| Fta (1609) |  |
| Fta activity (72) | |
| Fta approach (37) | |
| Fta community (43) | |
| Fta exercises (14) | |
| Fta experts (4) | |
| Fta international seville seminar (6) | |
| Fta methodologies (5) | |
| Fta methods (59) | |
| Fta process (24) | |
| Fta tools (26) | |
| Impact of fta (28) | |
| Recent fta (3) | |
| Roles of fta (7) | |
Introduction New horizons and challenges for future-oriented technology analysis The 2004 EU US seminarb Fabiana Scapolo European commission Directorate General Joint research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies
and consolidate from the recent rejuvenation and growth in future-oriented technology analyses (FTA). In fact, during the recent sharp expansion of FTA, that mainly took place in last two decades,
there has been little systematic attention to conceptual development, research on improved methods, methodological choice, or how best to merge empirical/analytical methods with stakeholder engagement processes.
The diversity among these disciplines reflects the complexity of demands for FTA relating to differences in scope (geographic scale and time horizon;
Scapolo@cec. eu. int Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1059 1063 The seminar was organised to encourage cross-fertilization along six key issues of relevance for FTA research:
There was a strong suggestion that FTA content is increasingly market-driven and more focused on how technology should be used to meet emerging future needs.
their orientation and the problems associated with their understanding of assumptions used in FTA and how to interpret
Political feasibility is an important prerequisite for policy makers'acceptance of FTA conclusions and moulding expert opinions into good conclusions remains an elusive goal. 4. Tales from the frontier The contributions to this session had a fairly common theme in that they focussed on the establishment of databases and the associated data collection,
This session was devoted to the issues of evaluation of FTA and its techniques and processes.
and standardisation that evaluation encourages with the creativity and dwild cardt nature of many of the ideas implicit in good FTA.
The general consensus in the session was that FTA is a driver and an instrument for social change and as such will require high quality evaluation and at the same time within its own constructs,
Evaluation also serves to highlight the role of FTA as learning processes for stakeholders and thereby encouraging widespread innovation in organisational responses to the challenges of the future. 6. Importing ideas As might be expected of a session dealing with new ideas on FTA there was a wide diversity of suggestions and issues presented.
They ranged over linking evolutionary theory with foresight to provide F. Scapolo/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1059 1063 1061 new ways of framing studies, applying the concepts underlying marketing tools based on human behaviour to foresight design,
therefore dealing with new methods of FTA, and other two articles focus on analysis of methods and tools that have been
and challenges related to methods and approaches to improve the value and utility of FTA. Among the methodological issues that could be tackled to improve the FTA field
and start to turn it into a more scientific field, the authors of the papers suggest a number of developments such as a more systematic integration of new technology (especially ICT) to allow interaction
and on how the utility of outcomes can impact the different forms of FTA (i e. technology foresight, technology assessment, technology forecasting, technology and product roadmapping).
and visualisation techniques as supporting tools for FTA especially to assess technological development in the short term.
The last paper by Dezevas presents the state-of-the-art and new approaches in the evolutionary theory of technological change as a tool for FTA.
The work is linked to a programme of Future oriented technology assessment (FTA ACTIVITIES coordinated within a European nanotechnology research network.
Frontiers initiated in 2006 one such programme of Future oriented technology assessment activities (FTA. FTA is used here as an umbrella term for similar forward-looking and/or interactive characteristics of TA approaches.
Another term, with a similar outlook but not limited to technology only, is strategic intelligence (SI) 2
Activities in the FTA programme focus on designing tools and support systems which allow the Frontiers network to develop strategies for a number of different issues relevant to particular areas within nanotechnologies for the life sciences.
Our paper centres on one Frontiers FTA project on the stimulation 1 The EC 6th Framework programme Network of Excellence Frontiers is a network of 14 European research institutes
This system comprises a number of tailorized FTA/SI tools. It is being built around the notion of the‘deployment cycle'
Thus, for developing an FTA relating to paths into the future, knowledge of path dynamics need to be integrated into a process of controlled speculation in combination with other analyses.
