http://www. tandfonline. com/loi/ctas20 Foresight for science and technology priority setting in a small country:
Frank Glod, Carlo Duprel & Michael Keenan (2009) Foresight for science and technology priority setting in a small country:
8 november 2009,933 951 Foresight for science and technology priority setting in a small country: the case of Luxembourg Frank Gloda*,Carlo Duprela and Michael Keenanb afonds national de la recherche, 6 rue Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, B
bmanchester Institute of Innovation research (PREST), University of Manchester, M13 9pl, UK This paper sets out to review the conduct and immediate impacts of a two-year national technollog foresight exercise
The country's small size brings into sharp viewmany of the underlying tensions present in those foresight exercises that explicitly attempt to set national priorities.
(or otherwise) to underpin the foresight process with sufficient and appropriate‘objectivised'knowledge (including national statistics,
which described the first phase of the FNR Foresight exercise. The current paper extends this analysis to the second and third phases of the exercise
By doing so, it covers the evolution of the foresight exercise over its two-year life span,
The paper draws lessons not only for other small countries and regions hoping to use foresight,
but also highlights principles for using foresight for priority-setting more generally. Keywords: foresight; priority-setting;
Luxembourg; research system 1. Introduction In 2005, Luxembourg began to embark upon a‘national'technology foresight exercise, with the primary aim of identifying newresearch domains for the National research Fund (FNR) to support*Corresponding author.
Email: frank. glod@fnr. lu ISSN 0953-7325 print/ISSN 1465-3990 online 2009 Taylor & francis DOI:
In an opening section, the general contours of science, technology and innovation (STI) policy in Luxembourg are traced, with a view to contextualising the FNR Foresight experience.
when considering the conduct of FNR Foresight. In Section 4, a brief outline description of FNR Foresight is provided,
followed in Section 5 by a more detailed analysis of the conduct of the exercise.
Section 6 considers the impacts of the foresight exercise, while a final section draws some summary conclusions and highlights lessons for future foresight practice. 2. STI Policy in Luxembourg Before the 1980s,
Luxembourg lacked a public science, technology and innovation infrastructure. R&d carried out in Luxembourg was largely the preserve of the private sector particularly the steel industry and even today,
Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december 2014 Foresight for science and technology priority setting in a small country 935 Expenditure on Public research 0 20 000 000 40 000 000 60 000 000 80 000 000 100
this was the original rationale for FNR Foresight: to identify topic areas around which newfnr programmes could be articulated.
An important attraction of technology foresight has been its promise to make such processes more explicit, and, by extension
even if revolution might Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december 2014 Foresight for science
'4 But with the use of techniques like foresight, these processes have been opened up more widely.
an area where there tends to be extensive disagreement among foresight participants. 4) Criteria for prioritisation.
should somehow be engaged in priority-setting processes. 4. Outline of FNR Foresight FNR Foresight has been delivered as a two phase process (FNR 2006, 2007a,
the second phase of the foresight focused upon a set of broad themes with the aim of identifying national priorities for research funding.
Creating a Baseline Figure 2. Phases and steps of FNR Foresight. Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december 2014 Foresight for science
and technology priority setting in a small country 939 where respondents were asked to rate research domains against a battery of‘attractiveness'and‘feasibility'criteria.
and to identify important implementation issues. 5. Conduct of FNR Foresight Foresight exercises tend to face a number of generic challenges in their conduct
and the FNR Foresight has been no exception in this regard. Among these challenges are need the to keep within time and budget;
to overcome suspicions of some of the methods common to foresight; to ensure sustained, consistent participation;
and to help deliver on foresight's findings; and to remain relevant while pushing at the‘normal'boundaries of debate (Keenan and Miles 2008.
