information on future developments of technology and its interaction with society before they are implemented widely, i e. at early stages of their development when the direction of the innovation process already can be influenced.
many more will very likely be seen in the near or mid-term future. Nanomaterials show great economic potential
descriptions of future technology requirements and research needs. Even in politics the term is used for implementation plans of political goals.
or vision of the future S and T landscape available to decision makers. The roadmapping process provides a way to identify,
The communicative part of the process supports thinking about the unknown future, provides knowledge for more informed decisions
European commission, IST Programme Future and Emerging technologies, 1999.14 G. Fernholz, Roadmaps in MEMS/MST: what do they offer
mstnews 5, 2003, pp. 42 44.15 Technology Futures analysis Methods Working group, Technology futures analysis: toward integration of the field and new methods, Technol.
The fourth editiio (2011) of the International Seville Conference on Future-Orientedtechnologyanalysis (FTA) focused its attention on processes of transformative change in response to Grand Societal Challennges
the FTA Conference Scientific Committee took the stance that FTAHAS a potentially useful role to play in exploring future developments of complex societal systems and in defining effective policy actions, by way of:
which aims to create transformative spaces for the creation of alternative futures (Inayatullah 1998). 3 Other examples are immersive decision theatres (offering a virtual environment facility to visualise output of predictive and scenario-based models with the aim to support decision-making (Edsall and Larson
in principle, be found in what Slaughter (2008) calls‘problem-oriented'futures (i e. conventional thinking), and thus requires a new approach making use of integral ideas.
With a similar line of thought in his keynote at the 2011 FTA Conference, Ollila (2011) from Nokia focused on the future challenges for innovation policy as resulting in particcula from global economic developments.
These contributions point to possible future directions to be followed by FTA in order to better cope with Grand challenges. The arguments in the keynote of Ollila are in line with a tendency of the private side to claim that they are prepared better for the future than the public side.
The question arises whether this is actually the case, or whether it‘produces fictional certainty that leads to managerial overconfidence and blindness to true novelty and uncertainties,
and future-oriented analysis need to move beyond evidence-based approaches. Tuomi sees only a limited role for the identification of weak signals in understanding the future,
as they can only be detected after the fact, when the future is already here. They can,
however, enhance our capability to make distinctions so that we are better able to live in an unpredictable world.
and on a‘culture of swiftness'(on the constantly forming potentialities of the future). In line with this, they claim that RTOSWOULD benefit from developing two systemic capacities:
and unpredictability Such notions lead several authors to remind us on the role of FTA to challenge persisting premises on extrapolated futures based on past events.
Stronger emphasis on creativity and exploration of truly Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 04:57 03 december 2014 Preparing for grand challenges 733 alternative future developments are called for to be prepared better to address both the existing Grand challenges
Futures 30, no. 8: 815 29. Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 04:57 03 december 2014 734 Editorial Linstone, H. A. 2011a.
Integral futures methodologies. Futures 40, no. 2: 103 8. Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 04:57 03 december 2014
This article was downloaded by: University of Bucharest On: 03 december 2014, At: 04:52 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number:
and future-oriented analysis need to move beyond evidence-based approaches. Keywords: unpredictability; ontological expansion; anticipatory systems;
creattiv evolution Introduction Predictions about future almost always fail. In this paper, the epistemic and ontological causes for this failure are described and their implications for foresight, innovation policy,
Based on the presented analysis, it highlights some methodological implications for future-oriented analysis and policy-making. The paper aims at a conceptual contribution that builds on several disciplines,
Based on these conceptual developments, the paper then proposes some practical implicatiion for future-oriented research and policy.
Policy-relevant future-oriented analysis, therefore, needs to emphasise processes that support insight, intuition, and innovation, instead of relying on data collected using historically important categories and measurement instruments.
we have to reconsider some key concepts that underlie future-oriented analysis and strategic management. Two sources of unpredictability In much of contemporary thinking, failures in prediction indicate a need to engage in further study and research.
its complexity makes it impossiibl to perfectly know its future. Already relatively simple systems have interactions, nonlinear dynamics,
In contrast to the traditional heroic‘upstream'innovation model, downstream models emphasise the active role of current and future users.