Fig. 2). Thus our first aim with the FTA project was to prospect possible socio-technical paths based on projections of the relevant communities involved in research
Whereas MPM-1 was based on the FTA-analyst mapping of the emerging field, MPM for various possible innovation chains requires insights from practitioners who have experience
a large multinational pharmaceutical company initiated the development of a prototype integrated device for chemical analysis with a number of start-up companies 17 For some more information on this and other elements of the Frontier FTA programme,
Because of the exploratory nature of this first project of Frontiers'FTA programme, we positioned ourselves as experts in the field of S&t dynamics and path creation vis-à-vis the field-level expertise of the workshop participants.
growing with each new FTA exercise at this network level. MPM can be of use at the level of research group leaders, portfolio managers,
tools to inform debates, dialogues and deliberations, Technikfolgenabschatzung, Theorie und Praxis 2 (14)( 2005) 74 79.14 R. Barre, M. Keenan, FTA Evaluation, Impact and Learning,
Theme 2 Anchor Paper prepared for the IPTS FTA Seminar, Seville,, Sept. 2006.15 L. Georghiou, M. Keenan, Towards a Typology for Evaluating Foresight exercises, Paper 2 in proceedings EU US Seminar:
pragmatic distinction among them is offered in Section 4. 3 FTA stands for Future-oriented technology analysis, one of the terms to denote systematic prospective analysis. 559 A. Havas/Technological forecasting
Status and Impact of future-Oriented Technology analysis, Anchor Paper for the Second International Seminar on Future-oriented technology analysis: Impact of fta Approaches on Policy and Decision-making, Seville, 28 29,september 2006 available at:
Policy 30 (6)( 2001) 953 976.21 A. Havas, Futures for Universities, paper presented at the Second International Seminar on Future-oriented technology analysis:
Future-oriented technology analysis Impacts and implications for policy and decision making The unfolding acceleration of global innovation is expected to become the hallmark of the first half of the 21st century.
This special issue of TFSC presents a provocative alignment of papers designed to begin the probing of these fundamental questions about the future and future-oriented technology analysis (FTA.
FTA provides a common umbrella for the foresight, forecasting and technology assessment communities. These closely related communities play an important role in guiding policy
The challenge of joining forces to develop more robust future-oriented support to decision making has been addressed in the series of International Seville FTA Conference organized by the Institute of Prospective Technological Studies, one of the Joint research Centers
Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA: Impacts and implications for policy and decision making 1, enabled FTA EXPERTS, practitioners, and policy and decision makers to share their ideas
and knowledge in order to make FTA more policy relevant. The rising importance of FTA is reflected in the interest for the Third International Seville FTA Conference.
In total, 180 participants attended the Conference, representing/covering all continents. Out of the 166 abstracts that were submitted (50 more than in 2006), the Conference Scientific Committee selected 56 papers in order to build a comprehensive Conference program.
The Conference program covered both FTA methodological aspects and application of fta to policy fields such as, research and innovation, security and sustainability.
of which this special issue for Technological forecasting and Social Change consists of the selected papers with particular emphasis on methodological aspects of FTA,
The selection of papers provides the practitioners of future-oriented technology analysis (FTA innovation policy development and others inclined toward the provocation of innovation an opportunity to learn some new approaches as well as to reflect further upon some familiar tools such as risk assessment being profiled re within the new context of FTA.
In this way the issue also contributes to an evolving tool bag of diverse and enhanced tools for societally useful global innovation.
The papers and technical notes assembled from the 2008 FTA Conference were selected carefully and further nurtured to bring out three key themes:
FTA is clearly moving ahead to explore, adopt and engage novel approaches that will address innovation challenges
FTA still remains a somewhat ambiguous alignment of diverse tools, disciplines and intellectual traditions and paradigms and this we believe is consistent with the dynamism of transition to a knowledge-based economy;
FTA really has begun to engage and provoke the traditional complacency of policy makers who tend to treat technology as an externality,
Koivisto et al. examine how traditions of risk assessment are being adapted to the new more agile and greater uncertainties context of FTA.
Integrating Future-oriented technology analysis and Risk assessment (RA) Methodologies provides a clear example of where an older discipline meets a new one
and interplay between FTA and RA approaches is considered a necessity at VTT Technical research Centre of Finland for being truly innovative
and thus the capacity to know one's own technological position relative to others represents a new FTA capability with real world predictive performance capacity.
when he presented his paper Analysis for Radical Design to the FTA Conference: Changes are multitudinous.
To conclude this special issue we welcome the column From My Perspective of the Founder and Editor-In-chief of this journal and one of the key participants of the FTA 2008 Seville Conference, Professor Harold A. Linstone.