Accordingly, the following sections are limited to discussion of the various and changing meanings given to FNR Foresight by a mix of stakeholder groups;
and the nature of processes of deliberation. 5. 1. Variety and change in the meanings of Foresight The FNR Foresight was born out of the necessity for the FNR to define new research programmes.
and second, to use a foresight exercise to identify and develop those domain areas that might be of interest,
these different groups sometimes held varying views on priority-setting and the scope and conduct of the FNR Foresight exercise in particular,
therefore and the proposed foresight exercise was given the go-ahead by the Board, on the understanding that it would provide a more participative (involving knowledge users as well as producers) and future-oriented (visionary) approach to identifying topic areas suitable for new FNR programmes.
the FNR proposed to use the foresight exercise to define not only thematic priorities, but also to consider the structural aspects and funding mechanisms and instruments of public research.
which was supportive of the idea of a foresight exercise. Later on, it even requested the Fund to broaden the scope of the analysis from the‘mere'definition of new FNR programmes to the identification of nationwide research priorities, i e.‘
'In a coordinated approach with other elements8 of public policy, FNR Foresight was to provide the basis:
if their Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december 2014 Foresight for science and technology priority setting in a small country 941 research was not to fall under identified research priorities.
the FNR Secretariat assured participants that the foresight exercise was constructed not around a‘winner takes all'competition between research domains.
However, these were not explicitly prioritised by the FNR Foresight exercise; rather, prioritisation was being carried out at Level 3. In other words,
by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december 2014 Foresight for science and technology priority setting in a small country 943 so-called‘competence niches'
but this was always going to be near impossible for the FNR Foresight exercise to achieve, for several reasons.
Foresight exercises might provide a platform for nascent niche areas to gain greater prominence, but foresight is unsuited often to the identification of niche areas de novo.
Instead, a better STI policy strategy is to foster an innovation system that is sufficiently flexible to support such areas at their time of emergence. 5. 3. Deliberative processes Foresight exercises are characterised by deliberation between various stakeholders, often in workshhop and working groups.
However, such deliberative forums require careful planning and must be scheduled appropriately. While this was understood by the FNR Secretariat
perhaps with too little appreciation of the process benefits associated with foresight. Instead, the focus was solely upon the identification of priorities in as quick a time as possible.
but tended to render the conduct of the foresight exercise more difficult as a considerable number of participaant defended the interests of their various affiliated organisations.
This might have been due to their unfamiliarity with foresight, but was made perhaps difficult by a perceived situation where stakes were felt to be high (national research priorities were being determined)
and seemed to be the main focus for them. 6. Foresight impacts Given the wide scope of participation in foresight exercises,
In the case of FNR Foresight, these include the FNR itself, the MCHER, the research community and, to a lesser extent, the business community.
A word on impacts of foresight: first, there may be impacts from the process alone, which means they can conceivably appear before an exercise produces its findings;
second, distinction needs to be made between foresight outputs and impacts and it should be acknowledged that there is rarely a direct cause effect link between the two;
and are therefore difficult to measure and to attribute to foresight; finally, foresight findings are implemented rarely in a top down,
rational Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december 2014 Foresight for science and technology priority setting in a small country 945 manner instead,
their implementation depends upon enrolment and mobilisation of advocaac coalitions around emergent agendas. This involves processes of persuasion and negotiation on the part of‘champions,
'as foresight results rarely‘speak for themselves'(Georghiou and Keenan 2006). 6. 1. Sense-making and the construction of political ownership As the main S&t policy body in Luxembourg,
we have seen that the MCHER played its part in shaping the scope of FNR Foresight.
executed by the FNR and remained, in name,‘FNR Foresight'.'In this way, the‘new'assessment can be viewed as a‘sense-making'process that conferred ownership of foresight results to the MCHER.
At the same time, the MCHER also came to understand that choices were now largely political in nature.
or the Foresight results, leaving the degree of ownership within the research institutions and themchersomewhat unclear for the moment.
and the questionable ownership by the relevant stakeholders. 6. 2. Impact on FNR One of the main objectives of the Foresight was to inform new FNR programmes
After the Government's agreement on the list of national priorities, this new strategy and the foresight results were then put together in a new approach:
a single framework programme reflecting the strategic positioning of the FNR, with the results of the Foresight providing thematic orientation.
the FNR launched a call for project proposals based on the Foresight results at the beginning of 2008. The FNR received the highest number of proposals (in absolute terms and in relation to the available budget) across all priorities.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the number of proposals in domains newly identified by the Foresight exercise was lower in comparison to the domains where there have been research activities for several years,
foresight is more about evolution than revolution and shifts towards new areas understandably take time. Besides the identified priorities, the exercise in itself has produced associated process benefits for example,
some of the public research centres have conducted their own mini-foresight studies, influenced and inspired by the FNR exercise.
