Thus Horton 9 depicted foresight as moving through three phases the chronological order is somewhat flexible, with scope for reiteration and overlap of these phases:
and thereby producing foresight knowledge (some of this will be posits, in Bell and Olick's terminology.
selection and retention to three phases of foresight processes6, resulting in a structure rather similar to Horton's:
and‘‘fully fledged foresight''as an ideal, 8 FTA often involves much wider engagement and involvement of stakeholders,
Coates et al. 11.8 See Miles 13 and Georghiou et al. 37 for accounts of‘‘fully fledged foresight''a concept taken up by several other authors,
Policymakers thus sought more transparency in decision-making, with foresight, technology assessment, and key technologies approaches coming to the fore, alongside other tools such as research evaluation and impact assessment.
and is also likely to increase the commitment to making use of the foresight knowledge).
When the FTA PROCESS involves a wide range of key actors in the case of the Nordic H2 energy foresight coming from several countries there are special challenges confronted in shared knowledge creation (even in agreeing upon which of Bell's‘‘posits''to explore
In the Nordic H2 energy foresight, the appropriation of the knowledge from the foresight process into various stakeholder organisations was seen as being accomplished through such activities as pilot projects
Eerola's account of the various steps and procedures of the Nordic H2 energy foresight are located in terms of the SECI model in Fig. 2
The complexity of FTA PROCESSES means that they can involve application of similar techniques for different purposes, at different points in the foresight knowledge cycle.
on foresight process and results Conference papers Project website Fig. 2. Different foresight elements in a dynamic process of shared knowledge creation, a SECI perspective.
‘‘Open-source foresight''and‘‘Open-source FTA''might be the terms by which this sort of KM becomes known15 but that is up to the wisdom (or otherwisej) of crowds.
Springer, Berlin, 2008.6 I. Miles, From Futures to Foresight, in: L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena Harper, M. Keenan,
The Handbook of Technology foresight, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, 2008.7 I. Miles, J. Cassingena Harper, L. Georghiou, M. Keenan, R. Popper, The Many Faces of Foresight, in:
The Handbook of Technology foresight, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, 2008.8 A. Weinberg, Science and trans science, Minerva 10 (2)( 1972) 209 222.9 A. Horton, Foresight how to do simply and successfully, Foresight
a case for critical systems thinking in nanotechnology, Technological forecasting and Social Change 76 (9)( 2009) 1208 1221.13 I. Miles, UK Foresight:
three cycles on a highway, International Journal of Foresight and Innovation policy 2 (1)( 2005) 1 34.14 T. Ko nno la, T. Ahlqvist, A. Eerola, S
2002 http://www. risoe. dk/rispubl/SYS/ris-r-1362. htm (accessed 09/02/10). 22 A. Eerola, B. H. Jørgensen, Foresight in Nordic
Emerging Foresight, in: L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena Harper, M. Keenan, I. I. Miles, R. Popper (Eds.),
A Fantasy of Love and Discord, Secker and Warburg, London, 1944.31 C. Warden, An application of some knowledge management concepts in foresight, Technology foresight for Organizers, 2007, Module 1:
and use of FTA in the public sector there has been substantial growth in foresight and FTA in business.
these are all behavioural components of participants in Foresight. CSH also seeks to give a voice in the decisionmaking process to those who suffer the consequences.
p. 72.13 D. Loveridge, P. Street, Inclusive foresight, Foresight 7 (3)( 2005) 31 47.14 D. Loveridge, Foresight:
A Stakeholder Approach, Pitman, Boston, 1984.18 O. Saritas, L. Pace, S. Stalpers, Stakeholder participation and Dialogue in Foresight, From Oracles to Dialogue:
*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
and Conferences was expressed the concern by some attendees that an opportunity was being missed to use the assembly of Strategic foresight experts to gain more insights into the state of Foresight content regarding critical issues and trends,
It has been structured to allow the Conference attendees, mainly the organizers and practitioners of Foresight, 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:
1 UK Ministry of Defence, UK Foresight Office Horizon scan; Global Futures Forum Vancouver April 2008, Europe@2025 European commission.
10.1016/j. futures. 2010.11.007 Foresight knowledge base regarding the directions and catalysts that are prompting our global future and its various contingencies and uncertainties.
to be based in the Foresight directorate of the Government office for Science (see www. foresight. gov. uk). As another example,
It has been said (by some practiced Foresight facilitators) that drivers are those critical choices, forks in the road and deep uncertainties that keep executives awake at night.
which may be amenable to changes according to one's strategic choices, investments, R&d activities or foresight knowledge and strategies.
