Envisioning structural transformation lessons from a foresight project on the future of innovation Elna Schirrmeister, Philine Warnke Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation research ISI, Karlsruhe, Germany a r t
Experiences from a foresight project exploring future innovation patterns (www. innovation-futures. org) are discussed. Four specific features were applied
The findings of the project indicate interesting changes in the nexus of innovation demand and innovation supply.
We argue that all four innovative methodological features contributed in a specific way to opening up new perspectives on the future of innovation
Vision Structural transformation Inductive approach Foresight methodology Innovation pattern Visualisation Scenarios Weak signals 1. Introduction Envisioning structural transformation in foresight exercises is challenging.
One prominent example is the case of priority setting for science, technology and innovation policy a highly relevant domain of foresight activities.
Increasingly, innovation policy strategies such as the European commission's Innovation Union flagship initiative 3 are addressing socioeconomic challenges such as sustainability, health, and security.
A number of studies are pointing towards the need for more fundamental changes using notions such as transformative innovation 6, system transition 7,
and systemic eco-innovation 8. All these concepts are calling for transformative visions, scenarios and roadmaps challenging today's paradigms and basic assumptions on system dynamics.
A third arena where systemic change needs to be addressed is innovation itself as its very definition seems to be shifting.
in practice innovation is a coupling and matching processwhere interaction is the critical element 9. Rothwell's fifth-generation innovation concept describes innovation as amulti-actor processwhich requires intensive interaction at intra-and inter-firm
levels 10. For decades the dominant definition of innovation as new products and processes that are introduced to the market combined with the common understanding of companies as the main actors in this process was questioned hardly ever.
Nowadays new innovation concepts are being suggested from a number of different directions. Increasingly, phenomena like social innovation, service innovation, low-tech innovation
relational innovation and value innovation are recognised as highly relevant innovation arenas extending the standard definition 11 13.
At the same time, with the notion of open innovation the focus on the firm as the key innovation actor has broadened substantially towards social entrepreneurs, users, customers, public sector and citizens 14,15.
Creativity as the innovation competence is assigned no longer exclusively to specific professions such as designers and artists or entrepreneurs but extends to ordinary people and everyday life.
Accordingly, a change in innovation can no longer be investigated as a change in direction or priority but needs to be recognised as a change in kind.
Future innovation landscapes may function according to a different logic all together. The INFU (Innovation Futures) foresight project was set out to explore such future innovation landscapes.
INFU was financed by the European commission in the 7th Framework programme Area Social sciences and Humanities (SSH. It was carried out between 2009 and 2012 by the Austrian Institute of technology AIT (Austria), Fraunhofer ISI (Germany), Z punkt (Germany) and Solutioning Design Scenarios SDS (Belgium.
The foresight project comprised four distinctive phases with different methodological approaches: 1. screening for signals of changes linked to innovation in a wide range of online
and print media 2. stepwise clustering of the findings into visions in interaction with innovation actors through interviews and an online survey 3. development and assessment of scenarios of future innovation landscapes 4. generation of policy implications.
When investigating new patterns of innovation INFU was focussing on fundamental transformation in the way innovation is organised in business, public sector and society 16.
and discussed possible future innovation landscapes together with innovation actors from a wide range of backgrounds. In order to do justice to the transformative nature of the subject
In particular, the following four features served to enable the discovery of structural change in innovation: Inductive foresight approach Visual inspiration Assessment of coverage of dimensions of change Extended openness for diversity (prolonged divergence.
Both these 1 www. innovation-futures. org. 454 E. Schirrmeister, P. Warnke/Technological forecasting & Social Change 80 (2013) 453 466 approaches can be termed inductive
The aim is to explore the future of innovation in a rigorous inductive approach with a strong emphasis on open collection of phenomena
In the first phase, by scanning weak signals 22, all sorts of observations of striking innovation practiceswere collected in a loose and open manner.
Their visibility is characteristically low 22 p. 4. The definition included uptake of newways of doing innovation in fields where they were previously unknown
which aimed at finding phenomena that stand out fromestablished innovation patterns, the project team agreed on a list of sources,
or innovation focus and websites as well as blogs on innovation and research. Scientific journals were excluded from the weak signal scanning.