Overall, the successful conduct of the Foresight exercise and its implementation, together with all the other ongoing structural changes, indicate a growing maturity of the Luxembourg STI environment, particularly around public governance.
Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december 2014 Foresight for science and technology priority setting in a small country 947 6. 4. Impacts on the private sector It is unclear
whether the private sector will find direct use for the results of the Foresight exercise and to what extent the exercise has influenced its strategic aims.
Many senior scientific personnel from the private sector used the exercise to underline the need for high quality public research as a prerequisite for innovation and mutually rewarding cooperation between both sectors. 7. Conclusions For those familiar with running foresight exercises
but the small size of Luxembourg also brings into sharp view many of the underlying tensions present in those foresight exercises that explicitly attempt to set national priorities.
Second, it is clear that a forward-looking process like foresight needs to be underpinned by sufficient and appropriate‘objectivised'data, e g. publication data, statistics on the national R&d environment, reports on the state of economy, environment or society
, outcomes of comparable foresight exercises, etc. This was problematic in the Luxembourg setting, as much national data was missing
the foresight practitioners need to channel and control the influence of such local champions during the conduct of the exercise,
or whether the Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december 2014 Foresight for science
As previously highlighted, such decoupling of the foresight process from centres of policy formulattionimplementation is not unusual,
Thus, conducting foresight in smaller countries is neither easier nor more difficult than in larger countries.
In the context of the FNR Foresight, it is clear that more time should have been devoted to setting its objectives and agenda.
and an acknowledgement that the FNR Foresight has contributed to this goal in no small part.
and was responsible for the conduct of the FNR Foresight study. Carlo Duprel is senior programme manager at the National research Fund of Luxembourg
and was involved in the conduct of the FNR Foresight study. Michael Keenan is Senior Research fellow at the Manchester Institute of Innovation research
and acted as adviser to the FNR Foresight study. Notes 1. As part of the general interest in technology foresight
many small countries have also set up and run exercises. Notable examples from Europe include Ireland, Hungary, Czech republic, Slovenia and the Nordic countries.
The EC has sponsored also pilot foresight exercises in Malta, Cyprus and Estonia as part of the eforesee project (see Crehan and Cassingena-Harper 2008).
and implementation of foresight in small islands, using Jamaica and the Seychelles as pilot countries (see Wehrmeyer et al. 2004).
An exception was the Biomedical domain where the focus of the initial Foresight results lay largely on Public health, Regenerative Medicine and Translational Research and
and its introduction into the foresight process at specifically designed points in order to supply participants with the necessary data as and when required.
Technology foresight in smaller countries. In The handbook of technology foresight, eds. L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena-Harper, M. Keenan,
I. Miles, and R. Popper, 216 36. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. FNR. 2006. FNR Foresight Baseline Report.
Luxembourg: Fonds National de la Recherche (unpublished. FNR. 2007a. FNR Foresight Final Report. National priorities for public research and other findings.
Luxembourg: Fonds National de la Recherche. FNR. 2007b. FNR Foresight Final Report. Thinking for the future today.
Luxembourg: Fonds National de la Recherche. Georghiou, L, . and M. Keenan. 2006. Evaluating national technology foresight exercises.
Technological forecasting and Social Change 73: 761 77. Glod, F.,C. Duprel, and M. Keenan. 2006.
Luxembourg Foresight a‘standard'exercise in a‘peculiar'setting? Paper presented at the Second FTA Conference, 28 29 september, Sevilla, Spain.