This is a key element of the art of crafting Foresight to respond well to plausible uncertainties and conceivable surprises,
'Steinmueller 8 also has an excellent overview of wild cards in the 2008 RAHS Booklet on Foresight:
which relevant Foresight information might be inferred. Sometimes, mistakenly, wild cards and weak signals are considered as synonyms,
The following definition indicates how discontinuities are being positioned by them for Foresight purposes:‘‘‘‘Discontinuities, which are those sudden, sharp breaks that can strike consumers, business sectors, nations,
(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
i e. content for Foresight structuring with so many experienced experts. As a result, the Big Picture Survey was designed
and would it not be useful to poll this group for Foresight insights? 2. Building on a survey of FTA Conference attendees-experts about critical trends, drivers, shocks-wildcards, discontinuities and weak signals, new insights can be gained about the state of Foresight and future uncertainties,
which should be useful to the community. 3. 1. 1. The structure of the survey The survey consisted of two main parts.
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;
Comparison of FTA COMMUNITY insights-domains content with others sources of Foresight trends, drivers, etc. Table 1 STEEP map for the Domains of Interest.
and essentially weathered it. 3. 2. 2. 4. Joint assessment of Foresight affiliation and trends.
Almost all respondents from different Foresight affiliations stated that over 70%of the trends identified will have high impact on the STEEP systems.
Joint assessment of Foresight affiliation and drivers. Respondents from Academia and Government took the lead in drivers assessment with 32%and 25%respectively.
no significant differences were encountered regarding the impact assessment based on Foresight affiliation. The majority of respondents (around 68%)consider that the drivers will have high impact on the STEEP systems,
or focus group opportunities to probe the differences in perception of discontinuities. 3. 2. 5. 3. Joint assessment of Foresight affiliation and discontinuities.
Around 70%of all respondents from various Foresight affiliations that assessed discontinuities expect high impact.
and insights that can be used to guide future Foresight work and additional FTA surveys of this type or building upon this base.
the EFMN issue analysis, Foresight 10 (2008) 6, 90 102.3 DCDC, The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme:
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
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
http://www. aciic. org. au 1 Of course foresight does not claim to‘tell the truth';
there needs to be a clear link between the foresight (topic and process) and the government's policy agenda''.
If it is sponsored by an organisation that is out of favour then regardless of the quality of the foresight work there may be little impact.
The focus of the Conference was on foresight, technology forecasting and technology assessment methods and tools.
however, do not imply an automatic rise in the use of foresight or FTA TOOLS. Many decision-makers remain ignorant of or unpractised with these tools,
Sandy Thomas Foresight, UK Government office for Science. References 1 L. Fitton, Cassandra: Cursed Prophetess, 1998, accessed at http://www. arthistory. sbc. edu/imageswomen/papers/fittoncassandra/intro. html. 2 For example V. van Rij, Joint horizon scanning:
FTA Conference, Seville, 2008.3 J. Calof, J. Smith, Critical success factors for government led foresight, 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:
http://forera. jrc. ec. europa. eu/fta 2008/conclusions. html. 10 UK Foresight programme, Flood and Coastal Defence, 2004, http://www. foresight. gov
Future Choices, 2007, http://www. foresight. gov. uk/Ourwork/Activeprojects/Obesity/Obesity. asp. R. Johnston, C. Cagnin/Futures 43 (2011) 313 316 316
ISSN 1463-6689 jforesight j PAGE 279 Vicente Carabias is a Senior Scientist in‘‘Foresight and Sustainable development''and EU Contact Point at the Institute of Sustainable development,
and later derives implications for the application of foresight in policy-making. The aim of the scenario task presented in the paper by Heinonen
In addition, the study confirms that foresight offers interesting opportunities for urban planners, such as anticipating changes,
If this is achieved, the chances are high that foresight will elicit less technical skepticism in the urban planning realm.
sustainability and foresight research by applying monitoring and evaluation systems, Delphi survey, SWOT analysis and scenario development methods in various contexts over the last ten years.
On a broad range of regional and EU projects, involving foresight and integrated assessment, Peter worked together with experts
Currently Peter works at the Research centre of the Flemish Government, where he is in charge of foresight and sustainability assessment.
He has a broad experience in foresight and the analysis of innovation and research policy with a particular focus on the civil security sector.
Complexity science approaches to the application foresight Averil Horton Abstract Purpose This paper aims to present an exploration of recent work in complexity theory to explain why
and a general experience of applying foresight. Several new and practical implications for foresight techniques and their application are derived.