In mechanistic approaches, future unfolds in a deterministic way and there is no space for truly novel forms.
In finalistic and teleological approaches, on the other hand, the future is preordained as a perfect blueprint. Both mechanistic and finalistic explanations of evolution and emergence,
and novelty is not only recombinatiio of already existing forms or unfolding of a predetermined future.
Yet, the movement towards future occurs in a context that can often be taken to be static in relation to the time scale of present action.
allowing future to have an impact on the present: To take a transparent example: if I am walking in the woods,
we can use the formal system to find out the state of the natural system in some future point of time.
create hypotheses about the unobservable causal relationships, fast forward the formal model to a future point of time,
Implications for foresight and future-oriented analysis What are the practical implications of the above conceptual analysis for foresight and futureorieente analysis?
In future-oriented research, the nature and implications of‘weak signals'have been debated actively during the last few years (Mendonça et al. 2004;
'and‘seeds of future'thus emerge in retrospective accounts that shape history into prototypical narrative structures.‘
‘Weak signals'of future can often be understood as narrative fragments that are used to compose meaningful stories that make sense of the present as an endpoint of past history.
thus involves backcasting both the present and the narrative future. In the case of GSM SMS, ontological expansion looks less radical,
when the future is already here and ontology has expanded. After ontological expansion occurs we start to receive signals that something has changed
Although ontological expansion makes future an unpredictable place, this does not mean that we cannot say anything interesting about the future.
It may be impossible to have facts or data that could be used to model imagined futures;
we are, however, perfectly able to imaginatively expand current ontologies and tell narrative stories using weak signals that make sense in our imagined futures.
In practical terms, we can expand the repertoire of categories and our capability to make distinctions
Retrospective narratives make decision-makers believe that future has been predictable before and that they are able to predict the future also now (Bukszar 1999).
A potential approach to reduce such misplaced overconfidence is to explicate both the underlying Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 04:52 03 december 2014 Foresight in an unpredictable world 747 assumptions (Rossel 2009)
The above discussion indicates that such approaches have limited only potential in future-oriented analysis. Future emerges in a periphery where robust facts
and standardised interpretations do not exist (Regnér 2003). Instead of emphasising the‘objective'in future-oriented analysis, decision processes and future-oriented analysis therefore should methodologically emphasise domains that are labelled conventionally‘subjective'.
'Somewhat paradoxically, the mainstream labels of rationality and irrationality need to be reversed if we take innovation seriously.
The Bergsonian rationality includes more than the limited rationality that can exist after ontologies are fixed. The Bergsonian claim is need that we a broader understanding of rationality
Methodologically, this means that instead of planning the future or keeping multiple possible outcomes in mind simultaneously,
we should be open to the creative potential of the future. As the analysis above indicates,
In practice, many future-oriented models are based on time-series data. Such data can be collected only if the ontology and its encodings and the measurement instruments that generate the data remain stable.
historical data on national accounts can tell very little about future economic developments, as the data are collected on categories that used to be important in the industrial economies and value production models of the twentieth century.
In other words, the focus of future-oriented analysis should be learning, problem redefinition, and innovative construction of new empirically relevant categories, not predictive modelling.
If the future cannot be predicted before it happens, foresight requires an imaginative step that resembles the movement of a mountain climber towards the next hold.
The future sign and its three dimensions. Futures 40, no. 3: 247 60. Holopainen, M,
. and M. Toivonen. 2012. Weak signals: Ansoff today. Futures 44, no. 3: 198 205. Hughes, T. P. 1983.
Networks of power: Electrification in western society 1880 1930. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press.
Futures 36, no. 2 march: 201 18. Milian, M. 2009. Why text messages are limited to 160 characters.
Futures literacy: A hybrid strategic scenario method. Futures 39, no. 4: 341 62. Mirowski, P. 1998.
Economics, science, and knowledge: Polanyi vs. Hayek. Tradition & Discovery, The Polanyi Society Periodical XXV, no. 1: 29 42.
Images of the future as a tool for sociology. American Behavioral Scientist 42, no. 3: 493 504.
a major part of Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) or does it really tell us something about the future? What the future holds for the Earth is understood well
if the physics of cosmology is to be believed. What about nearer home? What can or does FTA hint may be in store for all the denizens of planet Earth?
