Adaptive foresight: Navigating the complex landscape of policy strategies E. Anders Eriksson A k. Matthias Weber b a FOI Defence Analysis, SE-16490 Stockholm, Sweden b ARC systems
accepted 1 february 2008 Abstract Adaptive foresight has been developed at the crossroads of foresight and adaptive strategic planning. Innovation is seen as increasingly complex, interdependent and uncertain and therefore in need of broad and multidiscipplinar exploration and participation.
Adaptive foresight thus favours a more modest interpretation of the collective ability to shape the future
The purpose of this paper is to achieve a conceptual consolidation of Adaptive foresight, to review in a fairly hands-on way methodological experience thus far,
Under the headline of Adaptive foresight (AF) it combines elements from the foresight and adaptive planning traditions.
The concluding section provides a critical assessment of the potential of Adaptive foresight which leads us to highlighting some of the methodological challenges that need to be tackled in the future.
while some foresight practitioners are likely to do the same for Section 2. 2. The three constituents of Adaptive foresight Adaptive foresight as discussed in this paper has three main roots or constituents.
Adaptive planning (AP) as one of the constituents of Adaptive foresight belongs to a strand of strategic planning that stresses the limitations to both foreseeing and controlling future developments.
and learning-byinteraacting 3. Adaptive foresight: predecessors, principles and processes 3. 1. Early attempts of bringing together foresight
and adaptive planning The preceding section outlined the conceptual foundations of Adaptive foresight. The term Adaptive foresight"itself was introduced only recently 28,29
but it is made based on experiences by the authors over the past ten years in a number of European and national foresight and policy strategy processes.
the first inspirations for Adaptive foresight can be traced back to the EUFUNNDE project FANTASIE, 14 where the complex forecasting and assessment type of approach initially 12 Dixit
Another experience that led the way towards Adaptive foresight was the use of scenario methodologies in the first Swedish National foresight exercise. 15 Based on these experiences
technology and innovation policy at national and regional level. 21 These projects stress in particular the need to understand Adaptive foresight as a continuous monitoring,
and process of Adaptive foresight Adaptive in Adaptive foresight can be understood usefully in at least three different ways:
K. M. Weber/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 462 482 It should be clear from the two last bullets above that Adaptive foresight does not come with a onesiizefits-all implementation.
and stakeholders Adaptive foresight is designed to help decision-makers develop strategies. You can do a research project usingmany of the ideas from AF,
which Adaptive foresight processes are supposed to contribute. If the principles behind AF are to be effective
The practical tools and methods are available, based on many Fig. 1. Positioning recent forward-looking activities in the framework of Adaptive foresight. 31 31 For Details on these projects
which have not been tested frequently yet. 4. Adaptive foresight: assessment and methodological challenges In a nutshell, we see Adaptive foresight as a promising attempt to circumvent the aforementioned Collingridge Dilemma.
More specifically, we believe that it is powerful in overcoming some of the shortcomings of conventional foresight by adopting notions of adaptive planning:
However, Adaptive foresight is still at an early stage of development and testing. Further development of the approach is needed particularly in the following three respects:
Experiences with Adaptive foresight in Austria, in: M. Munch Andersen, A. Tukker (Eds. Perspectives on Radical changes to Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP.
We therefore accept the call of the Adaptive foresight approach 7, p. 464, that there is a need to move a step beyond collective processes
. M. Weber, Adaptive foresight: navigating the complex landscape of policy strategies, Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 75 (4)( 2008) 462 482.8 A. Salo, K. Cuhls, Technology foresight past and future, J. Forecast. 22 (2 3)( 2003) 79 82.9 P
and especially crosscutting topics (objectives 1 and 2). The question of adaptive foresight remains 19, p. 472.
Adaptive foresight is designed to help decision-makers develop strategies. You can do a research project using many of the ideas from AF
insights from the FORLEARN mutual learning process, Technology analysis & Strategic management, Special issue FTA Seminar 2006,2008, pp. 369 387.19 E. A. Eriksson, K. M. Weber, Adaptive foresight:
)( 2006) 1 14.12 E. A. Eriksson, M. Weber, Adaptive foresight: navigating the complex landscape of policy strategies, Technol.
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.
Adaptive foresight: navigating the complex landscape of policy strategies. Technological forecasting & Social Change 75, no. 4: 462 82.
