Impact

Economic impact (4)
Impact (721)
Impact analysis (17)
Impact assessment (106)
Long-term impact (13)
Negative impact (12)
Positive impact (10)
Possible impact (17)
Potential impact (25)
Significant impact (6)

Synopsis: Impact:

but considering the dnew perspectivet of the impact of new capabilities that are provided by the Information technologies and the convergence of information and molecular technologies.

and does have an impact on decision-making, and that a main criterion of effectiveness is that it should lead to a reconsideration

The litmus test is the impact on decision-making, either in the shortteer or the long-term.

In order to have an impact on decision-making, it is necessary to create an explicit link between foresighting and decision-making.

if foresight is to have a real impact. In this paper we suggest an approach to forward-looking decision support that addresses the aforementioned shortcomings of conventional foresight.

However, although only very few impact assessments of foresight exercises have been conducted so far, 6 their actual and traceable influence on decision-making seems to vary to a great extent.

In many other cases, the impact chains are at least difficult to trace, because the influence on participants'mindsets and decisions is hard to observe,

thus shows a number of shortcomings with respect to its impact on decision-making that can be summarised by the following three points:

what kind of impact they will have. Embedded systems, to take an example from the information and telecommunication technologies, are expected to have a very positive impact within an optimistic information society scenario.

The same technology, however, can be abused in a‘big brother'type of scenario when used for invading the privacy sphere of individuals.

The matter is complicated further by the fact that policy options can have an impact at different levels.

Moreover, the impact and effectiveness of policies depend on their time of implementation. 2. 2. 3. Portfolios of options We have used so far the term package to catch the need to combine a number of elementary options to achieve a robust,

Niche Management 25 and Transition Management 26.14 FANTASIE Forecasting and Assessment of New Transport Technologies and Systems and their Impact on the Environment,

see Eriksson and Stenström 33.16 ICTRANS The Impact of ICT on Transport, a project funded by the DG JRC-IPTS and conducted by the ESTO network in 2002/2003 34.17 For the Nordic Hydrogen Energy Foresight,

thus either crucial for avoiding major negative impacts or for exploiting specific opportunities in a single scenario.

to the identification of new socio-technical options, to the growing knowledge and understanding of their impacts, to the design of new types of policy options and to their integration into portfolios.

the impact of guiding policy strategies should not be underestiimate because in particular public policy strategies fulfill an orienting function for many private actors as well,

Bridges Between Science, Society and Policy Technology assessment Methods and Impacts, Springer, Berlin, 2004.9 S. Joss, S. Belluci (Eds.

, D. Banister, K. Dreborg, E. A. Eriksson, D. Stead, K. M. Weber, Impact of ICT on transport (ICTRANS), Research report, IPTS/ESTO, Sevilla

Researchers were asked also to justify the issue by describing expected results and impacts (e g.,, enhancement of competitiveness),

Delphi survey 1. Introduction 1. 1. Background In the last few years, the issue of regulatory impact assessment (RIA) has become very attractive, in particular among European policy-makers.

In contrast to the longer tradition of impact assessment of Available online at www. sciencedirect. com Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 496 516 Berlin University of Technology, Faculty

10.1016/j. techfore. 2008.02.004 public activities in research and development, regulatory impact assessment is a policy evaluation mechanism

Among the OECD countries, regulatory impact assessment gained a certain momentum after the publication of the OECD report on best practices in impact assessment 2. The growing interest in RIA in other countries, especially in Europe 3

So far, we observed a strong focus on ex ante impact assessments, because they have been required in the USA for a long time,

Ex ante impact assessment is required to check all possible impact dimensions and to evaluate the likelihood of their realisation and their strengths.

there has been a longer tradition of regulatory impact assessments in the context of technology assessment 6. A rather new

complementing ex ante evaluations 4. Ex post impact assessments are able to evaluate the efficacy and the efficiency of regulatory instruments by measuring

The New approach, confirmed by the recent ideas on European governance, requires the standards to be considered which complement or even substitute governmental regulations in comprehensive regulatory impact assessments

and indeed requires, the inclusion of standards in our analysis. 497 K. Blind/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 496 516 Regarding the impact assessment of standards,

where standard impact assessment is part of RTD evaluation, because of the assumption that standards are part of the technological infrastructure

The focus of this paper will be neither on ex post impact assessment of regulations and standards nor on ex ante impact assessments of specific options of regulatory instruments.