Staton (2006) drew out the poverty of foresight if Derrida's claim that foresight does not say much about the future is accepted.
Just as the future of the Earth can be computed and imagined from the physics of the Cosmos,
a future that does not exist, can lesser*Corresponding author. Email: denis. loveridge@mbs. ac. uk ISSN 0953-7325 print/ISSN 1465-3990 online 2012 Taylor & francis http://dx. doi. org/10.1080
if indeed that has any meaning, the‘future, 'something that does not exist even conceptually or perceptually,
The paper concludes (Sections 7 and 8) with a further discussion of situations that FTA is likely to face in the future. 2. Getting a feeling for the range of FTA Can the notion of the future as a‘black hole'be contested?
In many branches of science, the future is a‘grey hole'in which some of the matter is quantitative and some qualitative.
Similarly, any business has a certain momentum that will ensure its continuity for an uncertain time into the future in the absence of some new
but above all else to ensure successful continuity of the business based on securing future profits and a strong share price.
perhaps more so than its institutional practice, can have much to say about the future recognising that ultimately the future is a‘black hole'.
Politics and Values and Norms) set to begin to offer risky insights into what is possible in all the STEEPV themes and their probabilities for the future.
If foresight or its institutional counterpart say nothing about the future as Derrida claims, then it is
because part of the future is akin to a‘black hole'from which nothing escapes. However, the analogy cannot be taken too far as the future eventually yields some of its secrets as ideas emerge across its fuzzy boundary.
It is a major part of FTA to reveal or capture the presence, however brief, of these‘secrets'as they cross the fuzzy boundary of unknown unknowns
Futures studies are omitted. Derrida's comment, as described by Staton (2006), creates the impression that the umbrella is for immediate protection from inclement situations rather than trying to see beyond them into‘what comes next'.
FTA's future orientation means that it deals with matters characterised by uncertainty and ignorance:
The outcome is then a version of the long-time notion of the future as a present appreciation of current knowledge projected to some future horizon.
'a necessary precursor to any FTA to achieve its future orientation. Plausibility is a matter of belief that has its own frequency distribution assessed through probability.
(which enables substantive knowledge to be interpreted'into the future), and imagination; these are all matters related to an individual's behavioural pattern.
Delphi Intensive interviewing Expert panels Futures scenarios Conceptual modelling Hermeneutics Critical Theory Introspective reflection Critical systems thinking Rational Existential Natural Artificial Figure 1
Actionable future visions Timely mitigation of negative impacts or adaptation to new situations and exploitation of positive outcomes Guidance and support for the policy process identifying impacts on society and implications for policy,
Not verifiable experimentally in the scientific mode Highly uncertain and complex, particularly relating to the existence of causal relationships Able to create the basis for visions of the future based on common ground among participants Action oriented in terms of identifying threats,
challenges and opportunities and the relevance of knowledge for a particular situation More than future-oriented research Normative combining socio-techno-economic feasibility and scientific possibility to yield desirable outcomes
In its context, FTA helps to develop hypotheses as to how present situations may evolve into the future,
In 1977 1978, the Institute for the Future (IFTF) carried out a study of the future of the UK,
based on 10 variables chosen (here the variables are less important than the methods used) to describe the future situation of the UK.
generalists, people of thought and people of present and future action. Generalist's had a wide spread of interests;
People of present and/or future action were those people whose present or possible future position meant that they were then able to affect the amelioration of a situation
or were likely to become able to do so at some time in the future. Seeking subjective opinion about a situation and its future from these three types of expert had to be tailored carefully to each
and the elicitations carried out sensitively, but within the general principles that apply to elicitation procedures.
which the expert was able to interpret his knowledge into the future and imagination was free thinking ability.
and O. Saritas 7. Future influences on FTA All the foregoing has lain within the conventional boundaries of FTA
Finally in this brief look, not into the unknown future, but into what is already coming about with much more to follow in every dimension of the STEEPV acronym,
and cannot say anything about the future (2) The presence of ignorance in all its manifestations needs to be constantly in mind enabling any FTA to be framed
Business planning for an uncertain future. Newyork: Pergamon Press. Cagnin, C. H, . and D. Loveridge. 2012.