Instead, a thorough review of academic literature on new innovation patterns was carried out 16. A total of 63 weak signals were identified,
For each signal of change a possible impact on the future of innovation was estimated in an intuitive manner by the project members
Each cluster pointed towards a specific change in innovation patterns, derived from diverse signals of change from various sources of information.
The resulting visions were discussed with innovation experts with different perspectives on innovation patterns through interviews and an online survey.
Accordingly, participation was limited to a restricted circle of people with special expertise in relevant aspects of innovation or candidates for an interview.
Accordingly, a structured assessment of very different aspects of changing innovation patterns was possible within interviews of 30 min up to 3 h. Considering that the participation in the online survey was restricted to a specific circle of people
but also in the weak signal collection available on the internet. 2 The movie is available at www. innovation-futures. org. 455 E. Schirrmeister, P. Warnke/Technological forecasting & Social Change
e g. what if user involvement in innovation process developed into an innovation actively developed by the demand...
Web-Extracted Innovation Starting weak signals: Amplification Today data on the behaviour of people is collected already constantly
and use crowd sourcing to foster their innovation, to get inspiration and to benchmark creative dynamic in their sectors.
The innovation would then be triggered by changes in the behaviour of people and there would be no time lag, thanks to real time investigation.
web-extracted innovation. 456 E. Schirrmeister, P. Warnke/Technological forecasting & Social Change 80 (2013) 453 466 Fig. 3. Screenshot from the INFU web-based
This holds especially true for the vision Darwin's Innovation that was quite provoking. It received highly controversial assessments by the experts ranging from very interesting to bullshit.
and vision number 10 (innovation imperative) all the visions showed a similar distribution, but for each vision different people considered the vision familiar or unfamiliar.
This was the case for Innovation on request showing an election with personal attendance. This image seemed to foster the idea of time consuming and slow participative processes.
This framework was developed by the project consortium based on the review of academic literature on innovation patterns
The findings at that point were indicating a shift towards demand-driven innovation combined with a much more diffused involvement in the innovation process and more diverse innovation skills.
While some visions reflected a permanent and continuous innovation process others illustrated amore focussed, occasional innovation pattern.
Concerning themotivation for innovation the observations represented a large diversity from strictly profit-oriented innovation patterns up to mission-driven innovation patterns aiming to support social benefits regardless of profit expectations.
The framework developed within the INFU project supported an analysis of structural changes hinted at by several visions.
Throughout the project emerging findings on changing innovation patterns were situated in this scheme. One-sided modifications towards one specification extreme triggered a deliberate search for possibly opposing signals
E g. in the case of openness special effortswere made to check for possible signals of closure in innovation patterns.
and openness, aiming at the assessment of diverging rather than converging elements of changing innovation patterns.
the project team identified eight critical issues that seemed to have special potential for changing today's innovation patterns.
These so-called nodes of change in innovation 24 were subjected then to in depth discussionwithin the INFU mini panels (Table 1). The co-ordinators were identified in the course of the interviews as people with particularly relevant ideas and high
emblematic images (e g. for widespread creativity, Fig. 8) abstract schemes (e g. for social experimentation, Fig. 9) stories fromthe future ranging from short day in a life segments (e g. for deliberative innovation
organisations or infrastructure. 3. INFU findings and lessons learnt 3. 1. The future of innovation preliminary insights The findings indicate interesting changes in the mediation between innovation demand
and innovation supply 29. A wide variety of hybrid value creation modelswith novel configurations of innovation actors emerged.
Prominent features appearing across Innovation initiative Supply driven Demand Driven innovation's relation to production Separated-Integrated Innovation involvement Specific-Diffused Innovation intensity Slowing down
Speeding-up Inovation specificity For everybody-High specialised Innovation skills Diffused Specialised Innovation loaction Inside-Outside Innovation openess Open--Closed/Secret Innovation gravity
Centralised-Distributed Innovation continuity Permanent-Occasional Innovation acessibility Free-Private Innovation tangibility Tangible-Intangible Innovation motivation Profit/Benefit-Normative/Mission
Driven innovation economic model Novel Classic Innovator'sworking conditions Temporary Stable Idea generation mode Controlled Random The size of the bubble represents how many of the selected signals conform to a specification.
the need for adequate enabling platforms between innovation demand and innovation supply, the need to adopt new innovation formats
These findings imply newtopics and approaches to innovation policy as outlined in the INFU policy briefs.