Adaptive foresight: navigating the complex landscape of policy strategies. Technological forecasting and Social Change 75, no. 4: 462 82.
insights from the FORLEARN mutual learning process, Technology analysis & Strategic management 20 (3)( 2008) 369 387.9 E. A. Eriksson, K. M. Weber, Adaptive foresight:
, M. Weber, Adaptive foresight: Navigating the complex landscape of policy strategies, Technological forecasting and Social Change 75 (4)( 2008) 462 482.16 M. Jaspers, H. Banthien, J. Mayer-Ries, New forms
when dealing with complex systems 8. Adaptive foresight studies would also hugely benefit from enhanced computational assistance 15.
the first decade of global modelling, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 1982.15 E. A. Eriksson, K. M. Weber, Adaptive foresight:
It thus explicitly addresses one of the FTA challenges identified by Porter et al. 1 by assessing how EMA could contribute to adaptive foresight 10 under deep uncertainty.
Decisions under Severe Uncertainty, 2nd ed. Wiley, New york, 2006.10 E. A. Erikson, K. M. Weber, Adaptive foresight:
and concepts such as adaptive foresight 5 and systemic foresight 6 have been suggested for the development of more tailored foresight processes.
Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008, pp. 163 169.5 E. Eriksson, K. Weber, Adaptive foresight:
The consideration of‘glocal'foresight impacts is close to the concept of‘adaptive foresight coined by Weber 22,
The first paper from Eriksson and Weber, presents the methodological concept of Adaptive foresight. This concept was developed by using elements from adaptive strategic planning
The paper discusses Adaptive foresight and underlines that Foresight needs to go beyond the level of a collective process
and examples of Adaptive foresight, including a critical assessment of its potentials and methodological challenges to be addressed.
The paper by van Rij looks at horizon scanning from an adaptive foresight angle by combining the experiences
Adaptive foresight is applied by Abadie et al. to the highly uncertain environment of the European creative content industries as part of the European Perspectives on the Information society project.
which adapted the issue descriptions to the Danish situation after Horizon scanning can be seen as an adaptive foresight instrument that deliberately challenges policy-makers to look at uncertainties
Adaptive foresight Navigating, the complex landscape of policy strategies. Paper presented at Second International Seville Seminar on Future-oriented technology analysis:
http://www. ingentaconnect. com/content/beech/spp Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries: anticipating value chain transformations and need for policy action Fabienne Abadie,
the embedding in an adaptive foresight framework and the implementation of a real-time Delphi which lead to interesting methodological lessons.
Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries Science and Public policy February 2010 20 with the creative environment in which content activiitie unfold that make the creative content sector a fertile ground for radical innovations or disruptions
The methodoloog developed was based on the adaptive foresight framework in order to do justice to both the explorrator and the policy-oriented nature of the exerccis (Eriksson et al.,
Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries Science and Public policy February 2010 21 elements and showing how the implementation of those elements in combination enables us to disentanngl the complexity of the disruptive forces influenccin a sector
adapted from Wiesand and Söndermann (2005) Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries Science and Public policy February 2010 22 a mass audience.
Adaptive foresight applied to creative content Choice of methodology In order to achieve our objective of delivering forwaardlooking intelligence on the future evolution of the creative content industries,
experts) Workshop (stakeholders) Workshop (restricted, client) Impact assessment Figure 2. Overview of methodology building blocks Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries Science and Public policy February 2010
and building trust and awareness are part Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries Science and Public policy February 2010 24 of the equation.
Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries Science and Public policy February 2010 25 and related variants, uncertain issues, potential disrupttion and the likelihood of possible identified trends/issues.
No consensus could be reached for the theses printed in italics Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries Science
get a life Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries Science and Public policy February 2010 27 promises associated with user created content,
Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries Science and Public policy February 2010 28 Step 5: Policy analysis Our adaptive foresight on the creative content industrrie was concluded with a policy analysis,
aimed at deriving policy options for a thriving creative conteen sector in Europe in the future. This was done in closed discussion with the client, i e.
2008) Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries Science and Public policy February 2010 29 mediating between skills and demand for skills.
and analysed in this paper is anchored in the adaptive foresight framework, which enables us to reconcile the exploratory nature of the exercise
This is coherent with the methodological approach of adaptive foresight that foresees a phase of internal debate of policy implications by the client (or other stakeholder),
Adaptive foresight in the creative content industries Science and Public policy February 2010 30 With regard to the impact assessment aspect of the methodology
Adaptive foresight. Navigatiin the complex landscape of policy strategies. Technological forecasting and Social Change, 75 (4), 462 482.
Eriksson, E. A. and Weber, K. M. 2008)‘ Adaptive foresight: navigating the complex landscape of policy strategies',Technological forecasting and Social Change, 75: 462 82.
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