The Institute for the Future's study of the UK: 1978-95. Futures 14, no. 3: 205 39.
Loveridge, D. 1977. Values and futures. In Futures research: New directions, ed. H. A. Linstone andw.
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Meredith, J. R.,A. Raturi, K. Amoako-Gyampah, and B. Kaplan. 1989. Alternative research paradigms in operations.
lessons from the sociology of expectations Harro van Lente*Department of Innovation studies, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable development, Utrecht University, 3508 TC Utrecht, The netherlands Foresight can be described as the articulation of possible futures.
and policymakking the active exploration of the future is by no means a privilege of foresight methods. Anticipation occurs in many more domains, in particular, in areas of science and technology,
Foresight exercises, or‘formal'assessments of the future, thus, are surrounded by‘informaal assessments of the future (Salo 2001).
This particular condition will have consequences for the established foresight approaches. This paper conceptually and empirically investigates the phenomenon that socio-technical developments are shot through with informal anticipations
as formal articulations of possible futures, relate to a broader, informal, repertoire of visions and future assessments and how this both enhances
and limits the efficacy of foresight. In particular, two questions stand*Email: h. vanlente@uu. nl ISSN 0953-7325 print/ISSN 1465-3990 online 2012 Taylor & francis http://dx. doi. org/10.1080/09537325.2012.715478
How to characterise and understand the condition of foresight being surrounded by ongoing informal future assessments?
and policy-settings will benefit from explorations of the future (Gordon, Glenn, and Jakil 2005.
including future actions and allocation of resources. Foresight helps to highlight and evaluate alternative paths.
A third objective of foresight is to build a consensual vision of the future in order to harmonise strategies of the different stakeholders.
This objective might lead to a search for the most probable future, or to the exploration of several alternative futures (Könnölä,
Brummer, and Salo 2007. Apart from methods and objectives, foresight exercises also differ in the settings in which they are used.
Functions for policy Description Informing policy Generating insights regarding the dynamics of change, future challenges and options,
and transmitting them to policy-makers Facilitating policy implementation Enhancing the capacity for change within a given policy field by building a common awareness of current and future challenges,
Business studies have developed a set of techniques to assess the future for strategic decisionmakkin (Kappel 2001;
Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:02 03 december 2014 772 H. van Lente Technological roadmaps basically are creative connections between expected developments in technological skills, sequences of products and potential future
the social sciences emphasise that human activities are oriented intrinsically towards the future. The classical sociologists Weber, Mead and Schutz stressed that future orientation is an inherent characteristic of human behaviour,
since decisions and activities are framed by intentions and ideas about a future situation. People act not only in reaction to the past (socialisattion or present (roles in a social structure),
but also relate to futures, as designers of their own lives. The orientation towards the future applies to the behaviour of individuals, groups, organisations and society as a whole (Konrad 2006.
In all cases, actions, reactions and decisiion are framed in images of the future that circulate in professional networks or in the general media.
According to the sociology of expectations, this general future orientation is in particular present in technological development. A central theme is that expectations are statements that do something,
rather than being descriptive statements that may be true or false. An expectation is not just a description of a (future) reality,
but rather a change or creation of a new reality (Guice 1999). In other words, expectations are performative:
they do something. The utterance‘yes, I'll bring it to you tomorrow'is not a description
'Expectations, thus, can be defined as statements about the future uttered or inscribed in texts or materials that circulate.
The level of expectations may range from encompassing, abstract sketches of the future (macro) to detailed elements (micro.
self-preservation implies to obey Moore's Law as the authoritative view of the future. Clearly, Moore's Law is a self-fulfiling prophecy.
a promising future of a technological option lacks such independent tests. In fact, the only reliable way to validate the claim is to try to achieve it.
a project or programme can be defended by referring to a promising future (Borup et al. 2006.
The promised future situation contains sequencing of genes, characterisation of proteins, databases, dynamic models and so on.