Some of the proposed aspects of new innovation patterns such as the waste based innovation or the city level open innovation platform seem particularly suitable for aligning social and technological innovation towards structural transformation.
the framework supported the extraction of the following structural changes in innovation patterns 30:1) Mediation and co-ordination:
The position of markets as the main mediator between innovation demand and supply is challenged by several newinnovation patterns.
Fig. 8. Element from INFU vision"Ubiquious innovation"."Table 1 INFU mini panels. Node of change covered Mini panel co-ordinator Visioning approach 1. Citizens role in innovation governance Anders Jacobi Danish Board of Technology,
Denmark Visioning session among CIVISTIA consortium in Copenhagen 2. Automatising innovation Patrick Corsi Consultant, Belgium Four interviews with key companies (IBM, EPFL, INSEAT, ISTIA
innovation) and group phone discussion 3. New spatial distribution of innovation innovation chain management Anna Trifilova and Bettina von Stamm Professors, Innovation Management;
Innovation Leadership Forum, UK (Russia) Three seminars in the framework of international conferences with researchers and company representatives in Nürnberg, London and Exeter) 4. City-driven systemic
innovation Daniel Kaplan FING association pour la Fondation Internet Nouvelle Génération, The next Generation Internet Foundation,
France Workshop envisioning the open innovation city with actors from city councils and companies involved with city level innovation in Paris 5. Innocamp Society Dominik Wind Until we see new land (Innovation camp Start-up),
Germany Workshop with stakeholders of future innovation camps in Berlin 6. Ubiquitous Innovation (including dark sides) Rolandas Strazdas Professor,
Innovation Management, Lithuania Creative session with Global Creators in Vilnius by an Innovation consultancy 7. Waste Based (open innovation Jay Cousins Founder of Open Design City
Berlin, Germany (US) Workshop in Berlin with stakeholders and key actors from cradle to cradle communityb in Berlin 8. Social experimentation Stéphane Vincent La 27e Région,
France Drafting of Citizens Agency in a visioning session in Brussels with actors in social innovation a Citizens Visions in Science and Technology FP7 SSH project. b Cradle to Cradle:
A Model of industrial systems in which all waste materials are reincorporated productively in new production and use phases. 462 E. Schirrmeister, P. Warnke/Technological forecasting & Social Change 80 (2013) 453 466 (2) Participation:
Citizens seemto gain relevance in innovation both in deciding on innovation priorities and in contributing to the innovation process.
and using innovation is changing. Company profit as the main driver of innovation activity is being complemented.
Solving social problems become an important driving force to innovate for both companies and individuals. In addition, individual persons are motivated to contribute to innovation activities (such as crowdsourcing initiatives or idea competitions) for their pleasure.
4) Automatisation: Software will play an ever-growing role in innovation. More and more innovation steps may become partly
or fully automatised (e g. by using web crawlers to identify ideas). New forms of interplay between human creativity and automatised combinations of elements are emerging.
5) Infrastructures: New innovation enabling infrastructures emerge alongside with new innovation formats. In particular enabling infrastructures for community innovation such as the innovation camps, shared fab-labs and co-working spaces are likely to become more important.
In addition virtual/digital global infrastructures may increasingly be required. 6) Perception of creativity: The very meaning of being innovative is shifting.
Creativity may become a key aspect in all professional activities. Formation of identities and social relations as well as everyday creativity may increasingly be recognised as core aspects of innovation.
John: Making his contribution at the yearly I-day of Innovation Fig. 10. Element from INFU mini panel vision Deliberative Innovation A day in a life of a Citizen in the Deliberative Innovation Scheme.
