Synopsis: Future(s): Future:


Science.PublicPolicyVol39\12. National, sectoral and technological innovation systems.pdf

Ding, Y.-X. 2001)‘ The history, current condition and future of pharmaceutical industry('.'In: Zheng, S.-J. ed.)The History of Pharmacology in Taiwan(),pp. 227 32.

A review of the past and projectiio for the future',Forum for Agricultural Innovation and Development Council of Agriculture, 26 nov 2004, pp. 15 21.


Science.PublicPolicyVol39\2. Orienting European innovation systems towards grand challenges and the roles.pdf

technology and innovation (STI) systems might be reoriented to better address several grand challenges that affect not only contemporary societies but also the future of human civilisation itself.

and adapt to the future and thus address common challennges and to spread democracy and transparency at the global level.

These are oriented future processes that offer policy -and decision-makers the potential to look across (disruptive) transformations

They can also assist in managing the uncertainty associated with innovation activities and with the future more broadly by providing spaces for policy,

and understanding future solutions that run counter to mainstream practices. This can be a first step in trying to overcome certain lock ins and path-dependencies along specific socio-technical trajectories.

and devise future-proof strategies Develop reference material for policy-makers and other actors to use, broadening the knowledge base around

and dynamic multilateral partnerships Develop widely shared visions of the future with which actors can identify

and practice for thinking about the future something that is often termed a‘foresight culture'Enhance the standing

In the same vein, three PPPS were established under the European Economic Recovery Plan to help industries that were hit severely by the economic recession (Factories of the Future, Energy efficient Buildings and Green Cars.

The identification of grand challenges and the corresponding priorities for research and innovation through the use of forward-looking activities is mentioned explicitly in the Council's conclusions (December 2009) 7 on guidance on future priorities for European research.

for example, provide insights into longer-term developments, scope and opportunities for shaping futures, and mutual positioning of other innovation system actors vis-a vis the future.

In addition to these, FTA PROCESSES can encourage multi-disciplinarity in research needed when exploring the nature and impacts of grand challenges as well as their possible solutions Informing role of FTA can be embedded within EU instruments in the steps of challenge/problem identificatiion prioritisation of associated themes and areas for research,

of visions and expectations that guide actors in their search and selection of future opportunities.

or launched new initiativves such as the Lund Declaration11 that shall be the basis for designing the EU's future policies for research and innovation.

nanoelectronics (ENIAC) and fuel cells and hydrogen (FCH) as well as the Future Internet Initiative. 6. See<http://cordis. europa. eu/fp7/jtis/about-jti en. html>accessed 19 dec 2011.7.

Council of the European union, Guidance on future priorities for European research and research-based innovation in post-2010 Lisbon strategy, Council conclussions Brussels, 8 december 2009.8.

Boden, M.,Cagnin, C.,Carabias, V.,Haegeman, K. and Ko nno la, T. 2010)‘ Facing the future:

New approaches to governance',Futures, 43: 279 91. CEC. 2010)‘ Communication from the Commission to the European parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social, Committee and the Committee of the Regions, Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative Innovation Union',SEC (2010) 1161

Community actors, institutions and multilevel governance in regional foresight exercises',Futures, 36:46 65. Hall, B. H. and Rosenberg, N. 2010) Handbook of the Economics of Innovation.


Science.PublicPolicyVol39\3. Coping with a fast-changing world.pdf

The reasons are manifold relating to the need for an even tighter embedding of FTA in policy-making in a fast-changing complex environment as well as to internal drivers for novel forms of future intelligence to support coordinated and coherent decisions within and across organisations.

and their effectiveness in tackling a range of futures and related needs. A typology of future requirements to be addressed by FTA,

including exploration of the future and preparednees for the unknown, will be developed. Drawing on recent experiences with alternative models of FTA systems, solutions will be identified based on a combinattio of social

organisational and technological innovations at the three levels of FTA systems, to make FTA fit for the challenges of the future.

Against this conceptual background the four guiding questions addressed in the subsequent sections are:.What areas and types of transformations will require anticipatory action?

