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.
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
and complementing these with information from future-oriented stakeholder surveys, the Technology barometer can be regarded as a new tool for managing strategic investments in R&d,
The existence of the Technology barometer is itself a provocative approach to innovation policy futures. From Germany
they develop the case for ensuring that foresight offers a democratic rather than just a technocratic input to the future and to the policy processes
An application to prospecting futures of the responsible development of nanotechnology, a research project exploring potential co-evolutions of nanotechnology and governance arrangements.
Priority areas for Australia's future features an excellent case example of the importance and learning being experienced from the application of novel FTA METHODOLOGIES to explore the possibilities offered by the use of nanotechnologies to contribute to new and improved approaches to energy conversion,
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:
and many strategic decision-making processes to align future R&d priorities and innovation strategies with sustainability goals. He holds a Dr. Tech. and a Lic.
We consider a possible, radically decentralized context for the conduct of future design. A case study of new technology architecture in the information technology domain is presented.
10.1016/j. techfore. 2009.07.014 Contents lists available at Sciencedirect Technological forecasting & Social Change alternative views of the future,
or the mode 2 of future knowledge production. The hierarchical random graph model is missing a model of the actor.
infrastructure organizations are confronted with an increasing amount of future uncertainty 3 that calls for a fundamental reconsideration of the former success model, at least in three respects:(
& Social Change Foresight has its strengths in addressing broad ranges of future conditions by adopting participatory and discursive approaches.
Yet, in particular Technology foresight has often been restricted to identifying future context conditions in order to scrutinize the robustness of specific strategies
therefore not only inform the identification of future context conditions but may also be applied to future system options and preference structures.
Such a methodological framework is likely to depart in style and content from the currently dominant forms of strategic decision making in infrastructure sectors 5. While in conventional approaches
Following a widely shared definition, foresight aims at improving future-oriented decision making through the early detection and assessment of emerging trends and drivers of change 18.
context factors like economic, demographic and settlement development, future political culture and environmental regulations. They select the most influencing
participants adopt roles of different future stakeholder groups representing either future citizens or industry representatives define their assumed preferences
While we may imagine solutions that seem attractive to a majority of the stakeholders in a future regional setting,
(iii) enable pro-actively addressing future conflicts of interest and (iv) profit from new technical options potentially emerging in the course of the lifetime of an infrastructure system.
It rather circumscribes promising search directions for future system configurations and thus allows escaping the path dependencies encountered in conventional planning processes.
Political actors of the region were keen on developing a perspective for the future of the sanitation system to avoid singular investments,
In the following step, a set of options was developed by the core team, based on varying technical and organizational characteristics of a future wastewater system:
ii) In the second workshop, participants carried out the same assessments by taking the perspective of typical future citizens or industry representatives.
In contrast, the industry's stakeholders favor besides low tariffs, additionally low levels of bureaucracy as well as voice and participation in the associations decision board. 4. 4. Exploring the trade-off landscape The virtual future stakeholder groups
the core team recommended that the introduction of onsite treatment facilities should be considered seriously in future maintenance and expansion plans.
While the RIF process in the Kiesental resulted in little surprise with the already prior favored idea for a future sanitation system,
One consequence was departed that decision makers from their initially strong position that only one big technical system was able to solve all future problems in the region.
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
, Futures 41 (2009) 80 86.14 F. W. Geels, The hygienic transition from cesspools to sewer systems (1840 1930:
alternative futures as a case study, Futures 18 (5)( 1986) 658 670.23 L. Börjeson, M. Höjer, K. Dreborg, T. Ekvall, G. Finnveden, Scenario types
towards a user's guide, Futures 38 (7)( 2006) 723 739.24 A. Marchais-Roubelat, F. Roubelat, Designing action based scenarios, Futures 40 (1)( 2008
Future-focussed thinking: combining scenario planning with decision analysis, J. Multi-Criteria Decis. Anal. 8 (1999) 311 321.28 M. P. e Cunha, P. Palma, N. G. da Costa, Fear of foresight:
knowledge and ignorance in organizational foresight, Futures 38 (8)( 2006) 942 955.29 W. Xiang, K c. Clarke, The use of scenarios in land-use planning, Environ.