Scoping and planning foresight. In The handbook of technology foresight, eds. L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena. Harper, M. Keenan,
I. Miles, and R. Popper, 342 75. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december 2014 Foresight for science
and technology priority setting in a small country 951 Meyer, M. 2008. The dynamics of science in a small country:
New technology Foresight, Forecasting and Assessment Methods, 13 14 may, Sevilla, Spain. Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december 2014
experiences from the innovation policy foresight and strategy process of the City of Vienna K. Matthias Weber a, Klaus Kubeczko a, Alexander Kaufmann a & Barbara Grunewald a a Austrian Institute of technology, Department Foresight
experiences from the innovation policy foresight and strategy process of the City of Vienna, Technology analysis & Strategic management, 21:8, 953-969, DOI:
experiences from the innovation policy foresight and strategy process of the City of Vienna K. Matthiasweber*,Klaus Kubeczko, Alexander Kaufmann and Barbara Grunewald Austrian Institute of technology, Department Foresight and Policy development, Vienna
, Austria In 2006 the City ofvienna launched a foresight and strategy process to revisit its urban research and innovation policy.
The impact assessment is based on a framework that focuses on three key functions of foresight in relation to policy making:
objectives and results of the Viennese innovation policy foresight and strategy process and the different impact dimensions will be analysed
foresight; strategy process; innovation policy; policy impact 1. Introduction In 2006, the City of Vienna initiated a far-reaching and open strategy process on the orientation of its future research, technology and innovation (RTI) policy.
This experience looks very much like a successful foresight process in terms of the impact it had and still has on policy and decision making,
The foresight experience of the City of Vienna will be discussed against this framework. First, we introduce the impact assessment framework (Section 2). Then the main features of the process design (Section 3)
and its key characteristtics The concluding section will synthesise some of the most interesting insights that could be gained from the experience of the project. 2. Framework for the impact assessment of foresight processes1 2. 1. Changing insights into processes of innovation and policy making
participation, accountability, openness, effectiveness, coherence. 2. 2. Foresight in support of policy strategy formation The aforementioned shift in conceiving of policy-making processes is reflected in the evolving practices of foresight.
(or tangible) outputs like reports and websites. 2 We can also observe an increasing interest in foresight activities that aim at supporting strategy formation both at the collective level and at the level of individual organisations.
Examples are‘Adaptive foresight'(Eriksson andweber 2008) and‘Sustainability foresight'(Truffer, Voss, and Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 956 K. M. Weber et al.
This interest is fuelled by the recognition that there is a‘translation problem'appareen in foresight approaches that predominantly rely on broad participatory processes, namely the translation of shared collective problem perceptions and visions into actual decisions of individuua actors and organisations.
From this perspective, foresight can be interpreted as an integral element of networked and distributed policy making by providing three crucial functions (Da Costa et al. 2008;
This function is an important motivation for policy makers to initiate a foresight programme in the first place. 2) Policy strategic counselling by merging the insights generated in the context of policy informiin foresight activities with perspectives on the strategic positioning
and options of individual actors to support their internal decision-making processes. 3) Policy facilitating by building a common awareness of current dynamics and future developmment as well as new networks and visions among stakeholders,
it is now possible to summarise the potential policy impacts of foresight by drawing first of all on the three main functions of foresight in relation to policy-making processes,
second on the range of impacts that have been assigned to foresight in the corresponding literature, and third on the time lag,
which the experiences and impacts of the innovation policy foresight of the City of Vienna will be assessed,
Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 Trade-offs between policy impacts of future-oriented analysis 957 Table 1. A Framework to classify the impacts of foresight activities.
technology and innovation options among players, creating debate Awareness of the systemic character of change processes Foresight skills are developed in a wider circle Dialogues in new combinations of experts and stakeholders and a shared understanding
Adoption of foresight contents in the research and teaching agenda of organisations as well as in various disciplinary matters Improved coherence of policies Cultural changes towards longer
These conditions, together with the pronounced consensus-orientation in policy making, provide the governance context in which the foresight
the suggestion of launching a participatory foresight process as part of the research programme was rejected by the representatives of the City of Vienna in the management team of the programme.
In this final phase, the role of the Municipal Department for EU Strategy and Economic development (MA 27) that was in charge of coordinating the entire foresight
the experience of the process lends itself also to some more speculative observations regarding the medium-to long-term impacts of the foresight process. 5. 1. Immediate,
short-term impacts The short-term impacts of the foresight process look quite impressive. In terms of its informing function, it certainly contributed to giving research and innovation more prominence and visibility in the context of urban policy.
it would go too far to speak of a broader diffusion of foresight skills as a result of the process.