Promoting variation is examined as one way to make policies more resilient in a complex system. Findings Complexity science demonstrates that disruptive events do need not an associated trigger
Foresight techniques need to be developed to embrace emergence and to provide capabilities such as reframing to visualise systems from very different perspectives,
Originality/value Although neither complexity theory nor the concept of reframing is new in the area of foresight
the derivation of practical implications for foresight techniques is original. Keywords Complexity, Disruptive events, Emergence, Reframing, Variation, Policy making, Complexity theory, Uncertainty management, Strategic planning Paper type Conceptual paper 1. Foresight techniques To date,
foresight techniques (see http://hsctoolkit. tribalhosting. net/The-tools. html for a summary of techniques,
applications and case studies) have developed out of need (see www. andyhinesight. com/category/foresight-2/(accessed August 2011) re practitioner usage);
they are highly pragmatic, were developed originally for use in commercial organisations, and are used because they deliver useful insights However,
other than some postgraduate foresight programs (provided on the basis that foresight is an interdisciplinary field grounded in a variety of social science),
or rationale, for either foresight or its techniques, Gheorghiou et al. 2008) and Miller (2011. In many ways, foresight techniques also originally arose out of the need to deal with unexpected events in the technology and political arenas, for example the classic Shell scenarios.
More recently the development of techniques for coping with disruptive events, often referred to as wild cards,
so has limited some work in the foresight field, Ringland (2010) and Miller and Poli (2010),
but there has been little specific consideration of how foresight techniques need to PAGE 294 jforesight j VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012, pp. 294-303, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited,
or understanding, on how to really apply (implement) foresight and how to extract real value from the results of foresight studies and projects.
Much foresight work, while very interesting and great fun to discuss over dinner, goes unused, unappreciated,
Foresight may be either an art or a science, Bell (2003), and may or may not be, a discipline,
and most importantly lead to better decision-making and policy making (and perhaps contribute to use of theories of social change in foresight).
what is its relevance to foresight? There are of course as many answers as people, including Prigogine and Stengers (1984), Byrne (1998) Mitchell (2009), Goodwin (1994), Strogatz (2003),
This paper will explore some selected elements of complexity theory and their implications for foresight techniques,
and later derive implications for the application of foresight in policy making. There are five relevant elements of complex systems:
The implication is that foresight techniques must be able to embrace emergence and to focus on the idea of interactions rather than constituent parts.
Foresight techniques need to enable practitioners to develop a vision of a system's emergent properties the self-organised behaviour that could result from interactions between the parts. 2. All systems have component agents (taxies,
The implication is that foresight techniques must be able to accommodate changes in the basic rules.
Foresight techniques need to enable a vision of changes in the essential profile of a system. 3. The interactions between the component parts of a complex system
The implication is that foresight techniques need to accommodate phase change situations, accepting that they will happen,
Foresight techniques need to enable visions of phase-changed worlds. Foresight techniques must also accept the likely absence of any early warning signals. 4. Extreme sensitivity to initial conditions.
The starting slate is never clean extremely tiny errors in understanding where the system starts from can send any‘‘forecast''off in totally the wrong direction.
The implication is that foresight techniques need to recognise that a system has a critical history
Foresight techniques need to recognise that everything is part of a system, that there is no‘‘new''starting point,
The implication is that foresight techniques must be able to provide both optimisation and exploration processes to help identify a range of potential future situations and options.
Foresight techniques need to enable practitioners to see the landscape from different perspectives and to generate both optimum and (currently) non-optimum alternative potential strategies and options.
considering these different definitions before looking in more detail at how complexity can contribute to improved foresight application.
From a foresight perspective however, Axelrod's (1985) is the most useful: Agents, of a variety of types, use their strategies, in patterned interaction, with each other and with artefacts.
In summary the implications of complexity theory for foresight techniques are that they must: B Enable a vision of a system's emergent properties.
impossible or ludicrous now. 3. Improving foresight application reframing One way to think of all of these ideas together is as different ways of seeing,
''From the perspective of applying foresight the benefits of reframing are: B realising that there are more choices than thought,
''Some foresight techniques do use Reframing, for example in causal layered analysis, Inayatullah (1990), employs reframing at the deep myth/metaphor level. 4. Results policy making implications We all have our favourite story of a failed
or ludicrous policy where a lack of foresight is obvious in retrospect. The lesson is often that the environment/time/space/area in
The key insight of complexity-based foresight for policy making is that command and control approaches do not work in complex systems.
Battram (2000) and Swanson and Bhadwal (2009), have considered how complexity-based foresight can be applied to policy making.
and intellectually satisfying to re-invent the whole policy making process in the light of complexity-based foresight,
which implications for the application of complexity-based foresight in policy making will take place, at least for a while.