Environ. 8 (5)( 2003) 323 342.40 K. Chatterjee, A. Gordon, Planning for an unpredictable future:
An Investigation into the Long-term challenges and Opportunities for the UK's Strategic Highway Network, Highway Agency for England, London, 2003.42 Office of Science and Technology, Intelligent Infrastructure Futures, Foresight Directorate
the future of transport, Futures 40 (10)( 2008) 865 872.52 G. Munda, Social multi-criteria evaluation:
Res. 158 (3)( 2004) 662 677.53 J. J. Winebrake, B. P. Creswick, The future of hydrogen fueling systems for transportation:
an approach to develop future potentials, Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 59 (2)( 1998) 111 130.64 A. Fink, O. Schlake, A. Siebe, Erfolg durch Szenario-Management:
All these future-oriented approaches try to illustrate and manage the future in an explicit and systematic way by identifying,
assessing, analysing, combining and interpreting existing data, information and expert opinions. Creating shared understandings among the stakeholders about the possible future developments is also important in each field;
the increasingly complex world creates new types of risks that shouldn't be bypassed with the examination of future opportunities, creation of shared visions and assessment of desired impacts.
A systematic, participatory, future intelligence gathering and medium-to-long-term visionbuilldin process aimed at present-day decisions and mobilising joint action.
In the action phase, technology roadmaps, backcasting, narrative scenarios and others are useful methods to disseminate the visions of the future.
It is also crucial to study what the future might be, will the technology be needed usable
One newapproach thatwidens the traditional field of risk assessmentmight open fromthe future-oriented, or foresighting, impact assessment (FIA) currently under development at VTT.
and that they require proactive anticipation of the future worlds. Organisations have to consider alternative developments of influence factors
and acting towards the future success and exclusively on the current success. The process begun from very general phenomena of politics, society,
The project states that a good modelling tool would help to model the future interdependencies supported by an integration of the scenario work and the systematic risk assessment. 3. 2. Managing opportunities,
and management of future uncertainties and risks in companies that are giving rise to new business 29.
It will focus on the potential production and the future safety of the production systems as well as on the related uncertainties.
The tools to apply the future-oriented risk assessment are developed during this process, and they are at this preliminary stage as follows:
the future is linked in that way to present situation. Risk assessment procedure in CES is designed on the basis of brainstorming sessions between power plant operators and managers as well as climate change experts.
Scientific knowledge concerning natural changes constitutes different scenarios of the future and social knowledge can also be formulated into various scenarios depicting the potential futures.
The analysis of this small amount of project material indicates that systematic risk assessment methods tend to direct the analysis towards instrumental, consensual and exclusive analysis of the future.
in order to illustrate the potentiality of the future and possible future risks. The challenge of making a bridge between foresight
relevant collaborative networks and future actions. o Diverse future perspectives refer to understanding diverse ideas, opinions and perspectives in priority-setting,
or give tips for the future. 4. 2. Contingent and holistic processes Foresight activities and methodologies may have benefits that will support the risk analysis methods and activities in the development towards a more holistic approach.
The future target, e g. a scenario, may not have a sufficient level of detail. It was noticed also that both processes
In our view, the most promising benefit in integrating risk assessment and FTA APPROACHES seems to be the aspect of creating safety and opening up new future possibilities.
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.
Since future and risks are always ontologically unknown to us, there exist no facts about the future
and risks are always contingent. Therefore, we are forced to collect and construct the knowledge create an understanding and share it in networks of people.