In terms of the policy-facilitating function of foresight, a number of concrete and effective actions were taken
and the impact of the foresight process in making these options real. Overall it is justified certainly to assess the impacts of the process positively in the short term. 5. 2. Intermediate,
The foresight and strategy process also fulfilled policy facilitating functions, but mainly with respect to the activities internal to the city government and public administration, where the strateeg indeed serves as a major reference point.
as well as between local government and other research and innovation actors. 5. 3. Ultimate, long-term impacts Integrating suitable new actors in the community dealing with research and innovation is one of the key long-term impacts expected from foresight exercises.
Some longer-term impacts with respect to the counselling function of foresight can already be observed, for instance by the reference made to the strategy documents in new initiatives.
Although the foresight process was targeting the time horizon 2015 (and in some instances even beyond),
if this is seen as a first step only towards establishing a more strategic and open governance culture. 6. Conclusions The innovation policy foresight
In fact, it was a lucky coincidence that the foresight process‘Wien denkt Zukunft'could draw on a comprehensive analytical basis provided by the research programme‘Systems Research in the Urban area
when the decision was taken to launch a participatory foresight and strategy process. To conclude, it is certainly true that the foresight
and strategy process had a quite significant impact on guiding the future research and innovation policy in Vienna, but the closeness to policy making implied that some of the exploratory and‘out-of-the-box'thinking that would usually be part of a foresight process was regarded not desirable
and thus reduced to the minimum. Notes on contributors Matthias Weber is Head of Research, Technology and Innovation (RTI) Policy Unit at Austrian Institute of technology (AIT) invienna.
Klaus Kubeczko is Senior researcher at Austrian Institute of technology (AIT) in the Department of Foresight & Policy development.
He studied economics and has been doing research and foresight projects in the area of research, technoloog and innovation policy, in particular related to regional and technological innovation systems such as transport and energy.
Alexander Kaufmann is Senior researcher at Austrian Institute of technology (AIT) in the Department of Foresight & Policydevelopment.
Barbara Grunewald has been Research Associate at Austrian Institute of technology (AIT) in the Department of Foresight & Policy development since 2005.
2. Obviously, there are also certain types of foresight exercises that have a less pro-active intention by concentrating on the identification of future challenges
and Weber (2006) and in particular the work on self-evaluation tools for foresight in the context of the Forsociety ERA NET (Forsociety 2007).
the eforesee Malta case study. International Journal of Foresight and Innovation policy 2, no. 1: 84 103.
The impact of foresight on policy-making: insights from the FORLEARN mutual learning process. Technology analysis & Strategic management 20: 369 87.
Adaptive foresight: navigating the complex landscape of policy strategies. Technological forecasting & Social Change 75, no. 4: 462 82.
Self-evaluation tool for foresight project managers. http://www. eranet-forsociety. net (accessed 19 november 2007. Freeman, C. 1991.
Experiences and practices of technology foresight in the European region. In Proceedings of the Foresight Summit, Budapest, 27 29 september 2007.
Kuhlmann, S. 2001. Management of innovation systems: the role of distributed intelligence. Antwerpen: Maklu Uitgevers N. V. OECD. 2002.
Evaluation of the United kingdom foresight programme. Final report. Manchester: University of Manchester. Rhomberg, W c. Steindl, and M. Weber. 2006.
International Journal of Foresight and Innovation policy 1, nos. 1/2: 4 32. Truffer, B.,J.-P. Voss,
Lessons for sustainability foresight in German utility sectors. Technological forecasting & Social Change 75, no. 9: 1360 72.
Foresight and portfolio analysis as complementary elements in anticipatory policy-making. In Reflexive governance for sustainable development ed. J.-P. Voß, D. Bauknecht and R. Kemp.