However, regulatory impact assessment is the starting point for our contribution. The paper goes one step further and tries to address especially approaches which allow the identification of future fields for regulatory action,

also in order to foster the development of new markets by Blind et al. 8. Besides the tradition in regulatory impact assessment,

and psychologically make Fig. 1. Regulatory foresight vs. regulatory impact assessment. 498 K. Blind/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 496 516 it necessary to anticipate these changes before they become reality 16.

and that the potential impacts of decisions can only partially be estimated. In the context of policy-making, the most important intentions of foresight exercises are to find out changes in consumer preferences

priorities and assess potential impacts and chances, discuss desirable and undesirable futures, prospect the potential impacts of current research, technology and regulatory policy, focus selectively on economic, technological,

social and ecological areas as well as to start monitoring and detailed research in these fields. Consequently, foresight activities can

in order to identify both promising areas for different types of regulation and their possible impacts. In the following, we report some foresight studies,

Based on the tradition of regulatory impact assessments and foresight exercises, we define regulatory foresight as strategic activity undertaken by governments

The analysis of regulatory foresight in the narrow sense is based, first, on a broad survey of literature databases and the internet regarding regulatory impact assessments in general,

which play as an important instrument of selfregullation We take the distinction between standards and regulatory impact assessment into account.

it has to be noted that in the field of standardisation we observe only some single ex ante impact assessments,

whereas for regulatory impact assessments we find mainly ex ante exercises, which reflects 1 This focus is caused also by the fact that we rely on results of the project NO-REST(=Networking Organisations Research into Standards and Standardisation),

and in Japan, have been contacted to ask about ongoing impact assessment and foresight activities, which may not be available on their websites or from their press offices.

However, it seems that only some informal small impact assessments have been conducted (e g.,, within informal discussions of participants in standardisation processes.

The overview of methodologies in Section 2 starts with a list of possible methodologies which are also relevant for assessing the impact of public R&d policies.

we start with an evaluation matrix (Table 1) presenting methodologies to assess the impacts of different policy instruments.

we will not discuss all methodologies appropriate for performing ex ante impact assessments of regulations and standards.

but especially those with possible impacts on health, safety, the environment and on the functioning of markets require an adjustment of the regulatory framework.

and regulations and possible impact dimensions; Definition/construction of target population in terms of type of organisation, sectors, size classes,

whose data permits the assessment of the future needs for and impacts of regulations and standards.

Recently, Swann 18 used this information to assess the impact of British standards for the innovation activities of British companies. 504 K. Blind/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 496 516

Blum et al. 29 covered a variety of possible impacts of both company-specific informal industry and formal standards.

This result reveals indirectly that there are strong expectations that those standards will obviously have a high positive impact to improve the former aspects.

the impacts of standards on central issues and assets of service companies have also been asked for

and regulations and their possible future impacts is rather difficult even for experts, because standards and regulations contain technical,

In the first German Delphi survey, the field communication was characterised by the most negative values regarding the impact of the regulatory framework3 because of the former monopolistic structures in the telecommunication markets and the massive public intervention in the radio

There are obvious different impacts of governmental regulations and standardisation as an important form of self regulation with the former type being more effective for achieving health, safety and environmental aspects,

but also for the ex ante assessment of the impacts of regulations standards. Furthermore, the small-scale Delphi survey focusing on the future demand for standards in the ICT area confirmed the general applicability of this approach,

Foresight methodologies can also be used to assess ex ante the impacts of just released, but even regulations and standards not yet existing.

For each scenario, the respective relevance and impacts of the selected regulation have to be determined.

but also possible impacts of regulations and standards. Delphi surveys require the identification of a sufficient number of experts dealing with regulatory issues

sometimes also including an assessment of their possible impacts. Table 3 constitutes an attempt to summarise the information included in the methodologies section and the results and experiences collected.

and impacts Impossibility to detect major technological breakthroughs and their regulatory requirements Semiquantiitativ In case of conflicting interests, missing-consensus about priorities Identification of experts Uncertainty increases with complexity of the context (technology, markets

References 1 OECD, Regulatory Reform in the United states, OECD, Paris, 1999.2 OECD, Regulatory Impact analysis: Best Practices in OECD Countries, OECD Publications Service, Paris, 1997.3 R. E. Löfstedt, The Swing of the Regulatory Pendulum in Europe:

From Precautionary principle to (Regulatory) Impact analysis, AEI Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies (ed.),Working Paper 04-07,2004.