Researchers, firms and governments have to make decisions about future products in future markets, about things which,
and are uncertain about their future rivals in the future battlefields (Williams and Sorensen 2002). In addition, sociologiist of science and technology point to the dynamic nature of science and technology:
This also raises questions about the epistemological status of claims about the future. According to a realist perspective on expectations, a distinction can be made between an expectation and the‘real'state of affairs.
'In general, foresight can be described as the articulation of possible futures, intended as a realistic outlook, as a mirror to the current situation,
The discussion is summarised in Table 3. The first generic lesson is that the formal articulation of futures takes place in situations where expectations abound
and outcomes become part of innovation races Networking Stakeholder participation tend to reproduce repertoires The newly established networks will start to promote the vision Participants may press their version of the future Building visions Foresight outcomes will not Be built very original visions may have unintended consequences
The second lesson is that statements about futures are not innocent descriptions but are performaative The claims resulting from foresight,
Once specific futures are articulated in foresight exercises, others may refer to these to underpin their position.
which claims about the future are made) these networks will adopt the claims and promote them.
Third, the sociology of expectations claims that estimates of the future are rooted deeply in the developments of which they seek to give an assessment.
5. Conclusion Foresight exercises can be seen as formal articulations of possible futures, to be contrasted with the numerous informal articulations of futures that circulate in science and technology.
As the latter are studied in the sociology of expectations, the question is what this body of literature has to offer for foresight.
and circulating images of the future, both limits and enables the formal anticipations. Foresight exercises will draw from the repertoire of circulating statements,
and less forceful because it is disconnected from the repertoires of the future that legitimise, steer and coordination action.
On the other hand, when the formal articulation is coupled tightly to the repertoires of the future, it is seen not as adding much news. The alignment of formal and informal expectations makes foresight socially more robust,
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and processes that assist decision-makers in the task of charting the company's future course of action (Coates, Durance, and Godet 2010;
Scholars and practitioners in the field generally respond to such concern about the reliability of foresight by arguing that its role is not so much to predict the future,
but to prepare the firm for the future (van der Heyden et al. 2002; Tsoukas and Shepherd 2004.
and thus prepare at its best for the future. The following question remains largely unexplored:
Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 786 R. Vecchiato Prominent scholars supported the idea that the best way to handle an uncertain future is to ignore it
and its value added does not lie in predicting the future, but in preparing to deal with the future by means of a learning process that helps the organisation to remain matched to its changing environment (van der Heijden et al. 2002;
Tsoukas and Shepherd 2004. In this vein, scholars focused on methodological issues regarding how to implement a large number of foresight practices and techniques.
which foresight entails about the future. Methods and data The research design is based on an inductive and multiple-case study of a group of selected firms.
(which is likely to increase in the near future). Capacity cannot be adjusted easily, so there is a constant danger of overcapacity.
and integrating analyses of future changes in the macro environment into market and product issues. Foresight activities address major trends and forces in the political, economic, infrastructural, social,
and cultural landscapes which are likely to shape the future of the transport and mobility business and are carried out at a global level or for a specific region over a 10 15-year perspective.
so to derive future demand projections for passenger cars, vans, and trucks in different geographic areas and countries.
Future pharmaceutical R&d activities also promised to require huge investmennts so implying that resources had to be shifted from other, more attractive, business areas.
to provide a comprehensive vision of the future evolution of the firm business environment, in a procees that guarantees that all view points (people,
The main task of each Innovation Field is to elaborate a‘Picture of the Future'for its target segment
In this context, the key decisions themselves to be tackled by the organisation for future growth were not clear.
The definition of the boundaries of the business serves exactly to fix the key decisions for future growth,
That might Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:03 03 december 2014 794 R. Vecchiato be the case in the medium/long-term future of the automotive industry itself,
we believe that matching the right foresight approach with the specific kind of uncertainty faced by a firm is an essential condition in order to foster and nurture the learning process about the future
Future research efforts can build on literature on innovation and managerial cognition (Tripsas and Gavetti 2000) for investigating how to identify discontinuous drivers
4. Scenarios are focused descriptions of fundamentally different futures presented in a coherent script-like or narrative fashion.
but rather credible and coherent stories that describe different paths leading to alternative futures (Fahey and Randall 1998;
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