What do these findings suggest with regard to the future direction to take for organising FTA ACTIVITIES? The structure of the remainder of this paper is as follows:

Section 2 addresses the first two questions, including also the future conceptual requirements for FTA systems that are likely to emerge,

The analysis will clarify the potential of different institutional models for tackling different types of future requirements.

There is an emerging stream of FTA ACTIVITY geared to providing future-oriented knowledge for decision-making on a more continuous Figure 2. Modes of governance (modified from Thompson et al. 1990.

but also possible disruptive events or developments that may radicalll influence the future. This trend reflects growing attentiio to uncertainties and complexities,

This is crucial if they are to be able to point to future risks and potential disruptions that are not yet at the top of the current policy agendas. 2. 3. 3 FTA networks.

Joint visions and action plans prepare for common futures. Networked FTA Competition mode of governance. Optimising the market conditions.

whereas a number of other methods are applied to develop future plans and action-oriented recommendations for decision-making.

or foresight activities tailored to exploring the future in the context of science, technology and innovation (STI) policies and achieving impact on national innovation systems (NIS).

but also to shape the future, building upon mutual understanding and common visions which are to be pursued jointly.

systemic and structural transformation of organisations'premises and practices, with the ultimate goal of handling current and future technological, economic and societal challenges in line with the goals defined by the organisation.

In the case of parliamentary TA, the argument in favour of dedicated future intelligence can be made in a very straightforward manner.

Future intelligence units were expected increasingly to provide forward-looking knowledge for operational and R&d units rather than fulfilling an exploratory think-tank function for top-level management,

Multiple factors influence the ways in which the future will evolve, and existing institutions have not yet been able to develop a fully systemic view of current

and possible future situations to be prepared for properly shaping the future. Identifying weak signals and developiin scenarios are crucial tools in preparing for the unexpeccted

and to translate these into common visions of the future of the world which can be pursued jointly.

and monitoriin in order to ensure that FTA systems can address fast-changing requirements of the future.

Funtowitz, S. and Ravetz, J. R. 1994)‘ Emergent complex systems',Futures, 26: 568 82. Geels, F. W. and Schot, J. 2007)‘ Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways',Research policy, 36: 399 417.164.

2011)‘ From priority-setting to societal challenges in future-oriented technology analysis',Futures, 43: 229 31. Joos, W.,Carabias, V.,Winisto rfer, H. and Stu cheli, A. 1999)‘ Social aspects of public waste management in Switzerland',Waste Management, 19: 417 25.

Ko nno la, T.,Salo, A.,Cagnin, C.,Carabias, V. and Vilkkumaa, E. 2012a)‘ Facing the future:

Nordmann, A. 2004)‘ Converging technologies Shaping the future of European societies',Report of an Expert Group to the European commission.

Rijkens-Klomp, N. and van der Duin, P. 2012) Evaluating local and national public foresight studies from a user perspecctive Futures (forthcoming.


Science.PublicPolicyVol39\4. Orienting international science cooperation to meet global ‘grand challenges’.pdf

and the uncertainties involved in future global governance regimes. Foresight offers a means to explore these dimensions of science.

This paper sets out to describe the conduct of the ICSU foresight exercise with a view to identifying lessons for future foresight exercises carried out in international arenas.

and the present of international science cooperation Before thinking about the futures of international science cooperation,

it commissioned a meta-analysis of the results of several existing national foresight exercises with the aim of identifying future priority areas for international science cooperation (Teixera et al. 2002.

a scenario approach that captures multiple futures was embraced. The exercise was led by ICSU's Committee on Scientific Planning

The scope of the exercise therefore oscillated between the narrower scope of ICSU's future organisational positioning and the future transformation of international science cooperation..