-Baden, 2001.7 G. Tassey, Methods for Assessing the Economic impacts of Government R&d, National Institute of Standards & Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, 2003.8 K. Blind, B. Bührlen, C

19 G. Fahrenkrog, W. Polt, J. Rojo, A. Tübke, K. Zinöcker, RTD Evaluation Toolbox Assessing the Socioeconomic Impact of RTD-Policies, Seville:

, Research policy, vol. 31 (7), 2002, pp. 1141 1161.27 K. Koch, M. Rafiquzzaman, S. Rao, The Impact of Regulatory policies on Innovation:

At the time of writing (March 2007) we can undertake some preliminary impact assessment because the conceptual development and refinement of the MPMS was linked up with an interactive workshop.

Therefore we would claim immediate usability as a positive impact indicator. At the level of Frontiers the tool has been taken up in official documents as MPM-1 was included in the first round strategic planning document known as the Frontiers Roadmap for 2006/2007.

This acknowledgement is another positive impact indicator. Further developments of MPM-2 will be included in the following evolutions of the roadmap,

A very concrete impact on strategy articulation comes from one of the participants a young start-up company initiated in February 2006 with intentions to be the systems integrator of a lab-on-a-chip device focused on a specific application in the medical sector.

Interpreting foresight process impacts: Steps towards the development of a framework conceptualising the dynamics of‘foresight systems'Effie Amanatidou a,,

accepted 1 february 2008 Abstract Foresight programmes are evaluated usually in terms of the achievement of initial objectives and the scale and nature of direct, anticipated impacts,

notwithstanding the difficulty of measuring such impacts. However, indirect and/or unanticipated impacts that fall outside the scope of specific programme goals and objectives have also been reported.

These are mainly impacts associated with the foresight process itself, i e. with the way in which foresight exercises are designed and implemented.

These impacts typically fall in areas such as: Knowledge creation, diffusion and absorption; Social capital and networking; The evolution of strategies to cope with

'The diversity of the above areas suggests that foresight process impacts should be interpreted through the lenses of epistemology, sociology, political science, management science and organisational theory.

In parallel, given that developments in the above spheres are associated strongly with the evolution of‘participatory knowledge societies',this paper presents an interpretation of foresight process impacts within a conceptual framework that attempts to characterise such societies.

'This framework should be capable of explaining the interdependencies and inter-relationships between system elements such as actors, processes, inputs, outputs and impacts,

10.1016/j. techfore. 2008.02.003 The overall aim of the paper is to develop an impact assessment framework for foresight exercises that assesses the degree to

Impacts assessment; Logic model; Networking; Actors'alignment 1. Introduction The present article presents results to date2 from research leading towards the production of a Phd thesis entitled Assessing the contribution of Foresight to a more participatory knowledge society.

The required inputs and outputs associated with different impacts then need to be mapped. The role of stakeholders/actors, processes and objectives also have to be studied

if these impacts are to be attained intentionally. Furthermore the foresight system's interaction with the wider environment has to be studied

which focused on the reported impacts of foresight exercises both intended and unintended. The available literature7 on foresight impacts notes that it is mainly the foresight process impacts that contribute to certain characteristics of the emerging‘knowledge society'.

'These impacts, however, are not usually the direct or intended ones. The networking effects of foresight programmes enhance collaboration

foresight also facilitates the adoption of a holistic approach in terms of identifying possible impacts within and among different scenarios.

Foresight can have an impact on the ways in which policy-making deals with uncertainty and lack of knowledge by promoting more participatory governance.

K. Guy/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 539 557 This can be enriched by taking further sub-objectives and related impacts into account,

Table 1 groups together many of the reported objectives and impacts associated with foresight exercises under the headings of‘intermediate'and‘lower level'goals. 5. Approach for developing an impact assessment framework It is possible

to develop an impact assessment framework based on a‘logic model'approach which links the generic goal of a participatory knowledge society with the reported impacts of framework exercises.

Instead, the impact assessment framework has to be built the other way round, i e. starting from the identification of potential impacts in line with the generic goal before moving‘backwards'to examine the degree to which programme design

and implementation affect the final result. The relevant hypotheses to test do not follow the usual pattern of asking

and expected impacts achieved Instead, it is more relevant to ask whether particular impacts in line with the generic Table 1 Grouping of foresight reported objectives and impacts a under‘intermediate'and‘lower level'goals Reported foresight programme objectives Reported

impacts of foresight exercises Intermediate goals: IP: Creating informed publics Interest from the general public DU:

Dealing with uncertainty Facilitate better understanding of potential disruptive change Gain insights into complex interactions and emerging drivers of change Detect

inputs and principles/criteria governing their relationship with outputs and impacts). In this way, it should be possible to identify the Fig. 3. a:

An approach for developing an impact assessment framework the foresight system. b: An approach for developing an impact assessment framework the wider environment. 547 E. Amanatidou,

K. Guy/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 539 557 principles that a foresight exercise should adopt

in order to achieve impacts in line with the generic goals, along with the criteria to be used when assessing foresight exercises.

focusing first on impacts before moving‘outwards'(or‘backwards')towards the basic elements of the foresight system.

in order to identify the factors enhancing specific foresight impacts. A review of the available literature on factors affecting the results

and impacts of foresight programmes11 identified four main groups of factors: Institutional structures and settings (including the configuration of actors

and institutions and communication between them) Governance and policy-making culture (including levels of commitment) Sociocultural factors in relation to public participation and the perceived utility and eventual impacts of foresight exercises The nature of innovation processes and the‘innovation system'in

'It can also guide the development of an impact assessment framework. If the system variables turn out to be highly contextual,

then the possibility of building a common impact assessment framework for foresight exercises based on their contribution to a more participatory‘knowledge society'irrespective of their specific context

then it will be possible to construct a common impact assessment framework. This framework should allow for the more sophisticated design

The evaluation of the latest UK Foresight programme 5 sheds light on several direct and indirect impacts and highlighted several factors that affected the overall success of the UK foresight exercise.

Impacts were grouped 11 See for example 2, 3, 8, 15 17. It should also be noted that the literature on technology assessment programmes is also relevant to the case of foresight programmes.

In terms of immediate impacts, the areas under study benefited from increased recognition, while new combinations of experts and stakeholders were brought also together.

Intermediate impacts included the development of visions of the future; recommendations and options for action;

In terms of ultimate impacts, the exercise influenced research agendas in the science base and in industry and influenced the shape and course of government policy.

The evaluation of the second round of the Swedish Technology foresight initiative 6 found that indirect effects on foresight capabilities were marked more than the anticipated impacts of foresight results on policy-making.

Increased foresightedness and networking were noted as particularly important impacts. In terms of factors affecting the success of the initiative

The raised awareness of the need for consensus-building approaches in long-term vision-setting exercises in order to ensure the sustainability of resultant polices was acknowledged as another unforeseen impact of the exercise.

and b. 7. From the impact assessment framework to the logic model The above framework can be enriched further by findings from studies of other foresight exercises in different countries,

Impact assessment framework foresight system (based on the cases of UK, Sweden and Malta. b: Impact assessment framework wider environment (based on the cases of UK, Sweden and Malta.

551 E. Amanatidou, K. Guy/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 539 557 Given that all the elements of a foresight system can now be identified,

a logic model approach 18 can be used to build an impact assessment model incorporating the two previous models illustrated in Fig. 3a

and b. This model is depicted in Fig. 5. 8. Impact area specificity: networks and actor alignment Given the peculiar nature of the task at hand, namely the search for diverse impacts (from changes in social capital to more informed publics and better networking) that may

or may not have been targeted in the first place, a finer level of analysis is required. Given the diverse nature of the impacts in question, it is wise to study each of these impact categories separately,

attempting to develop the impact assessment framework within each distinct category. For the purpose of the present article, the area of networking

and actors'alignment is discussed. A great deal of discussion has taken place about whether networks are a new form of governance coordination,

b) coping with greater Fig. 5. An impact assessment framework for foresight systems capable of enhancing a more participatory‘knowledge society'.

and secondly on those factors in the Wider (External environment likely to induce positive impacts in terms of networking and actors'alignment.

in order to define the degree to which foresight exercises can achieve impacts in networking and actors'alignment.

The examination of foresight process impacts within a conceptual framework characterising participatory‘knowledge societies'provides indications that foresight can contribute to the emergence of such societies in terms of:

The development of a common impact assessment model requires a clear understanding of the way foresight influences specific impact areas.

thus capable of explaining the interdependencies and interrelatiionship between foresight system elements such as actors, processes, inputs, outputs and impacts,

if foresight exercises are to result in impacts in line with the evolution of participatory‘knowledge societies'.'It also helps in the identification of external factors affecting the success of the foresight system as a whole.

This model can then direct the development of a common impact assessment framework based on the‘logic model'approach.

given the diverse nature of the impact areas in question, a finer level of analysis needs to be applied to the different areas of the impact assessment framework.

It is wise to study each of these impact areas separately in order to identify case-specific internal criteria and external factors.

and factors specific to particular impact areas that are not that visible when studying foresight impacts as a whole.