Fig. 9. Element from INFU mini panel Participatory Innovation. 463 E. Schirrmeister, P. Warnke/Technological forecasting & Social Change 80 (2013) 453 466
(7) Spatial shifts: Innovation will change its spatial patterns: local elements are likely to gain relevance resulting in a more distributed innovation scenery
while new regions become more important in global innovation chains. 8) Systemic sustainability innovation: Innovation patterns fostering systemtransitions towards sustainability rather than isolated product development are required more andmore
in order to address societal challenges. This requires consideration of social and ecological aspects throughout the entire innovation process.
In subsequent phases of the INFU project, the findings were assessed by actors from various stakeholder groups with respect to impacts for society, economy and ecosystems 29.
Finally, policy implications arising from the changing nature of innovation were discussed with policy makers from various realms and levels in interviews and within one dedicated policy workshop.
Across policy perspectives the need for different types of innovation policy instruments to deal with newly emerging innovation patterns rather than just different priorities was stressed.
As this paper is focussing on the methodological insights emerging from the INFU project we will not go deeper into the findings and conclusions
which are documented in depth elsewhere 30. However, it is to be noted that among the around 80 actors involved directly in the INFU futures dialogue
and many more that heard of the INFU findings at conferences and other events there was an overwhelmingly positive response towards the thought-provoking and transformative nature of the INFU findings.
In particular the policy actors welcomed the fact that INFU underpinned the exploration of fundamental changes in the innovation landscape rather than isolated responses to individual trends. 3. 2. Lessons learnt methodology From a methodological point of view the aim of the INFU project was to contribute towards building
foresight capacities for systemic and structural transformations. Four methodological innovations were adopted in the project and contributed in a specific way to opening up newperspectives for thinking about the future of innovation and potential structural transformation of innovation processes:
The inductive approach of the project was successful in integrating diverse perspectives and stimulating diverse experts to participate in the process.
Diverse signals were considered in the project and the collection of the signals provided at the website was assessed as very valuable by experts dealing with innovation patterns.
Reflecting the process ofweak signal collection it can be noted thatwhen looking for signals the inclusion of diverse experts is crucial.
Themajority of these responses indicate that the project succeeded in opening up new perspectives for exploring the future of innovation with relevance for strategic conversations among various actor groups.
because to some extent the INFU perspectives were transcending the underlying assumptions dominating today's perception of innovation.
Europe 2020, Flagship Initiative Innovation Union, Brussels, 2010.4 P. Warnke, Implementing transformative innovation policy priorities, in:
JRC-IPTS (Ed.),The 4th International Seville Conference on Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA), Book of Abstracts, Sevilla, 2011.5 P.-B. Joly, A. Rip, M. Callon, Reinventing innovation, in:
Governance of Innovation: Firms, Clusters and Institutions in a Changing Setting, Elgar, Cheltenham, 2010, pp. 19 32.6 F. Steward, Breaking the boundaries, Transformative Innovation for the Global Good, NESTA, 2008.7
J. de Haan, J. Rotmans, Patterns in transitions: understanding complex chains of change, Technol. Forecast.
Eco-innovation Putting the EU on the Path to a Resource and Energy efficient Economy, 2009.9 J. Tidd, J. Bessant, K. Pavitt, Managing Innovation:
Weinheim u. a.,2005.10 R. Rothwell, Successful industrial innovation: critical success factors for the 1990's, R&d Manag. 22 (3)( 1992) 221 239.11 W c. Kim, R. Mauborgne, Strategy, value innovation,
and the knowledge economy, MIT Sloan Manag. Rev. 78 (September October 1999) 129 141.12 I. Miles, Innovation In services, Oxford university Press, New york, 2005.13 G. Mulgan, R. Ali, R. Halkett
, B. Sanders, In and out of sync, The Challenge of Growing Social innovations, NESTA Research report, 2007.14 H. W. Chesbrough, Open innovation:
The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology, Harvard Business school Press, Boston, Mass, 2006.15 R. Reichwald, F. Piller, Interaktive Wertschöpfung:
open innovation, in: Individualisierung und neue Formen der Arbeitsteilung, Gabler, Wiesbaden, 2006.16 E. Dönitz, F. Jégou, K.-H. Leitner, J. Mahn, G. Pitisci
