as a major preoccupation for the field in recent years, with the recognition that demonstrating impact is probably the greatest hurdle to the wider acceptance and use of FTA.

A paper by Calof and Smith at the 2008 International Seville FTA Conference 3 concludes‘‘methodology,

R. Johnston, C. Cagnin/Futures 43 (2011) 313 316 314 The first FTA Conference in 2004 gathered predominantly the EU-US community together to take stock of the developments

and a special issue of Technological forecasting and Social Change 5. The second Conference in 2006 enlarged the geographical base of participants,

and Technology analysis & Strategic management 8. The large number of papers submitted in 2008 is an indication both of the central role the FTA Conference has come to play, principally for European researchers but also increasingly for researchers from around the world,

The focus of two sessions of the 2008 FTA Conference on security and sustainability may be a useful first move in this direction.

and in all components of public and private decision-making. 4. Conclusions The interviews conducted as a component of the Future-oriented technology analysis International Conference held in Seville on 16 17 october 2008 provide a clear insight into the current state of the FTA

and in supporting the linkage between the analysis of the interviews with the overall results of the 2008 FTA Conference.

R. Johnston, C. Cagnin/Futures 43 (2011) 313 316 315 Ricardo Seidl da Fonseca UNIDO, Austria.

Cursed Prophetess, 1998, accessed at http://www. arthistory. sbc. edu/imageswomen/papers/fittoncassandra/intro. html. 2 For example V. van Rij, Joint horizon scanning:

Future-oriented technology analysis International Conference, Seville, October, 2008, accessible at: http://forera. jrc. ec. europa. eu/fta 2008/prog day1. html. 4 F. Scapolo, E. Cahill, New horizons and challenges for future-oriented technology analysis, in:

New technology Foresight, Forecasting & Assessment Methods, 2004, European communities Technical Report EUR 21473 EN. 5 F. Scapolo, New horizons and challenges for future-oriented technology analysis:

The 2004 EU-US Seminar, Technological forecasting and Social Change 72 (9)( 2005. 6 Cagnin, et al.

impact on policy and decision making The 2006 FTA INTERNATIONAL SEVILLE SEMINAR, Technological forecasting and Social Change 75 (4)( 2008.

8 J. C. Harper, K. Cuhls, L. Georghiou, R. Johnston, Future-oriented technology analysis as a driver of strategy and policy, Technology analysis & Strategic management 20 (3)( 2008.

9 2008 FTA Conclusions written by the Conference's Scientific Committee available at: http://forera. jrc. ec. europa. eu/fta 2008/conclusions. html. 10 UK Foresight programme, Flood and Coastal Defence, 2004, http://www. foresight. gov

. uk/Ourwork/Completedprojects/Flood/index. asp. 11 UK Foresight programme, Tackling Obesities: Future Choices, 2007, http://www. foresight. gov. uk/Ourwork/Activeprojects/Obesity/Obesity. asp.

R. Johnston, C. Cagnin/Futures 43 (2011) 313 316 316

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Guest editorial FTA break new ground in response to grand challenges Vicente Carabias, Peter De Smedt and Thomas Teichler Abstract Purpose This Guest Editorial aims

to demonstrate the diversity of application fields in which FTA METHODS are being used and to offer a glimpse into possible consequences that grand challenges may imply for the development of FTA.

Design/methodology/approach This introductory paper provides an overview of selected FTA 2011 Conference contributions for this Special issue.

Research limitations/implications From a large set of excellent papers presented at the FTA 2011 Conference, only a restricted number of papers could be included in this Special issue highlighting the broad diversity of FTA application fields in response to grand challenges.

The 4th International Seville Conference on Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) held in May 2011 illustrated the existing variety of FTA APPROACHES to address structural

In this context, this introductory paper provides an overview of selected FTA 2011 conference contributions and the diversity of application fields in

Thus, the following articles explore not only the opportunities and limitations of DOI 10.1108/14636681211256062 VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012, pp. 279-281, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited,

Four scenarios were constructed by looking back to the present from the future state of 2050 The main purpose in using the scenario approach was not to predict

and anticipate the various possible futures that will guide PAGE 280 jforesight jvol. 14 NO. 4 2012 society.

and offer a glimpse onto possible consequences that grand challenges may imply for the development of FTA in the coming years.

About the authors Vicente Carabias, who has a MSC in Environmental sciences from ETHZ in 1996,

Delphi survey, SWOT analysis and scenario development methods in various contexts over the last ten years. He is a Board member of The swiss Academic Association for Environmental Research and Ecology (SAGUF

VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 281 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.

ART47.pdf

see Scapolo and Porter (2008) for an overview). In Cagnin and Keenan (2008, p. 4) it is emphasised that FTA is based on principles such as future orientation, evidence, multiplicity of perspectives,

multidisciplinary coordination but also on a strong action orientation by supporting actors in actively shaping the future.

which led to unintended effects that had been‘‘proven''in ex post analyses (see TSU Oxford et al. 2010).

PAGE 282 jforesight j VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012, pp. 282-293, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1463-6689 DOI

2003) that in most Megaprojects costs are underestimated, revenues are overestimated and the environmental effects are undervalued. In part, at least, these unintended effects and theses controversies are rooted in the complex nature of the transport system.

see for example Klu ver et al. 2000, Renn et al. 1995. Whereas the intention of quantifications using numerical models

and scientific debate (see for example Renn 2008) for a long time. VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 283 Risk, uncertainties and unintended effects are obviously a problem for transport planning.

Generally speaking, the scholarly literature shows consistently that all decision making takes place under conditions of uncertainty

2010) reveals, that differentiating between different levels of uncertainty appears to be a promising approach. Positions differ on such typologies of uncertainties and the relationship between knowledge types and uncertainty.