Further work in this area will study other impact areas from the perspective of relevant theories

when targeting such impacts. This will be done in parallel with the continued study of other foresight exercises and a series of interviews with foresight specialists to complete the development of the model describing the dynamics of foresight exercises in different contexts.

The applicability of the resulting impact assessment framework (s) will then be tested via case studies. 555 E. Amanatidou, K. Guy/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 539 557 References 1 E. Amanatidou,

An Evaluation of the Second Round of Swedish Technology foresight, Teknisk Framsyn, 2002 2004,2005. 7 J. Cassingena Harper, L. Georghiou, The targeted and unforeseen impacts of foresight on innovation policy:

assessing rationale, process and impact, Technological forecasting and Social Change 73 (7)( 2006) 761 777.9 A. Havas, Context, focus and coherence of foresight programmes, Lessons from the Czech republic and Hungary, Paper

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,

Research interests include the areas of research evaluation and impact assessment, foresight, national innovation systems and policies, scientific advice for policy-making and risk governance.

and thus neither the potential changes in these broader settings, nor their impacts on higher education can be explored;(

Yet, the likely impacts of potential changes in these broader systems are analysed not at all in the reviewed FTA ACTIVITIES.

the outputs (outcomes, impacts) of research efforts by universities. Only the first aspect is treated in some detail below.

slow down or divert their impacts, or create new drivers for change by introducing far-reaching and resolute goals for research.

is also likely to have an impact on devising evaluation criteria and methods. See Section 4. 1 on different possible rationales for ERIA.

Thus, their impacts should be discussed separately. As for legitimisation and validation of knowledge largely unchanged universities would push hard to maintain their centuries-old monopoly to validate knowledge;

and evaluation of the efficiency and impacts of their activities would be perceived as a burden.

(i e. somewhat neglecting societal issues) 34 The likely impacts of further drivers, not directly related to research activities of universities, are discussed in 21.577 A. Havas/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 558 582 touch with reality.

national and regional levels) could be to‘simulate'the likely impacts of their decisions, by changing the various‘parameters',e g. the overall rationale of the EU or national policies (i e.‘

e g. exploring the impacts of given polices on the mobility of researchers and students inside the EU or globally.

i) the likely impacts of potential changes in the broader socioeconomic systems, in which universities operate,

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.

Impacts and implications for policy and decision making 1, enabled FTA EXPERTS, practitioners, and policy and decision makers to share their ideas

understanding use, impacts and the role of institutional context factors, the effectiveness of scenario planning in public policy-making.

Impacts and implications for policy and decision making The 2008 FTA International Seville Conference. Online source:

impact on policy and decision making The 2006 FTA INTERNATIONAL SEVILLE SEMINAR, Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 75 (4)( 2006) 457 582.

a wide set of potential impacts has to be considered in order to define a socially optimal outcome. Given that challenges are increasing in infrastructure sectors worldwide,

Basically they explore the ranges of consequences, outcomes and impacts of strategic decisions and corresponding actions.

if foresight is to have a real impact. We take this proposition as a strong invitation to explicitly specify the organizational and procedural interfaces between the exploratory phase in a strategic planning process

Secondly, the core team systematically evaluates the impacts of these context conditions on the infrastructure system relative to an encompassing list of performance goals.

this can only occur at the expense of a third party (e g. by entailing substantial environmental impacts).

and later on to minimize impacts on aquatic ecosystems. Furthermore, the infrastructure as a public service had to guarantee equal access and affordable tariffs to all citizens.

the downturn scenario showed an increase of the environmental impacts of untreated wastewater overflows during heavy rain events.

Environmental impact ranked only second in their priorities. 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 main emphasis being balanced in evaluation of the short-and long-term impacts of new technologies. All these future-oriented approaches try to illustrate

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.

as well as the examination of the technology, its impacts and related policy, are all important in this respect.

and whether it has impacts or side-effects. It is also crucial to study what the future might be,

when analysing new technologies and the impacts of their market introduction. In this way TA can also play a more significant role in pushing the development in a useful or wanted direction. 2. 2 Risk assessment methodologies in industrial safety As noted in the previous Section 2. 1,

or foresighting, impact assessment (FIA) currently under development at VTT. In this methodology, the concept of risk iswidened to consider the risks in the innovation processesmay these be either intra-corporate R&dor highly distributed

The new approach future-oriented impact assessment (FIA) is seen also promising in integrating methodologically risk assessment into the whole innovation process.

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.

< Back - Next >

Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011