FTA evokes the power and appeal of hopeful, sustainable imaginative futures that can enable our species to apply its intuitive ingenuity to face the challenges of today and those anticipated over the horizon:
when FTA enables more robust policy, things can improve. References 1 JRC-IPTS, European commission, Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA:
Impacts and implications for policy and decision making The 2008 FTA International Seville Conference. Online source:
http://forera. jrc. ec. europa. eu/fta 2008/intro. html (2009-07-30). 2 F. Scapolo, M. Rader, A Porter, Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA:
impact on policy and decision making The 2006 FTA INTERNATIONAL SEVILLE SEMINAR, Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 75 (4)( 2006) 457 582.
New future-oriented technology analysis techniques, such as the approach suggested here, may contribute to the process and management of radical innovation 17,18.
Concepts and Practice, E Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, 2008.19 C. Cagnin, M. Keenan, Positioning future-oriented technology analysis, in:
Future-oriented technology analysis Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, Berlin, 2008.20 O. Da Costa, P. Warnke, C. Cagnin, F. Scapolo, The impact of foresight on policy-making:
F. Scapolo, A l. Porter, New methodolgical developments in FTA, in: C. Cagnin, M. Keenan, R. Johnston, F. Scapolo, R. Barré (Eds.
Future-oriented technology analysis. Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, Heidelberg, 2008.33 R. Barré, M. Keenan, Revisiting foresight rationales:
Future-oriented technology analysis Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, Berlin, 2008.34 D. Loveridge, P. Street, Inclusive foresight, Foresight 7 (3)( 2005) 31 47.35 H. A. Linstone, Multiple perspectives:
Integrating future-oriented technology analysis and risk assessment methodologies Raija Koivisto, Nina Wessberg, Annele Eerola, Toni Ahlqvist, Sirkku Kivisaari, Jouko Myllyoja, Minna Halonen VTT Technical research Centre of Finland
Received 17 november 2008 Received in revised form 11 june 2009 Accepted 15 july 2009 This paper examines the potential of integrating future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) with risk assessment methodologies and tools,
with the aim of developing more proactive risk assessments and also systematically including risk assessment in future-oriented technology analysis.
The common and complemeentar features of FTA and risk assessment are discussed, suggesting new ways to evolve the modular design when integrating FTA and risk assessment methodologies and tools. 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Foresight methodology Technology assessment Technology analysis Risk assessment Risk analysis Roadmapping 1. Introduction The practices in foresight, technology assessment and industrial risk assessment processes are in many ways parallel.
1) VTT is striving for a more integrated approach in developing its FTA competences and services,
Development of an integrated approach that combines the strengths of FTA and risk assessment traditions is not,
Opening up a fruitful dialogue among the FTA researchers and professionals facilitates also mutual learning across the FTA and risk assessment communities.
and FTA PROCESSES. o Section 5 points out preliminary conclusions and directions for further research. 2. Methods of FTA and risk assessment 2. 1. The methods of future-oriented technology analysis Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) can be seen as a common
Altogether, a substantial shift away from the fixed modelling and management towards more contingent and participatory approaches has taken place in all FTA areas.
The next section illuminates the synergies between FTA and risk assessment methodologies by analysing the foresight design dimensions of three research projects. 3. Prospective projects illuminating possible synergies
and development challenges To study the integration of FTA and risk assessment some relevant projects were analysed.
Recruitment phase of the FTA is included also in the scope definition phase in risk assessment, when possible and relevant experts and stakeholders are collected.
The same kind of activity is happening in the FTA action phase. The ultimate meaning of this phase is to arrange the knowledge in such a form that it is easy to use in decision making.
Also the action proposal and risk reduction/control phases share similarities to the practices and activities in the FTA action or prescription phase.
In addition, business, policy making and the whole broad spectrum of decision making call for future-oriented technology analysis as well as risk assessment. Foresight methods and activities approve the uncertainty linked to the different futures
FTA or risk assessment processes can be very detailed processes focusing on certain area or place,
The holistic future-oriented technology assessment or foresight methodologies tend to assess and create the future simultaneously. The same idea belongs also to the holistic risk management where safety is created in the process by evolving the intrinsic safety potential of the process.
or take advantage of it. 5. Conclusions This paper has compared the basic characteristics of FTA and risk assessment processes,
in business and in the society in general is crucial for both FTA and risk assessment. There is, therefore, a common ground shared by both approaches.
In Table 2 the characteristics and typical processes and methods of risk assessment and future-oriented technology analyses, as well as future expectations concerning their development,
the future risk assessment shows up as a methodology that should increasingly adapt supplementary elements from many different approaches such as FTA.