More Information (in German) on the foresight and strategy process is available at: http://www. wiendenktzukunft. at www. wiendenktzukunft. at/downloads/strategie lang. pdf www. wiendenktzukunft. at/downloads/strategie kurz. pdf An English summary is available at:
http://www. tandfonline. com/loi/ctas20 Foresight and governance: how good can it get? The case of stakeholder image construction in a municipal vision project Stefanie Jenssen a a Centre for technology, innovation and culture (TIK), University of Oslo, Norway Published online:
Stefanie Jenssen (2009) Foresight and governance: how good can it get? The case of stakeholder image construction in a municipal vision project, Technology analysis & Strategic management, 21:8, 971-986, DOI:
8 november 2009,971 986 Foresight and governance: how good can it get? The case of stakeholder image construction in a municipal vision project Stefanie Jenssen*Centre for technology, innovation and culture (TIK), University of Oslo, Norway The article addresses the theme of foresight and equality in the area of stakeholder participation
in governance. Empirically, the case at hand illustrates the challenges posed by stakeholder participation based on the concept of‘Inclusive foresight'.
'A still understudied aspect of inclusive foresight is how these inclusion procedures are publically and politically legitimised, except with reference to the demand for more genuinely democratic decision-making.
Drawing on fieldwork studies of a Norwegian municipal vision project conducted in 2006 it is shown how a specific image of young people was constructed
The article contributes to discussions of inclusive foresight by showing how stakeholder image construction poses questions of power relationships in municipal long term governance.
foresight; visioning; municipal planning; stakeholder participation Introduction Foresight is among the most widespread and accepted forms of organised future-oriented activities today. 1 As a widely applied method for dialogical future thinking,
foresight comes in many shapes and sizes. Discussions of foresight highlight the need for a trade-off between a workable commmo understanding of generic features and contingent national,
transnational and organisational issues. 2 Public sector institutions within health services, energy, transport or local government, acknowledge the increasing demand for democratic dialogue about the future with affected parties and interest groups.
There is an increasingly participatory dialogue about the future between organisattion and various social groups such as knowledge workers (including experts), stakeholders and users of public services.
In its ideal form, Foresight today integrates long-term planning,*Email: stefanie. jenssen@tik. uio. no ISSN 0953-7325 print/ISSN 1465-3990 online 2009 Taylor & francis DOI:
and strategic decisions. 3 In their seminal paper on‘Inclusive foresight'Loveridge and Street (2005) argue that the credibiilit of foresight is dependent on extending participation to social stakeholders, especially those not normally seeking participation themselves.
A still understudied aspect of inclusive foresight however is the question:‘‘How are these inclusion procedures publically and politically legitimised, other than by the continual demand for more genuine democratic decision-making?'
such as the‘Young Foresight'programme for schools in the UK, the German Futur project, and‘Jugend denkt Zukunft',a countrywide cooperation programme between German businesses and schools.
and how their participation in foresight can contribute to its success. It is not the aim of this paper to discuss
In regard to foresight Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 Foresight and governance: how good can it get?
Visioning in the context of foresight How should visioning be understood in the context of foresight practises?
'The World Future Society, an international organisation propagating foresight, describes visioning as‘the process of creating a series of images
however, differs from other foresight methods, such as scenario planning. 4 In foresight literature visioning is part of a more complex process,
involving not only the creation of a desired future picture, but also preceding steps, such as understanding past and present,
Theoretical background This paper is inspired by three research areas addressing foresight as a sociopolitical phenomenon around the millennial turn.
Scholars of science and technology studies (STS) have called attention Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 974 S. Jenssen to the specific qualities of foresight
Brown, Rappert, andwebster (2000,4) have pointed out that from an STS point of view foresight practices are not so much about looking into the future,
'They emphasise that future negotiating processes have to be studied according to how they are performed instead of looking at them as mere problem-solving tools for more prudent strategic decision making. 6 The Sociology of expectations analyses foresight practises as structured around expectations and promises in technology,
They have studied foresight in the context of organisational identittie and the ways individuals fulfil identities
Building on these arguments Jenssen (2007) advocates a more cautious approach to the importance of foresight as a strateggi tool for policy
Thirdly, this discussion of stakeholder image construction in foresight is inspired by issues of reflexivity in social theory (Giddens 1991;
and Lau (2003), towards a new understanding of foresight methodology and practice (Fuller and De Smedt 2008).
'Foresight is thus a coordinated response to uncertainty and risk. Giddens (1991,29) argues that the‘popularity of futurology in the system of high modernity is not an eccentric preoccupation...