Futures and safe situations, or at least safety predispositions, are created by people. That is why network building is the crucial part of assessment processes and methodologies.
and creating the best possible knowledge of the future and risks, and being all the time aware of the possible threats and opportunities of the complex world,
and to create knowledge to help decision making in defining management strategies concerning the changes the future may cause.
A good modelling tool would be helpful to model the future interdependencies. Roadmap, SWOT analysis
Either way, both approaches may benefit methodologically from each other in developing better methods for assessing the futures.
The new approach future-oriented impact assessment (FIA) is seen also promising in integrating methodologically risk assessment into the whole innovation process.
the future risk assessment shows up as a methodology that should increasingly adapt supplementary elements from many different approaches such as FTA.
SWOT analysis, benchmarking, expert panels (new knowledge creation) Technology roadmaps, backcasting, narrative scenarios (visions of the future) Constructive technology assessment,
/Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1163 1176 5 European commission, Thinking, Debating and Shaping the Future:
and using future-oriented expert information, including the links between foresight knowledge, corporate strategy and innovation policy.
Futures methodology issues 1. Introduction There are many methods and approaches to the study of the future.
observing, and interpreting the future directions and consequences of societal, economic, and technological change, but also the methodological approaches used in their analysis vary greatly.
There are few attempts to aggregate futures data and build current work on proven prior work. The result, for better or worse, is that the field lacks the consistency and coherence that mark more scientific fields.
forty years from now nearly all futures methods will be conducted in software, through networks, with diverse and changing sets of people, continually cross-referencing data,
Hence, the image of a few bright people, using a few interesting methods to forecast the future,
may be replaced by the image of many people interacting with many combinations of methods to shape the future by blurring the distinctions between research and decision making.
Some of these undiscoverable events may turn out to be the most important aspects of the future.
However, just when then does an idea about the future move from wild speculation to plausible and worthy of consideration?
How does vision of the future and perceptions of reality change? Or, more importantly, how do breakthroughs really happen
Thus, we and others argue that instead of using forecasting methods to produce single-value deterministic images of the future,
its behavior resembles random motion or noise), then prediction of the future of the system (interest rates,
the analyst can identify the future limits of operation of a system and set plans to accommodate those limits, saying, in effect,
He is the founder and Board member of The Futures Group International and member of the Board of the Institute for Global Ethics, UK.
or edited 12 books on the future. He can be contacted at jglenn@igc. org. Ana Jakil is interning with Millennium Project for the American Council for the United nations University.
Along with increasing significance of innovation in socioeconomic development grows the need to utilize future-oriented knowledge in innovation policy-making.
Innovation policy Science and Technology indicators Barometer Future-oriented knowledge 1. Introduction A growing number of different international comparison systems of the economic and innovation performance of nations have emerged within a decade 2
as well as a future-oriented survey exploring future visions of relevant national actors like industries, policy-makers and politicians, research community and future generations,
and accordingly future-oriented knowledge shall be interlinked properly to the past development path. In technology barometer this challenge is solved by dividing the exercise first into a comparison of the performance of the Finnish innovation system with selected nations on a basis of available international indicators
The combination of the indicator-based comparative study and the future-oriented survey into one instrument creates a unique platform for the further analyses of the economic
The third group Politicians consists of members of the Finnish Parliament's Committee for the Future, provincial leaders,
as well as their expectations for the foreseeable future. By doing this, the survey complements and diversifies the results of the indicator study by allowing the mutual comparison of the four respondent groups'views
what will be the content of knowledge-intensive jobs retained by Finland in future and how should Finland direct
has generated a vivid national discussion of the strengths and weaknesses as well as the future directions of the Finnish economy and innovation system.