In order to create a desirable vision of the future that is somewhat grounded, it is first important to explore the so-called future‘possibility space'.

or so to explore, in a structured way, future key drivers of change. On top of this, several dedicated activities were organised,

importance of the driver in shaping future developmeent over the next 20 years in international science. uncertainty around the direction and dynamics of the driver over the next 20 years and the impacts it is likely to have on international science

and begin to address differing views among a large community about its shared future. For ICSU, such a process was intended to inform collective strategic choices about its future role.

and to use them as a basis for developing contrasting explorrator scenarios of the future of international science cooperation.

and relevant with regard to the future of international science..All scenario spaces should plausibly be able to include positive and negative traits

The future preferences of states on socioeconomic development models will impact on international science. The present range of options extends from market-based economies to stronger developmental state intervention to communism,

The relationship between science and society is likely to have a significant impact on the future of international science.

The types of future international collaborative research infrastructures will have a significant impact on international science, presuming that there is an ongoing commitment to such structures at all.

offer four distinct, yet plausible images of the future‘world order'and of international science cooperation 20 years from now.

They are intended not as predictions of the future. Indeed it is a near certainty that none of these scenarios will come to pass as articulated.

and to expand the‘possibility space'on future courses of action. They put more emphasis on the multiplicity of futures

and are meant to encourage the development of strategies that are appropriate to a variety of circumstances,

and other interested parties develop‘agility'to manage future uncertainties. 3. 2. 3 Phase 3:

and encouraged a more rigorous treatment of the key drivers of change that are likely to impact on the future state and directions of internatiiona cooperation in science over the longer term.

only its general contours are presented in Box 2. Through‘backcasting'from the future success scenario of 2031 to the present day,

Some commentators misunderstood the exercise as being concerned with predicting the future, but they were a small minority.

but could be introduced during future strategic planning processes, as is done often in business environments (Mendonc¸a et al. 2003).

while the European Science Foundation (ESF) created a programme of Forward Looks in 2000 as an instrument for developing medium term perspectives on future directions of multi-disciplinary research in Europe. 4 In national settings,

foresight has been proven to be a useful tool for bringing together different stakeholders in processes of mutual learning and exchange of expectations of the future,

and for improving organisatioona agility vis-a vis future unpredictable change (Miles et al. 2008). These are all qualities that that can benefit international science cooperation as it seeks to address many of the grand challenges of our time.

Notes 1. The German Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (2010) has developed also exploratory scenarios for the future of the European research landscape in 2025.2.

Towards a user's guide',Futures, 38: 723 39. Cagnin, C. and Ko nno la, T. 2011)‘ The challenge of global foresight:

Fahey, L. and Randell, R. eds) Learning from the future. New york: Wiley. Royal Society. 2011) Knowledge, Networks and Nations:

Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World. New york: Wiley. Teixeira, A.,Martin, B. and von Tunzelmann, N. 2002)‘ Identification of Key Emerging Issues in Science and Society:

European Science Foundation. van‘t Klooster, S. A. and van Asselt, M. B. A. 2006)‘ Practising the scenario-axes technique',Futures, 38:15 30.


Science.PublicPolicyVol39\5. Innovation policy roadmapping as a systemic instrument for forward-looking.pdf

and conclude by assessing the future potential of the IPRM approach. 2. Systemicity, foresight and forward-looking policy design The concept of a system has different emphases in different branches of the innovation literature.

like exploring future opportunities in order to set priorities for investment in science and innovation activities, reorienttin the science and innovation system, demonstrating the vitality of the science and innovation system, bringing new actors into the strategic debate,

usually research-based, views on futures)..Facilitating policy implementation (widening the change capacities in a certain policy community..

and the analysis of the wider societal setting and to enable systematic analysis of future-oriented ideas that could spring either from technological development, policy practices or more generic societal development.

Therefore organizations that are involved can utilize the vision as a‘beacon'for navigating towards the future.

and depicts the participants'common understanding of future societal and market needs. The fourth way to use roadmaps is with visionary strategizing.

The first way is oriented future i e. to define a desired vision and the related future targets,

and start to extrapolate steps backwards from the vision towards the present stage. This method is known as backcasting.

The third way is a hybrid between the future-oriented and present-oriented methods. Hybridization allows the roadmapping process to escape process lock ins that can result from too rigid a process.

which can contribute to dealing with the web of future dependencies. The first case study (green and intelligent buildings in Victoria Australia) was an example of a transformmatio roadmap that was completed as part of a wider regional strategy for industrial renewal.