When the contribution of FTA is emphasized on revealing technological changes and their impacts in the future, the contribution from other areas is needed also.
In the Book‘Future-oriented technology analysis Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy',Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008, pp. 25 40.2 T.,Könnölä, T.,Ahlqvist, A.,Eerola, S.,Kivisaari, R.,Koivisto
Risk assessment (focus on the context of industrial safety) Future-oriented technology analysis Aim To identify and assess risks now and in the future.
Her research relates to future-oriented technology assessment and innovation studies. Her special interest lies in enhancing innovations provoked by societal concerns for wellbeing of the aging society and for cleaner environment.
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:
, Future-oriented technology analysis as a Driver of strategy and Policy, Technology analysis & Strategic management, vol. 20,2008, pp. 78 83,1. 21 K. Cuhls, Changes in conducting foresight in Japan, in:
Future-oriented technology analysis, Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, Berlin, 2008, pp. 71 87.23 F. Scapolo, A l. Porter, New methodological developments in FTA, in:
Future-oriented technology analysis, Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, Berlin, 2008, pp. 149 162.24 S. Kuhlmann, R. Smits, The rise of Systemic Instruments in Innovation policy, Int. Journal of Foresight
and Innovation policy, vol. 1, 2004, pp. 4 32,2/3. 25 C. Cagnin, M. Keenan, R. Johnston, F. Scapolo, R. Barré, Future-oriented technology analysis
and the participants of the 3rd International Seville Conference on Future-oriented technology analysis which took place in October 2008 for useful discussions and comments.
and workshop within a programme of future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) in a nanotechnology research network called Frontiers. 3 The FTA ACTIVITIES in this network revolve around multi-(potential) stakeholder workshops where the aim is to explore the complex dynamics in and around specific areas of nanotechnology important for the Frontiers
and most of those that were the subject of this FTA exercise was what sort of stabilised governance structure would emerge
This is a key aspect of modern FTA-connecting complexities of ongoing innovations (and the conditions
Some of the implications (including opportunities) of infusing complexity into FTA practices will be discussed. 2. Prospecting innovation:
The following section will bring us away from conceptual explorations to the real-world of FTA
or FTA mechanisms that are reflexive of the wider complexities of new and emerging technologies? Who should be involved and when?
Ozcan Saritas, Cristiano Cagnin, Attila Havas & Ian Miles (2009) Impacts and implications of future-oriented technology analysis for policy and decision making, Technology analysis & Strategic management, 21:8, 915-916, DOI:
8 november 2009,915 916 EDITORIAL Impacts and implications of future-oriented technology analysis for policy and decision making*Most of the papers in this special issue were presented at the Third International Seville Conference on Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) that took place in October 2008.
They address a wide variety of issues in FTA including methods and policy and governance impacts with discussions and demonstrations at the regional and corporate levels.
Weber et al. discusses the trade-offs between policy impacts of FTA with the experience gained from the innovation policy foresight
The above papers, a selected subset representing the themes1 of the 2008 FTA Conference offer a clear insight that smarter policy and corporate decision-making processes are needed to deal with recent crisis and the threat of discruptive changes.
Ozcan Saritas, Cristiano Cagnin, Attila Havas and Ian Miles Note 1. Reflecting the 2008 FTA Conference emphasis on impacts and implications of FTA for policy and decision making
1) Methods and tools contributing to FTA;(2) The use and impact of fta for policy and decision making;(
3) FTA in research and innovation;(4) FTA and equality: new approaches to governance; and (5) FTA in security and sustainability.
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This article was downloaded by: University of Bucharest On: 03 december 2014, At: 05:09 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number:
1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1t 3jh, UK Technology analysis & Strategic management Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
Paper presented at the Second FTA Conference, 28 29 september, Sevilla, Spain. Keenan, M. 2003. Identifying emerging generic technologies at the national level:
Historical review of the development of future-oriented technology analysis. In Future-oriented technology analysis strategic intelligence for an innovative economy, ed. C. Cagnin, M. Keenan, R. Johnston, F. Scapolo,
and R. Barré, 17 24. Heidelberg: Springer verlag. Keenan, M. 2002. Using expert and stakeholder panels in technology foresight principles and practice.
FTA and the city: imagineering sustainable urban development. Paper presented at second international Seville seminar on Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA), 28-29 september 2006, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), Seville, Spain.