Promoting variation can provide a response to several of the requirements of foresight techniques identified above in Section 2. For example it can contribute to generating a range of future options and alternative potential strategies through both optimisation and exploration.
It also provides insight into how foresight techniques need to be developed to perform better in complex systems to enable better decision-making and policy making.
and strengthen those policies VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 301 Foresight methodology Foresight techniques need to be developed to embrace emergence to harness the self-organised behaviour that results from interactions between the parts of a complex system rather than
Foresight techniques must provide policy makers with the ability to generate a range of future options
Policy making needs foresight techniques to enable a vision of the system's emergent properties and also of phase change situations (without early warning signals) and of the resulting changed world.
Policy making needs Foresight techniques to enable the generation of a range of future options and alternative potential strategies through both optimisation and exploration, including some that sound negative, ludicrous,
www. bis. gov. uk/assets/foresight/docs/horizonscanning-centre/futuresinpolicyguidance. pdf (accessed 6 june 2012. Byrne, D. 1998), Complexity theory and the Social sciences:
A comment on Jay Ogilvy's‘Facing the fold'''Foresight, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 24-34.
Miller, R. and Poli, R. 2010),‘Introduction to a Special issue on anticipatory systems and the philosophical foundations of future studies'',Foresight, Vol. 12 No. 3. Mitchell, M. 2009), Complexity:
but the results of the ongoing foresight and scenario work were communicated to the general public via the internet for comments and discussion.
A year after that, the government commissioned an evaluation on the effectiveness of the preparation process that would comment on the general progress of the process as well as the usability of this kind of foresight work in policy planning.
Linking territorial foresight and urban planning Jose'Miguel Ferna'ndez Gu ell and Leticia Redondo Abstract Purpose This article aims to show the opportunity
In addition the study confirms that foresight offers interesting opportunities for urban planners, such as anticipating changes,
Originality/value The value of the present work lies in the synergy that can be generated between territorial foresight and urban planning
Keywords Territorial foresight, Scenario design, Urban planning, Sustainable development, Strategic planning, Forecasting Paper type Research paper 1. The oblivion of future studies in urban planning Since its origins in the nineteenth
VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 317 3. The new concept of territorial foresight Three arguments are given to support the use of futures studies.
The answer could be called‘‘territorial foresight''.''According to several authors (Ferna'ndez Gu ell, 2006; Gavigan and Scapolo, 2001), territorial foresight can be defined as a systematic, participatory,
future intelligence gathering and vision-building process aimed at present-day decision making and mobilising joint initiatives in the urban and territorial realm.
Territorial foresight involves the implementation of five essential elements at a small geographic scale, in
Foresight is structured a way to anticipate and project long-term social, economic and technological developments and needs. 2. Vision.
Foresight elaborates a guiding strategic vision, which shares a sense of social commitment about a certain issue. 3. Action.
Foresight develops and implements strategic visions through detailed action plans, which enable current actions to tackle the future successfully.
Foresight intensively incorporates interactive, participatory methods that foster debate and analysis with a wide variety of stakeholders. 5. Networking.
Foresight forges new social networks for the exchange of ideas experiences and specific knowledge. Territorial foresight offers noteworthy tangible benefits.
First, it systematises the debate about future prospects for socioeconomic development amongst a wide variety of agents by building up plausible and coherent future visions.
In spite of the above-mentioned advantages, territorial foresight has clear limitations. In the first place, foresight cannot tackle or resolve all the social,
economic, environmental and political problems in a territory. Second, foresight cannot impose consensus when there are deep disagreements between territorial stakeholders.
Third, foresight is not a quick remedy for urgent problems because it requires long analyses that do not produce immediate results.
Finally, foresight requires certain policies that may be difficult to implement in emerging territorial institutions with little real power.
In contrast to traditional planning processes, which tend to have limited a sectoral scope, territorial foresight gradually builds up an integrated vision of the possible future through participation methods.
Foresight is thus complementary to the established planning processes feeding new elements and values into them, empowering local agents and providing legitimacy to territorial strategies.
Foresight methods are spreading progressively and are becoming a decisive element in many planning exercises. As a matter of fact, in the last few years territorial foresight has gathered increasing attention from various European public bodies.
The European commission's Foresight for Regional development Network (2001) published A Practical Guide to Regional foresight, which documented nine regional foresight exercises.
Likewise, several articles by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies have drawn attention to the potential of territorial foresight for decision making at the regional level (IPTS
2001). ) The European Spatial Planning Observation Network (2007) has published also the findings of its project‘‘Scenarios on the territorial future of Europe'',in
innovative research efforts geared to bridging the gap between these two fields of knowledge. 4. How to reconcile territorial foresight and urban planning Despite its apparent benefits,
territorial foresight is ignored either simply or just perceived as a trivial set of tools that do not provide much added value to the urban decision making processes.