Science.PublicPolicyVol39\6. Embedding foresight in transnational research programming.pdf

As current governance systems are incapable of tackling current and future, interconnected, global challennge (Ko nno la et al. 2012),

whether future costs are taken into account in today's policy-making. This is crucial for ensuring synergies between the programmes,

and carefully planned workshoops 317 future-oriented research issues were proposed by researchers and assessed by researchers

To this end, longer-term strategic requirements with a 10 5 year outlook are identified in a systematic way, building on knowledge about future aspects of animal disease develoopmen in Europe and the world,

business opportunities and needs for new co-operation structures Support identification of breakthrroug innovations on functions of cities in future (2020 50) Embedding foresight in transnational research programming. 197 3

scenarrio for long-term urban developments, an improved understanding of future trends and research needs, first concepts and recommendations for policy measures, a strengthening of the European research and innovation communities,

the ministries and organisations involved, their respective visions for the future, and their plans for Table 5. Ways in which foresight addresses co-ordination challenges in transnational research programming Co-ordination challenge Wood Wisdom-Net EMIDA Urban Joint

and capabilities to benefit from planned programme Proposals for new/additional foresights aiming to cover identified gaps in future outlooks on regional

and starting new initiatives with European R&i communities Temporal co-ordination Consultation on research issues among stakeholders provided future-oriented information on directtio and interests of research community.

desirable futures and pathways towards these futures for specific Urban Europe topics Use of a pilot call to improved understanding of future trends

Joint visions and joint research agendas also facilitate the alignment of future joint programmes and of research infrastructure planning with these programmmes The participation of the actors in research systems in a foresight process may also promote transparennc

Foresight may enhance vertical co-ordination by taking stock of previous anticipattor studies and existing visions for the future at regional, national and transnational level.

A gap analysis on missing future outlooks may propose additional studies at regional, national or transnational level.

Temporal co-ordination can be enhanced by foresight through the joint development of a vision for the future and of a roadmap towards it,

Also (pilot) calls can be used to increase the accumulation of knowledge on future trends, scenarios and other relevant data (by dedicating a pilot call to research on such future-oriented issues)

and to help building communities over time, thus making use of the collective knowledge of wider stakeholder groups.

where a pilot call is planned to collect additional intelligence on future trends and scenarrio and support the construction of stakeholder communities and platforms.

novelty, tentative researcher's interest and description how the researcher would like to contribute to future projects on the issue.

A set of examples of internet-based tools allowing for integration of data of all sorts in future-oriented technollog analysis can be found in Haegeman et al.

and shaping the future: Foresight for Europe'.'Final Report of the High level Expert Group for the European commission, 24 april 2002.

Ko nno la, T.,Salo, A.,Cagnin, C.,Carabias, V. and Vilkkumaa, E. 2012)‘ Facing the future:


Science.PublicPolicyVol39\7. On concepts and methods in horizon scanning.pdf

-and decision-makers about new and future opportunities as well as threats and have prepared them (or make them aware) for drastic changes and surprises/shocks.

Building on the advantages and disadvantages of each tool and method, Section 4 evaluates the different approaches and tools based on evaluation criteria reflectiin the information needs of policy-makers about new and future opportunities and threats.

future, emerging, promising, threatening, solutioons discoveries, problems, crisis, tensions, growth, breakthroughs, breakdowns, or new insights in combinaatio with the domain demarcating keywords..

It comes close to the concept of future narratives as used by Van der Steen (2008) in his political discourse analysis. Van der Steen (2008) sees future narratives as‘stories about what the future,

They usually describe a future narrative or mini scenario that, according to the cited author or source, should be taken into account by policymakers, society and/or research.

Signals are sought then that give a full or substantial future narrative with high impact for a certain policy level.

which describe a future narrative with a foreseen great impact on future science, society or economy in combination with a need for present-day (policy) decisions to prevent,

or multiple future storyline leading to the impact. The story often contains some recommenddations or at least suggestions,

or plausible assumptions in a logical way with a foreseen future high impact are considered. These high impact items are supporrte by reliable sources such as:

Conferences may also be particularly interesting for making contact with future-oriented experts as well as policy-makers in the relevant domains.