Ringland, G. 2002. Scenarios in public policy. Chichester: Johnwiley. Sanz-Menéndez, L, . and C. Cabello. 2000.
Knowledge discovery in databases 1. Introduction How long does it take to provide a particular Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA?
Of particular note to FTA, the great science and technology (S&t) databases cover a significant portion of the world's research output.
A major impediment to the utilization of FTA results is their unfamiliarity to managers and policy-makers.
But, even more importantly, it familiarizes users with data-based technology analyses The manager who gets the prescribed FTA A l. Porter/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1070 1081 1071 outputs upon
Our QTIP setting presumes an organization with an established FTA framework. QTIP works where we know the sort of information we need.
our experience indicates that just providing the analytical tools to information professionals is unlikely to lead to effective FTA applications.
On the other hand, expanded information professional roles could enable their becoming full FTA team members 4. One way or another,
Collectively, the integration of the four QTIP factors results in a qualitative change in FTA.
enabling refinement of information searches that would drastically upgrade subsequent FTA work. These two examples reflect an essential difference.
Certainly, this btech miningq approach to quick technology analyses does not equally affect all forms of FTA.
This information can serve other FTA needs to various degrees:!Technology foresight Quick tech mining can help participants grasp the scope of technology development efforts.
but potentially very effective, support for these varied FTA endeavors. QTIP emphasizes speed in generating technology analyses.
and analytical tools to generate FTA more quickly. Its novelty lies in the approach to technology analyses in support of technology management.
Train the potential QTIP participants in use of the tools and resulting FTA outputs. A l. Porter/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1070 1081 1080 But it is worth the effort.
Introduction From priority-setting to societal challenges in future-oriented technology analysis Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) is derived a term from a collective description given to the range of technology-oriented forecasting methods and practices by a group of futures researchers and practitioners
and which here operated under the FTA banner and, on the other hand, a dominance both in papers submitted and in taxonomic terms of the‘‘foresight''label.
In successive conferences conclusions have noted this tendency to regard FTA as the name of the conference
In the development of the FTA series the notion of user engagement was to grow stronger.
The experience of FTA suggests that then new term will only have currency in the space and time in
but crossed this with an interest in the evaluation of impacts and in the use of FTA in two domains, business and higher education 9, 10.
Such engagement would come from raising awareness of the benefits and limitations of FTA in part through improved monitoring and evaluation,
The 2008 FTA Conference continued the focus on the‘‘impacts and implications of FTA for policy and decision making''but this time constructed its themes and anchor papers differently.
For a conference that attracted 166 abstracts and accepted only 56 of them, there was always the opportunity for a rich vein of ideas to be mined.
Georghiou and Cassingena Harper set out the terrain for FTA, and more specifically for foresight, in terms of its inbuilt concern with research and innovation policy or strategy issues.
Johnston and Cagnin review the main findings from a series of interviews about the status of FTA as an activity with nine personalities attending the FTA conference.
These mapped a picture of FTA as an increasingly important approach in many countries across a wide range of challenges.
Introduction/Futures 43 (2011) 229 231 230 In Spring 2011 the fourth FTA Conference will take place.
The conference will seek to understand further how far the institutionalisation (i e. embeddedness) of FTA supports both the achievement of measurable impacts and the strengthening of interaction s between research, higher education and innovation.
Moving forward the edition has shown FTA to be in a transitional stage brought about both by its internal dynamics and by the broader global environment.
FTA is a work in progress but represents a dynamic section of the futures community. References 1 Technology Futures analysis Methods Working group, Technology futures analysis:
and the long wave, Futures 34 (3 4 april 2002) 317 336.5 F. Scapolo, New horizons and challenges for future-oriented technology analysis the 2004 EU-US seminar, Technological forecasting
Concepts and Practice, Elgar, Cheltenham, 2007, pp. 24 43.9 F. Scapolo, A l. Porter, M. Rader, Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA:
. Johnston, Future-oriented technology analysis as a driver of strategy and policy, Technology analysis & Strategic management 20 (2008) 267 269.11 M. Keenan, R. Barre',C. Cagnin, Future-oriented technology analysis:
future directions in future-oriented technology analysis: future directions, in: C. Cagnin, M. Keenan, R. Johnston, F. Scapolo, R. Barre'(Eds.