In order to reconcile foresight techniques with urban planners, new contributions are needed to reinforce qualitative instruments with quality,
its uniqueness emerges Figure 2 Linking foresight and urban planning PAGE 320 jforesight jvol. 14 NO. 4 2012 because all the elements are used in an articulated and coherent way, with a foresight exercise as a solid starting point.
Scenario design is a foresight technique that has been used widely and documented (Godet, 1993; van der Heijden, 1996;
Figure 10 Spatial implications of Scenario C (2025) VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 331 5. Applied approach to territorial foresight The proposed method to reconcile territorial
foresight with urban planning was developed over a five-year period. Due to the scarcity of research resources and the complexity of the topic, progress had to be attained through a slow, piecemeal effort in different research projects and academic activities.
1. Evidence about the oblivion of territorial foresight among Spanish planners was gathered as part of doctoral academic activity (Ferna'ndez Gu ell et al.
Fourth, this exercise elicits the potential for using foresight as a powerful tool for the dissemination of territorial knowledge and the establishment of expert networks,
the chances are that foresight will elicit less technical scepticism in the urban planning realm. References Asociacio'n Plan Estrate'gico de Burgos (2009),‘Estudio de prospectiva territorial para la Ciudad de Burgos, unpublished study'',Asociacio
European foresight Platform (2011),‘Foresight brief‘Knowledge sharing Platform'''available at: www. foresightplatform. eu (accessed 14 july 2011.
Foresight for Regional development Network (2001), Practical Guide to Regional foresight, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Sevilla.
Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (2001),‘Special issue on foresight and regional development'',The IPTS Report No. 59, pp. 1-47.
Presently, he is a full-time Professor at the Urban and Regional planning Department of Universidad Polite'cnica de Madrid and foresight advisor at Fundacio'n OPTI.
His professional and academic interests are focussed on strategic planning, territorial foresight and governance studies. He is the author of several articles and books related to strategic planning and foresight tools.
It proposes the application of future-oriented analysis (FTA) as a common umbrella term that encompasses foresight, forecasting and technology assessmentmethods and tools to the legal sphere.
Keywords Law, Future-oriented analysis, Foresight, Scenario planning, Modelling, Strategic planning, Forecasting Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction Future and Law 1 are two words that are rarely found in the same phrase.
It proposes the application of future-oriented analysis (FTA) as a common umbrella term that encompasses foresight
as it allows experts in foresight to define their own visions of the future, creating their own narratives and visualisations of forthcoming developments.
back in 1933 and PAGE 342 jforesight jvol. 14 NO. 4 2012 in a BBC broadcast program, underlined the need for professors of foresight,
I believe that Law schools would very much enrich their programs by creating the post for Professors of Legal Foresight
what is known in foresight as the‘‘Zeitgeist Problem,''that is, ‘‘the tendency to be captive to the'spirit of times
The problem we here face is the one of having foresight used as a lobbying instrument
regardless of the claim that is sometime made for foresight that it is a neutral space for debate and consensus formation.
Foresight is a place where governments can and will try to stabilise, naturalise their roles, institutions jostle for positions,
and foresight, see Rader and Porter (2008). For the distinction between technology assessment, foresight and technology forecasting made by the European Science
and Technology observatory Network (ESTO), see Rader (2001). The latter was revised, moreover in Rader (2001, p. 4);
arguing that foresight has missed systematically important future developments due to its reliance on categorizations and measurement systems optimized for the Industrial Age models of production.
According to the author, foresight needs a paradigm shift in the Knowledge society, overcoming the epistemic models of FTA that inherently assume a world that evolves as an extrapolation of the past,
furthermore, explores the basic ontological and epistemological concepts that underlie foresight and FTA. 21. Peter De Smedt
VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 349 References Barre',R. and Keenan, M. 2008),‘Revisiting foresight rationales:
Miles, I. and Keenan, M. 2003),‘Two and a half cycles of foresight in the UK'',Technikfolgenabscha tzung Theorie und Praxis, Vol. 12, pp. 41-9. PAGE
Staton, M. 2008),‘Monstrous foresight'',in Cagnin, C.,Keenan, M.,Johnston, R.,Scapolo, F. and Barre',R. Eds), Future-oriented technology analysis:
I. 2011),‘Foresight in an unpredictable world'',paper presented at the 4th International Seville Conference on Future-oriented technology analysis, Seville.
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