Moreover, the process of developing Finnish national strategic centres for science, technology and innovation is underway in the technology fields with future importance for businesses and the society.
there is also a need to increase the proactive and future-oriented elements in technology barometer. More future-oriented evaluative schemes and templates are needed
in order to grasp and understand the wider systemic challenges of the innovation practices. One new approach to be integrated in the barometer structure in the future can be oriented the future concept of impact assessment
which is currently under the development at VTT. This approach seeks to combine evaluative ex-ante impact assessment
Revolution or a History of the Future, 1991 New york, XXXX. 11 M. Castells, The Rise of Network Society, The Information age:
and explains one of the methods the future online survey in more detail. The German Foresight process of the BMBF delivers results on different levels:
and technology and was broadened to look into the future of the next 10 to 15 years and even further.
not only look at the future themes but also the innovation system and the actors working in the fields. A bibliometric analysis provided further input in this process.
and future sustainability were necessary. The online survey was designed as a check if the topics that were already found as future-relevant for German science
and technology landscape are really relevant and if theymeet the criteria of the process. In order to keep it simple and user-friendly,
These are unaccepted the most research topics for the future. The first examples are both related to nuclear research,
in order to address the critical challenges of the future. This future field needs a new dimension in research on systemic change,
including very different disciplines. Complexity, modelling and simulation: new aspects to handle complexity with modelling
but was promoted by the coming year 2000 and the demand for knowledge about the future.
, 2000, pp. 78 92.8 Horizon scan Report, Towards a Future Oriented Policy and Knowledge Agenda, COS, The hague, 2007, www. horizonscan. nl. 9 K. Cuhls
An Attitudinal Perspective, Technological forecasting and Social Change, vol. 25,1984, pp. 281 292.16 K. Cuhls, K. Blind, H. Grupp, Innovations for our future.
, H. Grupp, Innovations for our future. Delphi'98: new foresight on science and technology, Technology, Innovation and Policy, Series of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation research ISI no. 13, Physica, Heidelberg, 2002.30 Science and Technology foresight Center, Ministry
Understanding use, impacts and the role of institutional context factors Axel Volkery, Teresa Ribeiro European Environment Agency, Strategic Futures Group, Kongens Nytorv 6, DK 1050
and values and helps finding common ground for future action, which in turn is a key essence of policy-making.
taking into account the limitations to shaping the future 18. These direct forms of scenario planning require delivery of more targeted information
. While numerous alternative methodologies exist for future strategic planning, we limited ourselves mainly to literature on scenario planning,
Treatment of surprise and discontinuities A reason often quoted for using scenario planning as a decision support tool is its ability to reduce overconfidence about the future 35.
and less successful in appraising the robustness of options for future action. A couple of arguments were raised to explain this notion.
In particular this concerns examples of futures thinking that failed to make knowledge useful failed to link it to the real concerns of decision makers,
and futures thinking in more general terms, was described to often be isolated a rather activity. 4. 2. Factors determining success Institutional capacity-building was deemed an important requirement for making overall progress.
and support decision-making include the 5 The Future Analyst Network (FAN-Club) has been established as a permanent network of people dealing with future-related issues in different departments, agencies and the private sector. 1203
The Committee for the Future which is appointed by Parliament and is the only parliamentary committee specifically dedicated to general future concerns in a member country of the European union,
prepares a statement in response. At the same time, the procedure has included a series of Regional Future Forums.
Some critical aspects of institutional arrangements can be distinguished. First, analysis can be conducted by actors within the public administration,
Does this assessment mean that future efforts should concentrate rather on indirect forms of scenario-based decision support,
improving willingness to consider a range of plausible futures, increasingly willingness to think innovatively about robust strategies
In the short run, it can be helpful where the choice of futures tools is appropriate,
References 1 Wavfrify, The role of futures thinking in government: report of the February FAN Club meeting, Prepared for the Horizon scanning Centre, 2008, available at:
and evolution of scenario techniques in long range business planning, Futures 37 (8)( 2005) 795 812.10 R. J. Lempert, S w. Popper, S. C
New methods for Quantitative, Longer-Term Policy analysis, 2003, RAND MR-1626-RPC. 11 C. Selin, Trust and illusive force of scenarios, Futures 38 (1
Exploring the relationship between scenario planning and perceptions of learning organization characteristics, Futures 38 (7)( 2006) 767 777.21 Y. Garb, S. Pulver, S. Vandeveer, Scenarios in society
M. B. A. van Asselt, Practicing the scenario axis technique, Futures 38 (1)( 2006) 15 30.27 D. Groves, D. Knopman, R. Lempert, S. Berry,
2006, pp. 57 62.35 P. Van Notten, A m. Sleegers, M. B. A. van Asselt, The future shocks:
on discontinuity and scenario development, Futures 35 (5)( 2003) 423 443.36 Theo J. B. M. Postma, Franz Liebl, How to improve scenario analysis as a strategic management tool?
