Facing the future: Scanning, synthesizing and sense-making in horizon scanning Totti Ko nno la 1,,
totti. konnola@impetusolutions. com. In this paper, we discuss key issues in harnessing horizon scanning to shape systemic policies, particularly in the light of the foresight exercise‘Facing the future:
futures. 1. Introduction In future-oriented technology analysis (FTA), the systematti exploration of divergent views on future developments has tended to receive less attention than approaches that foster consensus seeking (Ko nno la et al. 2011;
and policy-makers have expressed in exploring alternative and even conflicting interpretations of the future (Kuosa 2010;
the systematic examination of potential threats, opportunities and likely future developments which are at the margins of current thinking and planning'and, continuing,
we elucidate these processes in the light of the horizon scanning exercise‘Facing the future: Time for the EU to meet global challenges,
and synthesizing observattion that hold potential for the elaboration of pertinent future developments and the derivation of actionable implicaation for decision-making.
and the OECD Futures Programme. Methodological advances have been pursued, for instance, in the Framework programme 7 Blue sky Foresight projects on emerging issues that shape European science and technoloog (Amanatidou et al. 2012.
of which future developments are Facing the future: Horizon scanning. 223 potentially significant and thus worth scanning. Here, there may be bias to align scanning exercises along well-established fields
what future-relevant observations will be submitted (Hiltunen 2008; Mendonc¸a et al. 2004. Especially in the case of weak signals and wild cards, sense-making builds on the scanners'creative and heuristic capabilities to detect meaningful observations in the presence of scattered or no historical evidence (Dervin 1998.
participatory workshop activities offer policymakker an inspiring environment where they can openly discuss the implications of alternative future developments for policy-making in general as well as for their own responsibilities in particular.
Facing the future In 2008 9, the BEPA of the EC organized a series of foresiigh activities (European communities 2009;
with the aim of identifying future trends and disruptive events that could have major implications on EU policy-making by 2025 (cf.
and phases of foresight exercise‘Facing the future'(Boden et al. 2010). Facing the future: Horizon scanning. 225 developed using a participatory approach.
BEPA emphasized that policy relevance was a crucial criterion in the selection of these reports.
=mean-oriented analysis, V=variance-oriented analysis, R=rare eventorieente analysis Facing the future: Horizon scanning. 227 the individual crosscutting challenges proposed by workshop participants into five categories and then, on the second day of the workshop,
The need for more effective and transparent governannc that allows institutions to anticipate future challennge
Seen from this perspective, the BEPA Facing the future: Horizon scanning. 229 exercise can also be seen as an example of building an international anticipatory system,
To sum up, we have illustrated that horizonscanning activities need not be limited to the collection of future-oriented observations.
we have presented the foresight exercise‘Facing the future: Time for the EU to meet global challenges'which has informed the strategy processes of BEPA
discontinuities and weak signals likely to share the future (Saritas and Smith 2011). The particularly novel issues from this survey were added to the issues collected from the literature review. 4. These issues plus the 73 additional issues identified by the survey participants can be found at<http://foresight. jrc. ec. europa. eu/bepa. html
Boden, M.,Cagnin, C.,Carabias, V.,Haegeman, K. and Ko nno la, T. 2010)‘ Facing the future:
Botterhuis, L.,van der Duin, P.,de Ruijter, P. and van Wijck, P. 2010)‘ Monitoring the future.
Building an early warning system for the Dutch Ministry of Justice',Futures, 42: 454 465. Brummer, V.,Ko nno la, T. and Salo, A. 2008)‘ Foresight within Era nets:
Foresight for research and innovation policy and strategy',Futures, 43: 243 51. Glenn, J. C.,Gordon, T. J. and Florescu, E. 2010) State of the Future, The Millenium Project.
WASHINGTON DC: The Millennium Project. Graefe, A.,Luckner, S. and Weinhardt, C. 2010)‘ Prediction markets for foresight',Futures, 42: 394 404.
Haegeman, K.,Cagnin, C.,Ko nno la, T.,Dimitrov, G. and Collins, D. 2011)‘ Web 2. 0 for foresight:
Hiltunen, E. 2008)‘ The future sign and its three dimensions',Futures, 40: 247 60. Ko nno la, T. and Unruh, G. C. 2007)‘ Really changing the course:
Impacts and implicatiion on policy-making',Futures, 43: 252 64. Kuosa, T. 2010)‘ Futures signals sense-making framework (FSSF:
A start-up tool to analyse and categorise weak signals, wild cards, drivers, trends and other types of informatiion'Futures, 42:42 8. Liesio, J.,Mild, P. and Salo,
A. 2007)‘ Preference pogramming for robust portfolio modeling and project selection',European Journal of Operational Research, 181: 1488 505.
Mendonc¸A s.,Pina e Cunha, M.,Kaivo-oja, J. and Ruff, F. 2004)‘ Wild cards, weak signals and organisational improvisattion'Futures, 36: 201 18.