An overview of the historical development of the latter is given in van Asselt and Rotmans (2002.

and‘‘uncertainty'',referring to a more genuine lack of systematic understanding of causal relations (Knight 1921, see also Runde 1998).

or even conceive (see TSU Oxford et al. 2010). In a similar way and by referring to von Schomberg (2005), Armin Grunwald (2007,

p. 246) argues: While risk is a quantifiable parameter where there is both significant scientific knowledge about the probabilities of the occurrence of certain effects and reliable knowledge about the nature and extent of possible harm,

Kleindorfer (2008, p. 7) distinguishes between‘‘epistemic risks, ''which arise from a lack of knowledge about the appropriate model

van Asselt and Rotmans (2002) provide a categorisation of the sources of uncertainty, whereas a general differentiation is made between uncertainty due to variability and uncertainty due to limited knowledge of the system.

2010) argue that, in order to manage uncertainty, one must be aware that different levels of knowledge exist.

''The latter ones are similar to the third category that Sven Ove Hansson (1996) has added to the discussion of uncertainty.‘‘

PAGE 284 jforesight jvol. 14 NO. 4 2012 2. Known unknowns. These are the uncertainties in the Knightian sense

and their quantification Reduce exposure to the hazardous agent Strategy type Precaution Precautionary prevention Prevention Examples Car friendly urban policy in the 1960's leading to congestion several years

Car friendly urban policy in the 1960's leading to urban sprawl. From a 1970's perspective:

heavy growth rates in freight transport in the EU on roads from and to eastern European countries Effect of a bypass road on kilometres driven in an area (additional traffic might be attracted.

Building on the work of the German Risk Commission (Risk Commission 2003), in the context of this paper risk is understood, in its economic/toxicological/engineering sciences definition,

as a quantitative characterization of adverse effects in terms of the probability of its occurrence and the level of its impacts VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 285 nodes that are interlinked.

Notwithstanding these reservations, Table II illustrates that it is possible to define clear characteristics for both of them (see DLR and KIT, 2010;

2010). ) This categorisation has considerable overlaps with the distinction between qualitative and quantitative approaches. One of the main criterions to distinguish between tools

which they seek to PAGE 286 jforesight jvol. 14 NO. 4 2012 integrate knowledge of experts, stakeholders and also of laypeople in the process of policy making.

mandatory step (see for example Mishan and Quah 2007). CBA is about comparing the gains and losses of undertaking a new project or a policy.

Brainstorming Quantitative models Open space Cost-benefit analysis Expert workshops Multi-criteria analysis Focus groups pta methods Explorative (qualitative) scenarios VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage

The typical unit of measurement is money (Hanley and Barbier, 2009. The overall intention of CBA is the assessment of projects, planning or programmes.

1999). ) It is considered often as an alternative or an extension to pure CBA in cases where important effects cannot be monetised MCA allows decision makers to include a full range of social, environmental, technical, economic,

Scenarios are defined by many authors as a coherent illustration of possible future situations together with pathways that might lead to these situations (Kosow and Gaßner 2008.

and Figure 1 Appropriate FTA METHODS for addressing different types of knowledge PAGE 288 jforesight jvol. 14 NO. 4 2012 help to turn such unknowns into knowns.

In particular for SEA, participatory or consultative methods are used also frequently (see Rauschmayer and Risse, 2005.

thus, is able to deal with unknowns (see Therivel 2004). 4. Illustrative exemplification of the approach The main intention of the differentiation between structurally open

The latter case was somewhat characteristic for the 1950 and 60'ties. In this period, a highly optimistic view on the predictability of developments in the transport sector was dominating.

based on Evans and Mackinder, 1980) illustrates that many of these forecasts turned out to be wrong in the UK.

Banister (2002 p. 134) stipulates: Two crucial issues in all TPMS have been the assumption of stability in model coefficients over time

and even beyond (see S21, 2010). It is not possible to illustrate the long and complex discussion process which accompanied the planning.

since the modelling had been based on VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 289 assumptions which they considered as being wrong.

In a study on inaccuracies in travel forecasts in the USA, Parthasarati and Levinson (2010) conducted interviews with experts.

A positive example for a careful application and integration of results of different FTA METHODS is the development of the European commissions (Commission of the European communities, 2008)‘‘Action Plan for the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems''(ITS.

ranging from 2009 to 2014. Although this timeframe constitutes a short to medium time perspective,

A PAGE 290 jforesight jvol. 14 NO. 4 2012 broad range of tools and methods exists that are used for assessing the impact of transport policy decision-making by trying to anticipate such effects.

Grunwald (2009, p. 1129) argues in relation to quantitative tools:‘‘‘‘quantitative''is equated often with‘‘objective''.''Subjective questioning of evaluation should be‘‘objectivised''.

only selective knowledge can be gained on social phenomena through quantification due to the fact that the models normally only consider a reduced amount of variables that describe social realities (Grunwald, 2009).

2005, p. 1066) emphasise that, instead of forecasting methods to produce single-value deterministic images of the future,

VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 291 Further research will be needed to elaborate on how the categorisation can be used most effectively for designing planning processes in the transport sector and beyond.

dealing with problem-oriented transdisciplinary research (see for Hessels and van Lente, 2008 for a critical review) in greater depth.

1994). ) The structurally open/structurally closed approach (see chapter 3) could be discussed within this context

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Jens Schippl is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: jens. schippl@kit. edu Torsten Fleischer is a Senior researcher at the Institute for Technology assessment and Systems analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe Institute of technology.

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