, W. Rhomberg, S. Saldern von, P. Warnke, V. Watkins, Structured and documented collection of current signals for arising changes in innovation patterns (deliverable D 1
. 1), www. innovation-futures. org 2010.17 D. Mietzner, in: Strategische Vorausschau und Szenarioanalysen: Methodenevaluation und neue Ansätze, Gabler, Wiesbaden, 2009.18 M. B. A. van Asselt, S. A. van't Klooster, P. W. F. van Notten
and contrasted visions (deliverable D 2. 3), www. innovation-futures. org 2010.24 E. Schirrmeister, P. Warnke, K.-H. Leitner,
Innovation futures scripts nodes of change in innovation patterns emerging from the explorative dialogue on the 19 INFU visions (deliverable D 3. 1), www. innovation-futures. org
5. 1), www. innovation-futures. org 2011.30 K.-H. Leitner, W. Rhomberg, P. Warnke, E. Schirrmeister, A. Kasztler, INFU Policy strategy Report
A Practitioner's Guide to Developing and Using Scenarios to Direct Strategy in Today's Uncertain Times, Thomson Southwestern, Mason, Ohio, 2006.33 J. Buur, B. Matthews, Participatory innovation, Int
, New york/London, 2010.35 K. M. Weber, H. Rohracher, Legitimizing research, technology and innovation policies for transformative change:
combining insights from innovation systems and multilevel perspective in a comprehensive‘failures'framework, Research policy 41 (2012) 1037 1042.
Elna Schirrmeister is a senior researcher and project manager at Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation research since 1999.
She has been Deputy Head of the Competence Center Innovation and Technology management and Foresight between 2009 and 2011.
As a mechanical engineer she has conducted various foresight projects on future prospects for industrial production and on research and innovation patterns on behalf of government authorities
Jennifer Cassingena Harper b a Manchester Institute of Innovation research, Manchester Business school, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK b Malta Council for Science and Technology, Kalkara, Malta
In the past the demand environment for foresight on research and innovation policy favoured application to priority-setting and articulation of demand.
Future-oriented Innovation Foresight Grand challenges Disruptive Transformations When circumstances become more turbulent it is often the case that an era is regarded retrospectively as one of calm
Manchester Institute of Innovation research (MIOIR), Manchester Business school, Booth Streetwest, Manchester M15 6pb, UK. Tel.:++44 161 275 5921;
the FTA COMMUNITY eponymously and in practice, takes as its anchor point the role of technology and by implication the conduct and consequences of research and innovation.
In the domain of innovation policy government actions have been fundamentally gradualist in their approach since the1980s.
The corresponding institutions responsible for technology and innovation policy are normally on a smaller scale and tend to conflate the two labels.
what could be the emerging shape of research and innovation policy? What indeed does the new landscape look like?
is more likely to see Grand challenges as an opportunity for innovation and new markets. An important question to ask is
what the user community might want from FTA in respect of guiding research and innovation strategies in the light of grand challenges?
with the aim of improving the robustness of EU research and innovation strategies and programmes. In slightly more familiar territory, FTA ACTIVITIES clearly have a role in articulating recognised grand challenges.
Their application to innovation is increasingly taking into account the user perspective and the need for social shaping.
and to take us closer to the Holy grail of anticipated disruptive innovations and events. The next two or three years promise to be a critical period for the challenged practices of FTA,
and innovation activities and a threat or marginalisation or even of partial extinction as traditional bases of support are squeezed themselves or terminated.
Plenary Address to European commission Innovation Convention, 2011.8 L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena Harper and F. Scapolo op cit. 9 L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena Harper
foresight for research and innovation policy and strategy, Futures 43 (3)( 2011) 243 251.10 L. Georghiou, Europe's research system must change, Nature 452 (2008) 935
936.11 European commission, Communication from The Commission to the European parliament, the Council, the European Economic And Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, Horizon 2020 The Framework programme for Research and Innovation, Brussels, 30.11.2011 COM
(2011) 808 final, 2011 12 C. Cagnin, E. Amanatidou, M. Keenan, Orienting innovation systems towards grand challenges and the roles that FTA can play, Sci.
Luke Georghiou is Professor of Science and Technology policy and Management in the Manchester Institute of Innovation research at Manchester Business school.