Assessment of Strategic Alternatives, Edinburgh, 2008.43 K. Van der Heijden, Can internally generated futures accelerate organisational learning?
Futures 36 (2)( 2004) 145 159. Axel Volkery, Phd, is a project manager for policy and scenario analysis at the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Teresa Ribeiro heads the Strategic Futures Group of the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Received 17 november 2008 Received in revised form 15 july 2009 Accepted 27 july 2009 The democratic deficit (the‘deficit'hereafter) in present institutional Foresight(‘Foresight'hereafter) lies in its participation regime.
but wide spread of stakeholders who will help to shape the future of society through the practical scheme proposed.
Foresight Inclusivity Critical systems Heuristics Nanotechnology 1. Institutional Foresight Institutional Foresight programmes(‘Foresight'hereafter) now occupy a prominent position in the minds of public policy makers.
of important influences that may shape the future of research and indirectly society. It is far from clear that the sponsors of Foresight studies,
national or international are included in future programmes then who are the new groups of people who need to be included?
in all decisions made in the polity in creating the future, a feature pointed out in the 1970s).
or severely restrict the future evolution of nano artifacts many of which are already on sale and widely accepted as desirable artifacts including high factor sun screens, tennis racquets reinforced with carbon nanotubes,
The influence of the EU's Code of conduct (the Code hereafter) for nanoscience nano-technology and nano artifacts is a further matter shaping the future situation surrounding the nano-field.
The seven principles of the Code are: Precaution Inclusiveness though not in the sense used in this paper Integrity Better and constant vigilance to assess developments
of which featured in the earlier discussion of inclusiveness. 6. Epilogue The paper has described a metaphor for Inclusive foresight rather than to be a definitive exposition of future situations
The future of nanotechnologies and their impacts on society require widespread participation in elucidating their acceptability in society.
By suggesting mechanisms to achieve Inclusive foresight the aim is to contribute to the discussions on the future of the nano-field.
Loveridge, Computers and you, Futures 15 (6)( 1983) 498 503.8 E. Powell, Politicians and the future, Futures (1979) 338 341 August 9 A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity
institute for the future's study of the UK: 1978 95, Futures 14 (3)( 1982) 205 239 June 13 D. Loveridge, Foresight seven paradoxes, International Journal of Technology management 21 (7/8
)( 2001) 781 791.14 D. Loveridge, Foresight: The Art and Science of Anticipating the Future, Routledge, NY, 2009.15 H. G. Daellenbach, Systems thinking & Decision making:
A Management Science Approach, John Wiley, 2001.16 Sir G. Vickers, Appreciative behaviour, Acta Psychologica 21 (1963) 274 293.17 W. Ulrich, The design
An application to prospecting futures of the responsible development of nanotechnology Douglas K. R. Robinson STEPS, University of Twente, Enschede, The netherlands a r t i c l e i n
Scenarios have often been used to create a synthesis of future-oriented aspects prior to an interactive workshop,
and deep case research 4 into scenario narratives which place emphasis on the how paths to the future may unfold
actors anticipate on futures and these expectations influence their attempts to shape activities 21. Recent projects such as Socrobust 11 were an attempt at creating anticipatory management
and partial irreversibilisation turning the fluid into the stabilised 9. Future scripts 23, which focus on actors'estimates about desired futures,
and promoters who project a linear path from their technology option into the future described in Box 1) and attempted to broaden this concentric bias by taking into consideration open-ended nature of their projections and structured explorations of the journey-like
Paths to the future do not fall out of the sky, they are based on the dynamics of the present:
and insights into the transition from present into future. 2. 3. Endogenous futures While new (emerging science and technology introduce novelties,
Thus, they span up an endogenous future. The idea of endogenous future is midway between attempts at prediction
(which are always precarious) and the suggestion that everything is still possible (and it is just a matter of actors deciding on
of dynamics extending into the future, including irreversibilities that arise. This is the task of scenario builder.