Future-oriented technology analysis: Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008, pp. 163 169.12 O. Saritas, C. Cagnin, A. Havas,
I. Miles, Impacts and implications of future-oriented technology analysis for policy and decision making, Technology analysis & Strategic management 21 (2009) 915 916.13 T. Ko nno la, J. Smith, A. Eerola, Introduction
, Future-oriented technology analysis impacts and implications for policy and decision making, Technological forecasting and Social Change 76 (2009) 1135 1137.14 I. Nonaka, H. Takeuchi, The Knowledge-creating Company, Oxford university Press, Oxford
Daheim and Uerz 7 at the Second FTA Conference in Seville conference noted the emergence of open foresight as a trend,
A review for the 2006 FTA conference noted an increasing use of scenarios for the sector in the face of a number of pressures
status and impact of international future-oriented technology analysis, in: C. Cagnin, M. Keenan, R. Johnston, F. Scapolo, R. Barre'(Eds.
Future-oriented technology analysis Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, 2008.25 A. Havas, Devising futures for universities in a multilevel structure:
Future-oriented technology analysis Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, 2008.27 Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills, UK, Innovation White paper Innovation Nation, CM7345, March 2008.28 I. Rollwagen, J. Hofmann
Future-oriented technology analysis Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, 2008.33 L. Georghiou, Challenging Europe's research, Nature 452 (24)( 2008) 935 936.34 E. Aho, J. Cornu
55 Zhongguancun East Road, Beijing 100190, PR China 1. Introduction In the realm of future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) 1 that encompasses foresight,
since 1970.6 FTA projects in China in broad sense can be traced to‘‘The 12 Years Science Development Planning''made in 1956,
References 1 JRC-IPTS, Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA: impacts and implications for policy and decision making, in: The 2008 FTA International Seville Conference, 2009, available at:
http://forera. jrc. ec. europa. eu/fta 2008/intro. html. 2009-11-10). 2 R. Smits, S. Kuhlmann, The Rise of systemic instruments
Methods and tools contributing to FTA: A knowledge-based perspective A. Eerola A i. Miles b a VTT Technical research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland b Manchester Institute of Innovation research, Manchester united Kingdom 1
. Introduction Future oriented technology analysis (FTA) is an umbrella term for a broad set of activities that facilitate decision-making and coordinated action, especially in science, technology and innovation policy-making.
and quite often non-governmental organisation and civil society stakeholders 1. FTA, especially in the form of Foresight programmes, has come to be applied in the form of a mutual learning process,
and this in turn implies that FTA necessarily involves knowledge management whether this is formally acknowledged or more implicit.
This knowledge management has to confront the challenges created by FTA's call for engagement across different disciplines, research traditions,
Available online 19 november 2010 A b s T R A c T Future oriented technology analysis (FTA) applied to innovation policy and practice often goes well beyond the narrow domain of technology forecasting.
Such FTA calls for crossing the boundaries of disciplines, research traditions, and professional activities FTA then necessarily involves knowledge management
(whether this be formal or implicit); and this knowledge management has to confront the challenges created by FTA's call for engagement across different
and across potentially competing corporate, sectoral, and public interests. This paper explores the consequences of this view of FTA
and how the roles of various FTA METHODS and tools are seen in terms of knowledge management. It goes on to discuss the implications that follow for FTA design,
and the methodological challenges, and requirements for development of tools, techniques and principles, for FTA. The challenges of participatory knowledge management are seen to be particularly important ones to tackle. 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.*
*Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: Annele. Eerola@vtt. fi (A. Eerola), Ian. Miles@mbs. ac. uk (I. Miles.
10.1016/j. futures. 2010.11.005 2. FTA and knowledge management Talking about FTA in terms of‘‘knowledge''may seem to risk dealing in oxymorons.
''But, brief reflection on FTA practice rapidly reveals that FTA is nevertheless very much a process that involves finding,
The whole point of FTA is to better inform our decisions, and this involves knowledge of historical and contemporary dynamics and developments,
Since FTA involves engaging with stakeholders or at least with the decision-makers that the exercise is intended to inform the scope of knowledge management (KM) has to extend 1 The application of evolutionary theory within theology has led to notions of an‘‘evolving god''(or gods) too,
In an FTA context, it is worth noting that an early proponent of this view was Olaf Stapledon,
It is startling how few systematic comparisons have been made about the consequences of employing specific techniques in the course of FTA. 3 It is striking that much of the work collected in Linstone
FTA has many faces and comes in many‘‘flavours'',drawing on many different research traditions and methods.