His research interests are demand-side innovation policy, foresight and evaluation. He is active in policy advice to governments and business and as Vice-president for Research and Innovation at the University of Manchester.
Jennifer Cassingena Harper is a consultant providing advice on research and innovation policy and strategy to the Malta Council for Science and Technology.
Her research interests are foresight and STI policy with a particular emphasis on small and transition economies.
design and innovation management while others mainly draw on empirical analysis and established FTA theory. The two papers that most clearly take a contextual improvement perspective (a) are the one by Dannemand Andersen and Baungaard Rasmussen and the one by Rijkens-Klomp and van der Duin.
because it highlights the need to understand interconnected innovation systems, ways of being responsive to diverse languages and cultures,
De Moor et al. develop the concept of‘‘Innovation Foresight ''(IF) as an approach for bringing the future into innovation processes.
For this purpose they combine Foresight with elements from market research innovation management and human-centred product design.
On the one hand the authors explore the use of FTA in the context innovation networks and innovation management.
At the same time the authors present an approach to adapt FTA practice to the changing nature of innovation and thereby to the requirements of a specific application.
Their arguments and analyses bring together theoretical concepts from innovation studies, innovation management and foresight. They use an analytical framework that they call the‘‘Cyclic Innovation Model (CIM)''to make the case for the convergent development of innovation
and‘‘networked Foresight''.''Based on three case-studies, they conclude that a networked approach to future-oriented activities strengthens the results of FTAS
or to account for the actual evolution of industrial research and innovation systems. On the foresight side not only was there considerable confusion and conflict at the level of methods,
All of this was interlaced with specific and recurrent displays of interest in and advocacy of cross-disciplinarity, open innovation,
and on the other hand, an account of ways to think about policy options based on the indeterminacy of complex emergent innovation systems
r. miller@unesco. org Philine Warnke Innovation systems Department, Research, Technology & Innovation policy, AIT Austrian Institute of technology Gmbh, Donau-City-Strasse 1, 1220
Havas et al. use governance culture to distinguish between the innovation policies in Western European countries, on the one hand, and Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) and newly independent states (NIS), on the other hand 3. However, Havas et al. do proceed not further into any systematic characterisation of the two traditions.
and more narrowly, on priority setting in science, technology and innovation policies. In the paper, we broadly adopt the European foresight Platform's definition of foresight as‘a systematic, participatory,
technology and innovation policies. 2. 1. Sociologists'and anthropologists'perception of culture Cultural differences and styles are very hard to quantify,
Denmark was not among the first countries to adopt foresight and similar systematic processes in policy making in science, technology and innovation policies or other policy areas.
which also includes science and innovation policies. The combination of the widespread use of policy evaluations and the DBT's parliamentary technology assessment might have constituted a platform for policy making that would make the need for foresight less urgent.
L. B. Rasmussen/Futures 59 (2014) 5 17 11 the new Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
In addition the Minister of finance and the Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation participated. From April 2005 to April 2006, the Globalisation Council held 15 meetings.
‘Progress, Innovation and Cohesion Strategy for Denmark in the Global economy'31. The Globalisation Strategy had 14 focus areas.
The task of coining out the priorities that was identified in the catalogue was given to the Danish Agency for Science Technology and Innovation (DASTI.
Innovation and competitiveness Denmark's competitiveness Innovation The public sector of the future Knowledge and education Education, learning and competence development What works?
in interaction with env. factors 0 19 Innovation and competitiveness 0 10 The public sector of the future 0 15 Knowledge and education What works?
impacts and implications on policy-making, Futures 43 (April 3))(2011) 252 264.3 A. Havas, D. Schartinger, M. Weber, The impact of foresight on innovation policy-making:
Copenhagen, 2000.31 Progress, Innovation, and Cohesion. Strategy for Denmark in the Global economy Summary, The Danish Government, Copenhagen, 2006.32 OECD-DASTI Horizon scan, 2007.33 Teknologisk Institut, Evaluering af Forsk2015.
Et prioriteringsgrundlag for strategisk forskning, Danish Ministry for Science, Technology and Innovation, Copenhagen, 2008p.91. P. D. Andersen, L. B. Rasmussen/Futures 59 (2014) 5 17 17
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011