The case for and nature of foresight 2. 0',Futures, 42: 282 94. Nonaka, I. 1994)‘ A dynamic theory of organizational knowleedg creation',Organization science, 5: 14 37.
Saritas, O. and Smith, J. E. 2011)‘ The big picture trends, drivers, wild cards, discontinuities and weak signals',Futures, 43: 292 312.
Schoen, A.,Ko nno la, T.,Warnke, P.,Barre',R. and Kuhlmann, S. 2011)‘ Tailoring foresight to field specificities',Futures, 43: 232 42.
Facing the future: Horizon scanning. 231
Fraunhofer future markets: From global challenges to dedicated, technological, collaborative research projects Kerstin Cuhls1,,*Alexander Bunkowski2 and Lothar Behlau2 1fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation research, Breslauer Straße 48,76139 Karlsruhe,
That means following the principles of corporate social responsibility and developing new ways for Fraunhofer research markets of the future.
What are the global challenges and questions of the future? In this paper, we therefore address the question of global challenges, their definition,
the current government systems are incapable of tackling current and future global interconnected challenges. Boden et al. 2010:
between the current methods of production, consumption and the future availability of nonreneewabl resources. between a general and simultaneous process of increasing economic interdependence and differentiation. between spatial proximity in the context of accelerated urbanisation
The State of the Future reports of the UN Millennium Project can be regarded as another source for‘megatrends'and long-lasting challenges for the future.
The challenges pointed out in the State of the Future reports are based on the UN Millennium Challenges and Goals Project (2005.
The State of the Future reports that are published every year take stock of these permanent challenges and report on the developments:
To the best knowledge of the present authors, the State of the Future report is the most comprehensive
the identification of strategic future topics that will produce future contract research markets for Fraunhofer; serving urgent societal needs;
and results should be quickly implementable to create the maximum impact in the organisation in the shortest possible time. 3. 2 Former future-oriented processes at Fraunhofer (technology-driven) In 2004,
Fraunhofer performed its first future-oriented process at a corporate level to identify strategic future topics across the institutes.
on the one hand, and the aim to identify important future fields for the Fraunhofer Society on the other hand. Methodologically, the analysis of different foresight activities in different countries was at the forefront.
and assess the future relevance of certain technologies by extrapolating the current R&d portfolio to the future.
However, dedicated internal funding for each topic was not inherent in the process. 3. 3 Rationale for a new 2010 future-oriented process (demand-driven) The rationale of the Fraunhofer approach started with the assumption that there are obviously science
but rather projects with potentially high impacts on the societal questions of the future. The aim of the 2010 process was that, ultimately,
each future topic would be promoted and developed by at least one dedicated (and centrally funded) R&d project of significant size.
That means‘real'prototypes or results developed in a collaborative manner are expected from the projects Section 4 explains this process in more detail. 4. Methodology of the 2010 process 4. 1 The concept of the 2010 future-oriented
The most convincing projects were funded internally. 4. 2 Deriving Fraunhofer-specific challenges from global challenges The 2009 State of the Future report of the UN Millennium Project was chosen (Glenn et al. 2009) as a starting point for deriving the Fraunhofer
and widely accepted metastudy Figure 1. Fraunhofer future processes. Fraunhofer future markets. 237 defined 15 global challenges.
Each of the State of the Future challenges was discussed in great detail by a team in the Fraunhofer Society
In this first part of the process, mainly politically driven proposed actions as well as technological approaches to solutions of the challenges were identified from the State of the Future report,
The State of the Future Report was chosen because it is established an reporting system that is provided by the World Federation of UN Associations. 280 international experts from 32 teams contribute to the surveys it is based on.
and ask which of them are crucial Figure 2. Challenges featured in the State of the Future report. 238.
so that in the end there is support for the future Fraunhofer projects..Bring together different knowledge domains: the projects that should be funded are supposed not to be driven technology,
Therefore, the Fraunhofer experiment is unique among independent research institutions. 6. 2 Impact of the Fraunhofer future-oriented process The FTA PROCESS described in this paper produced dedicated research projects
we expect this new demand-driven approach to have an impact on other Fraunhofer future processes:
but system solutions seem to be the future framework for joint research programmes, not only at a European level but also at the Fraunhofer level.
References Blind, K.,Cuhls, K. and Grupp, H. 2001)‘ Personal attitudes in the assessment of the future of science and technology:
Boden, M.,Cagnin, C.,Carabias, V.,Haegemann, K. and Ko nno la, T. 2010)‘ Facing the future:
Office for Official Publications of the EU. Cuhls, K.,Blind, K. and Grupp, H. 2002) Innovations for our Future.
Glenn, J. C.,Gordon, T. J. and Florescu, E. 2009)‘ 2009 State of the Future;
Future radar 2030 (Zukunftsradar 2030)',International Journal of Foresight and Innovation policy, forthcoming special issue. Lund Declaration.
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