Practically any source of insight into the dynamics of science and technology (S&t) their production, communication, application can be utilised as knowledge inputs into FTA.
Indeed, each of the sets of tools just mentioned can be used in applications other than FTA in demographic forecasting,
Many sorts of research tool can be sources of the insights required for FTA. Other tools can help us visualise issues,
FTA's subfields include technology foresight, technology forecasting and technology assessment, and of course futures research with its emphasis on explicating long-term alternative development prospects.
and methodological development of FTA 3 7. The result is a proliferation of tools. However the accumulation and integration of knowledge about different tools and approaches is very uneven.
Many (probably the great majority of) FTA practitioners are familiar with only a limited number of these tools.
But anecdotal evidence suggests that many FTA practitioners are simply reiterating the particular approaches with
and practice in FTA. But huge knowledge gaps are apparent, often stemming from the fact that much FTA work is conducted under pressure to provide results to inform urgent decisions.
This means that it is possible to reflect upon the lessons provided by this experience,
what has and has worked not well over a series of FTA experiences, than on more systematic accumulation of data about comparable cases, varying in terms of specific features.
Thus the FTA field itself resembles many of the challenging problems, which are the subject of FTA analysis. It is typical for decision-making about S&t-related issues to require intelligence that extends well beyond
what scientific analysis itself can provide. Weinberg 8 wrote of‘‘trans science''''the need for experts to go well beyond the conclusions that can be supported substantively by research and even by well-grounded theory,
in order to provide the sorts of advice decision-makers require. 5 FTA users and practitioners are in the same situation themselves,
where it comes to deciding what sort of FTA to apply. We can see learning processes at work in the successive generations of several National foresight programmes.
In the original formulation this is not specific to FTA, but Warden 31 has related Weick's activities of enactment,
Saritas (2007) provides a rathermore detailed account of five stages in FTA expanding the first and third of the sensemaking steps
when we replace TF with FTA. A. Eerola, I. Miles/Futures 43 (2011) 265 278 268 Many of the individual methods may be associated with more than one of the five steps,
organisation and management of an FTA programme, including, in addition to standard project management methods, approaches needed for the selection, recruitment and mobilisation of participants in the process.
and even later stages involving the embedding of FTA practices and approaches.)The selection of methods is a task,
Some combination of methods that span these dimensions is recommended as helping maximise the scope for FTA to draw on expert knowledge,
Classically FTA often involved the work of small expert groups or even solitary experts sitting at their desks engaged in‘‘genius forecasting''.
which is not to deny that can be very helpful inputs to wider FTA. These approaches assume that one person,
Occasionally we may see some broader overview coming from such sources often on the basis of the authors having absorbed a great deal of FTA thinking from other sources such as Naisbitt's Megatrends
The quality control mechanism for popular FTA literature are practically nonexistent, and it would be valuable
if FTA practitioners could develop more rapid and effective ways of directing attention to the well-grounded
and‘‘fully fledged foresight''as an ideal, 8 FTA often involves much wider engagement and involvement of stakeholders,
a matter of participatory democracy as commonly understood though such FTA could be an important contributor to establishing more deliberative democracy in S&t policy areas that have on account of the expert knowledge associated with them historically been dominated by vested interests and technocratic elites.
The widening of participation in FTA reflects important social developments, and serves several associated goals (see e g. 12).
Even technocratic FTA has to confront the likelihood that no single organisation will itself contain expertise on all of the matters that bear intimately on a specific set of S&t issues it will be necessary to go out to a wider set of communities.
Several factors have combined to make this more salient in contemporary FTA. Perhaps the least important but quite possibly a factor whose importance will grow in coming years is the rise of public concerns and associated social movements around many S&t issues.
The deeper understandingmeans that when contingencies change as they almost certainly will the participant will be able to assess their implications for the FTA conclusions and for the orientations of other actors.
butwill be carriers of this FTA knowledge into their own organisations, working to create decisions
FTA is liable to involve large volumes of information that can be processed through such TKM systems.
what takes place in FTA, even if the four knowledge conversion modes in the Nonaka model do not correspond precisely with the three steps of Horton and Weick,
a more practical distinction in the context of FTA would perhaps be the distinction between knowing individuals
This emphasis is highly relevant for FTA. Individual actors in FTA organise information in ways that are relevant to their purposes practical problems, conceptual challenges,()TD$FIG Knowledge Information Knowledge Socialisation:
Transfer of knowledge between people (through interaction rather than mediated through captured information) Externalisation: Capturing people's knowledge by rendering it as documents or structured processes Informationinternalisation:
Good FTA practice will make it easy for later users of the work to assess the validity of its knowledge base
and so on as is the case for many of the core topics that FTA addresses design of such texts can be very challenging.