'Foresight is thus an expression of the constant self-monitoring of social institutions, their ability to address present
Therefore we need a broader understanding of reflexivity Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 Foresight and governance:
975 in foresight as containing both enabling and constraining features, a discussion that has been developed elsewhere. 8 Methodology The research on this particular visioning project in a Norwegian municipality is part of a Phd project studying different practises of foresight in the public sector. The researchwas conducted by applying‘multi-sited ethnography'(Marcus 1995,95 117).
Ethnographic research involves fieldwoork where‘observation, participation as well as structured/non-structured conversations and interviews are equally important sources of data'(Thygesen 2009,56, n7).
as well as interviews with schoolteachers, politicians, municipal employees in the planning and social development department, visioning workshop participants and foresight practitioners.
and limits of inclusive foresight in municipal planning processes and expounds the challenges of our contemporary understanding of communicative planning tools as power instruments (Pløger 2002).
The process of the visioning project was defined also as being guided by Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 Foresight and governance:
This paper argues that constructing a specific image of young people as stakeholders points towards a dilemma of inclusive foresight that cannot be rectified by specific management and process principles.
It arises when social stakeholders are made participants in a foresight process aiming at producing one desired vision of the future.
The municipal project leader ordered the ideas collected from the Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 Foresight and governance:
from authority to authenticity This specific case of a municipal vision project is not about the involvement of authoritative experts in foresight.
According to the UNIDO textbook on Foresight methodologies‘expert panels should not stray into the realms of wishful thinking their analyses
what Loveridge and Street (2005,32) discuss as‘inclusivity in technology foresight studies'in which‘experts and non-experts regard each other as equal
and Street call the‘third question'of foresight (2005,38). They argue that foresight has for too long concentrated on
‘What is possible?''and‘What is feasible?''and should now be concerned with the question ‘What is desirable?'
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This case illustrates thus not only challenges of inclusive foresight taken up by Loveridge and Street (2005) but also much wider problems regarding good governance
) Foresight practices are often based on the assumption of shared values beyond dispute. This becomes a power-related issue
Conclusion Foresight belongs to the toolbox for achieving good and reflexive governance23 and thus strengthennin the participatory and future-oriented aspects of governing.
The challenge of foresight methods and participatory processes for governance, however, is the prevailing clear distinction between areas of governance,
Foresight as well as governance is seen often as consisting of networking and process-oriented elements of governing rather than its antagonistic,
However, since foresight methods and practices are always part of an organisational setting, local, sectorial, regional or otherwise,
This paper is a contribution to the discussion about the relationship between foresight and the democratic challenges of good governance and long-term planning.
Stakeholder image construction is a political issue in foresight. In the case of Lundal's visioning project,
Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo, Norway and writing her Phd on values and uncertainty in foresight informing research policy priorities.
Notes 1. Foresight is a highly diverse activity which makes it difficult to give a comprehensive overview of different organisatioons networks,
schools and publications that discuss foresight as practice and as a‘school of thought'(Van Notten 2005,5).
2008,12) foresight differs from other forms of future orientation only in two respects: It is not only forecasting (let alone prediction),
Foresight practitioner and theorist Ron Johnston (2008,18) asserts:‘‘Most OECD member Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 Foresight and governance:
how good can it get? 983 countries (i e. the advanced industrial nations), almost all European countries,
and many Asian and South american countries have conducted national foresight studies'.'2. See Cuhls (2003), Cuhls and Georghiou (2004),
3. About the relationship between foresight and decision making see Brown et al. 1999), Ringland (2002), Brown, Rappert, andwebster (2000), Böhle (2003), Genus (2006), Georghiou (2001), Johnston (2001), Berkhout and Hertin (2002.
In this respect, foresight practises and guidance literature interact with research areas of science and technology studies (STS), especially regarding insights about the relationships between‘given facts and future values'.
If foresight is meant to enable governance in the sense of‘steering'rather than‘governing'then power-related aspects of foresight have to be addressed more specifically
Loveridge (2008,135) addresses one of the persisting dynamics in foresight which is the narrowness in both participation and focus of institutional foresight programmes:‘
‘The question of participation in institutional Foresight programmes remains unresolved and largely hidden as the polity is unaware of their existence'.
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