These searches and interviews lead to a selection of more or less full descriptions of potential emerging issues (future narratives)

In general, however, the potential of Twitter to become a main tool for retrieving future-oriented information is high as colleagues,

scientists and other futurists consider future analysts to be their most valuable source for weak signals (Hiltunen 2008b).

With a better understanding of the blogosphher it would be possible to develop tools to use collective wisdom to scan future-related signals and emerging issues.

However, they are useful for discussing with future-oriented experts as well as with policy-makers the validity of hypotheses on specific emerging issues or their novelty

if they are considdere to be of relevance for the future but have not been taken sufficiently into consideration by policy and society thus far.

Notwithstanding, a strong future narrative is able to draw the attention of the participants and agenda setters.

But, there is not only competition among future narratives but also between future narratives and present-day competing events

This means that not only the evidence-based plausible storyline in the identified future narrative counts.

Boden, M.,Cagnin, C.,Carabias, V.,Haegeman, K. and Ko nno la, T. 2010)‘ Facing the future:

Botterhuis, L.,van der Duin, P.,de Ruijtera, P. and van Wijck, P. 2010)‘ Monitoring the future.

Building an early warning system for the Dutch Ministry of Justice',Futures, 42: 454 65. Brohee, S.,Barriot, R. and Moreau, Y. 2010)‘ Biological knowleedg bases using Wikis:

Georghiou, L. 2007)‘ Future of foresighting for economic development',UNIDO, Vienna.<<http://www. unido. org/foresight/rwp/dokums pres/tf plenary georghiou 201. pdf>accessed 8 september 2011.

Hiltunen, E. 2008a)‘ The future sign and its three dimensions',Futures, 40: 247 60..(2008b)‘ Good sources of weak signals:

Ko nno la, T.,Salo, A.,Cagnin, C.,Carabias, V. and Vilkkumaa, E. 2012)‘ Facing the future:

The Art and Science of Anticipating the Future'.'New york and London: Routledge. Mandavilli, A. 2011)‘ Trial by Twitter',Nature, 469/7330: 286 7. Marvin, H. J. P.,Kleter, G. A.,Frewer, L j.,Cope, S. et al.

Improving futures through Web 2. 0; or, finally a use for Twitter',Futures, 42: 1222 30.

Saritas, O. and Smith, J. E. 2011)‘ The Big Picture: Trends, drivers, wild cards, discontinuities and weak signals',Futures, 43: 292 312.

Smith, J.,Cook, A. and Packer, C. 2010)‘ Evaluation criteria to assess the value of identification sources for horizon scanning',International Journal of Technology assessment in Health care, 26: 348 53.

(2012)‘ Wild cards as future shakers and shapers'.'In: Giaoutzi, M. and Sapio, B. eds) Recent developments in Foresight methodologies.


Science.PublicPolicyVol39\8. Facing the future - Scanning, synthesizing and sense-making in horizon scanning.pdf

Facing the future: Scanning, synthesizing and sense-making in horizon scanning Totti Ko nno la 1,,

totti. konnola@impetusolutions. com. In this paper, we discuss key issues in harnessing horizon scanning to shape systemic policies, particularly in the light of the foresight exercise‘Facing the future:

futures. 1. Introduction In future-oriented technology analysis (FTA), the systematti exploration of divergent views on future developments has tended to receive less attention than approaches that foster consensus seeking (Ko nno la et al. 2011;

and policy-makers have expressed in exploring alternative and even conflicting interpretations of the future (Kuosa 2010;

we elucidate these processes in the light of the horizon scanning exercise‘Facing the future: Time for the EU to meet global challenges,

and the OECD Futures Programme. Methodological advances have been pursued, for instance, in the Framework programme 7 Blue sky Foresight projects on emerging issues that shape European science and technoloog (Amanatidou et al. 2012.

of which future developments are Facing the future: Horizon scanning. 223 potentially significant and thus worth scanning. Here, there may be bias to align scanning exercises along well-established fields

what future-relevant observations will be submitted (Hiltunen 2008; Mendonc¸a et al. 2004. Especially in the case of weak signals and wild cards, sense-making builds on the scanners'creative and heuristic capabilities to detect meaningful observations in the presence of scattered or no historical evidence (Dervin 1998.