mutual dependencies and network ties there is an endogenous future 11. While actors will always take enabling and constraining factors in the situation into account,
Scenarios are used not anymore to extrapolate particular developments into the future but rather, to enhance the reflexivity of actors regarding strategic decisions
and constrain) the future are particularly visible in the coupled evolution of research, production and use of nanoparticles and the consideration of risks of nanotechnology. 10 Fig. 3 visualizes this (up to 2008.
Contrary to many traditional scenario building techniques, these co-evolutionary scenarios do not present mutually exclusive futures. In this way they are similar to the functions of expectations the scenarios can be read
This was one vision of the future proposed by a number of codes of conduct tabled in the December 2007 EU meeting.
they should have listened to user needs rather than contemplating far off utopian and dystopian sci-fi futures Consequence of division of RRI labour:
The Yearbook of Nanotechnology in Society, Presenting Futures, vol. I, Springer, Berlin, 2008.4 F. W. Geels, Towards sociotechnical scenarios and reflexive anticipation:
Concepts, Spaces and Tools, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2002.8 J. Schot, A. Rip, The past and future of constructive technology assessment, Technol.
Essays on Power, Technology and Domination, Routledge, London, 1991, pp. 132 161.23 B. de Laat, Scripts for the future technological foresight, strategic analysis and socio technical networks:
relations to emerging societal and industrial needs, with illustrations of future possibilities by way of concrete manifestations (such as innovations).
Smart decision making linked to the ability to innovate calls for the anticipation and exploration of future directions through a societal debate within policy making,
and business decision making a much stronger orientation and capability to address the future in a more systematic way.
and technology was formulated by Ben Martin as‘the process involved in systematically attempting to look into the longer-term future of science, technology,
cross-societal discussion of the future prospects for science and technology and with implementing the results of such discussions in priorities for public expenditures on research.
First, foresight exercises include future societal and economic needs and possibilities in the setting of priorities.
1) exploring future opportunities so that priorities for investment in science and innovation activities can be set;(
Foresight and similar future-oriented technology analysis methodds such as trend extrapolation, scenarios, Delphi analysis, focus groups, cross-impact analyses and roadmapping, can be found in traditional business-school
and lists of approaches and methood for foresight have been suggested by different authors in review articles on foresight and future-oriented technology assessment methods (Technology Futures analysis Methodsworking Group 2004).
In the same way, foresight exercises and similar strategic activities aim to position national research optimally in relation to future opportuniitie in the strategic environment of national research programmes:
underpinning priorities related to scientific strengths rather than future societal or industrial potentials The strategy of developing new production and consumption systems:
For example, wordings like‘hypotheses about future applications'are understood easier than‘Delphi statement'.'Fourth, foresight exercises are understood often
The strategy processes can benefit from better articulated expectations about future technologiies It is not enough to argue that a certain technology offers great opportunities for future commercial exploitation.
and future energy technologies. He has headed and participated in numerous national and international studies. Mads Borup is a senior scientist at the Innovation systems
Technology future analysis: towards integration of the field and new methods. Technological forecasting and Social Change 71, no. 3: 287 303.
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