The design and planning of the FTA can be interpreted as the preliminary‘‘S''phase of the knowledge cycle.
and lists of tasks that appear in different accounts of FTA, we might need to think of any large-scale FTA ACTIVITY as likely to involve several intertwined SECI processes that go iteratively through the various transformation phases in a spiral-like process.
or feed into a wider ongoing FTA exercise. A major task will be to move other parties through their own knowledge cycles,
Thus the scenario workshop is in many ways a microcosm of a larger FTA programme.
posits about FTA FTA can be examined from many several perspectives. Here we have related methods in FTA to knowledge and knowledge management issues.
Even a cursory examination of the KM literature will confirm several things. This is an expanding field (with elements of fashion and faddishness.
Miles et al. 23 discuss numerous ways in which new IT is liable to be employed in FTA in coming years.
Social learning and‘‘PKM''elements of FTA can be augmented by use of IT, though this may require careful design
Again, the design of FTA needs to take into account the needs of KM and the objectives that we have for various activities in terms of generating
Perhaps we should be establishing a roadmap for this sort of‘‘enhanced reality''in FTA work. 10
I. Miles/Futures 43 (2011) 265 278 275 One of the biggestkmchallenges that confront FTA,
and statistical analysis and less use of qualitative workshops and judgements that comes from some parts of the FTA user community.
Serious FTA recognises that we can apply formal modelling to some features of the complex systems we encounter,
Most FTA practitioners recognise this and most FTA EXERCISES use multiple methods: the way in which methods are combined
FTA practitioners thus confront the problematique of diverse social goals and power arrangements, whether they would rather avoid it(‘‘we are simply serving our immediate client)
though as much for technocratic reasons as for more democratic ones (leading to criticisms that this sort of FTA fails to explore prospects for radical social change,
In terms of how knowledge is assessed in FTA, a number of points can be made. Experts (engineers, designers, social analysts, political actors) are seen as possessing particularly valued-and sometimes privileged knowledge.
While the recent expansion in the FTA methodological literature is enabling us to say a good deal more about how methods can be used,
In addition to the general point about the need to integrate FTA and risk assessment approaches (see 24),
and SF authors. 13 These are only two of many examples of lively debate being occasioned by efforts to bring FTA METHODS to bear on issues that have already been the subject of influential FTA studies.
FTA may be expected to be transformed in the coming years. Existing methods will be rendered‘‘democratised more transparent and user-friendly while new tools that support collaborative working will be introduced.‘‘
‘‘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.
References 1 C. Cagnin, M. Keenan, Positioning future-oriented technology analysis, in: C. Cagnin, M. Keenan, R. Johnston, F. Scapolo, R. Barre'(Eds.
Future-oriented technology analysis: Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, Berlin, 2008.2 W. Bell, J. K. Olick, An epistemology for the futures field:
toward integration of the field & new methods, Technological forecasting and Social Change 71 (3)( 2004) 287 303.4 R. Johnston, Historical review of the development of future-oriented technology analysis, in:
Future-oriented technology analysis: Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, Berlin, 2008.5 M. Rader, A. Porter, Fitting future-oriented analysis methods to study types, in:
Future-oriented technology analysis: Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy,, Springer, Berlin, 2008.6 I. Miles, From Futures to Foresight, in:
the case of‘Future',Seville, First International EU US Seville Seminar on Future-oriented technology analysis, 2004 (available at http://forera. jrc. ec. europa. eu/fta/papers
and much more content of the study can be located by use of search engines including the presentation made at the FTA conference in 2006 43.14 We refer to Cole et al. 44,
Integrating FTA and risk assessment methodologies, Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1163 1176.25 Advisory Group on Nanotechnology, New dimensions for manufacturing:
I. Maghiros, S. Delaitre, Dark scenarios as a constructive tool for future oriented technology analysis: safeguards in a world of ambient intelligence (SWAMI), Second International Seville Seminar on Future-oriented technology analysis, Seville, September 28 29,2006 (available at:
http://forera. jrc. ec. europa. eu/documents/papers/paper%20dark%20scenarios%20fta%20conf%20sept. pdf (accessed 29/07/09). 44 H. S d
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