Facing the future In 2008 9, the BEPA of the EC organized a series of foresiigh activities (European communities 2009;

with the aim of identifying future trends and disruptive events that could have major implications on EU policy-making by 2025 (cf.

and phases of foresight exercise‘Facing the future'(Boden et al. 2010). Facing the future: Horizon scanning. 225 developed using a participatory approach.

BEPA emphasized that policy relevance was a crucial criterion in the selection of these reports.

=mean-oriented analysis, V=variance-oriented analysis, R=rare eventorieente analysis Facing the future: Horizon scanning. 227 the individual crosscutting challenges proposed by workshop participants into five categories and then, on the second day of the workshop,

The need for more effective and transparent governannc that allows institutions to anticipate future challennge

Seen from this perspective, the BEPA Facing the future: Horizon scanning. 229 exercise can also be seen as an example of building an international anticipatory system,

To sum up, we have illustrated that horizonscanning activities need not be limited to the collection of future-oriented observations.

we have presented the foresight exercise‘Facing the future: Time for the EU to meet global challenges'which has informed the strategy processes of BEPA

discontinuities and weak signals likely to share the future (Saritas and Smith 2011). The particularly novel issues from this survey were added to the issues collected from the literature review. 4. These issues plus the 73 additional issues identified by the survey participants can be found at<http://foresight. jrc. ec. europa. eu/bepa. html

Boden, M.,Cagnin, C.,Carabias, V.,Haegeman, K. and Ko nno la, T. 2010)‘ Facing the future:

Botterhuis, L.,van der Duin, P.,de Ruijter, P. and van Wijck, P. 2010)‘ Monitoring the future.

Building an early warning system for the Dutch Ministry of Justice',Futures, 42: 454 465. Brummer, V.,Ko nno la, T. and Salo, A. 2008)‘ Foresight within Era nets:

Foresight for research and innovation policy and strategy',Futures, 43: 243 51. Glenn, J. C.,Gordon, T. J. and Florescu, E. 2010) State of the Future, The Millenium Project.

WASHINGTON DC: The Millennium Project. Graefe, A.,Luckner, S. and Weinhardt, C. 2010)‘ Prediction markets for foresight',Futures, 42: 394 404.

Haegeman, K.,Cagnin, C.,Ko nno la, T.,Dimitrov, G. and Collins, D. 2011)‘ Web 2. 0 for foresight:

Hiltunen, E. 2008)‘ The future sign and its three dimensions',Futures, 40: 247 60. Ko nno la, T. and Unruh, G. C. 2007)‘ Really changing the course:

Impacts and implicatiion on policy-making',Futures, 43: 252 64. Kuosa, T. 2010)‘ Futures signals sense-making framework (FSSF:

A start-up tool to analyse and categorise weak signals, wild cards, drivers, trends and other types of informatiion'Futures, 42:42 8. Liesio, J.,Mild, P. and Salo,

A. 2007)‘ Preference pogramming for robust portfolio modeling and project selection',European Journal of Operational Research, 181: 1488 505.

Mendonc¸A s.,Pina e Cunha, M.,Kaivo-oja, J. and Ruff, F. 2004)‘ Wild cards, weak signals and organisational improvisattion'Futures, 36: 201 18.

The case for and nature of foresight 2. 0',Futures, 42: 282 94. Nonaka, I. 1994)‘ A dynamic theory of organizational knowleedg creation',Organization science, 5: 14 37.

Saritas, O. and Smith, J. E. 2011)‘ The big picture trends, drivers, wild cards, discontinuities and weak signals',Futures, 43: 292 312.

Schoen, A.,Ko nno la, T.,Warnke, P.,Barre',R. and Kuhlmann, S. 2011)‘ Tailoring foresight to field specificities',Futures, 43: 232 42.

Facing the future: Horizon scanning. 231


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