Uncertainty

Deep uncertainty (50)
Epistemic uncertainty (12)
Fundamental uncertainty (4)
Great uncertainty (5)
Uncertainty (741)

Synopsis: Uncertainty:

and enhanced tools that would allow for a better externalisation of uncertainty that could be made more explicit especially for policy makers.

Here it is equally important to be able to exploit the upside of uncertainty as to abate its downside.

uncertainty and interactivity. 1 Even if certain 1 In particular evolutionary and Neo-Schumpeterian economics as well as Social Studies of Technology have made important contributions 2. 464 E. A Eriksson,

Based on this realisation, any approach to policy or business strategy based on the idea of early identification of winners must be subject to serious doubts.

it is on the contrary essential to accept that decision-makers are confronted with uncertainty and that their strategies need to take the strategic behaviour of other actors into account.

but also in relation to sustainability and other long-term, uncertainty-ridden policy issues. There are several types of foresight approaches and methodologies,

there are serious doubts about whether this influence really goes in the right direction with regard to the intended superordinate goals such as sustainability.

It is known commonly that socio-technical change is tied to a wide range of uncertainties and ambiguities that cannot be anticipated fully (cf. above).

As regards uncertainty adaptive planning suggests postponing decisions until we know more about the usefulness of different options that are kept open in the meantime.

authoritative texts on the subject fail to explicitly include sequential decision-making as a way for dealing with uncertainty. 9 Doing so they turn down to include in a rational decision framework,

But if a large span of uncertainty has to be considered, such a robust package solution entirely based on fixed options is typically very expensive if at all possible.

however of an operational as opposed to strategic nature to perform their intended functions in the face of uncertainty.

In the face of the uncertainty that a fire might break out in one's house at some future point in time,

or with greater probability of success than otherwise. 11 Adaptive planning then is strategic planning that handles uncertainty by considering robustness,

what they term deep uncertainty represented by very large scenario sets, sometimes over periods of hundreds of years 50.

One implication of this is the tendency to use forecasts i e. a predicate, rather than an explorative approach to future uncertainties.

Therefore, one of the challenges is to merge a methodological approach emphasising structural uncertainty with a real option analysis without the necessity of an optimal market.

and Practice, Elsevier/John Wiley, New york, 1985.21 Y. Dror, Uncertainty, Coping with it and with political feasibility, in:

Sci. 15 (1968) 18 29.23 A. Dixit, R. Pindyck, Investment Under Uncertainty, Princeton university Press, Princeton, 1994.24 T. Copeland, V. Antikarov, Real Options.

for example, bottom up processes may produce results that cast doubt on previously established priorities, and possibly even undermine the perceived autonomy of funding organizations.

and semiquantiitativ data from Delphi surveys Consensus-building to reduce uncertainty about regulatory priorities 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

) and future time horizon 513 K. Blind/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 496 516 representatives of public organisations and regulatory bodies,

conditions of non-linearity and high technology and market uncertainty are typical 2. This often leaves actors with the alternative of‘muddling through

and uncertainty of cutting-edge research. 4 From our own involvement in Frontiers and interviews done in conjunction with the work discussed here,

Whilst following their paths actors consider a number of factors‘along the road'(which contribute a considerable amount of uncertainty, and demand flexibility.

and thus mobilising the resources to create a generic platform may be tempered by uncertainty of whether generic platform (rather than specific application tailored innovation chains) is the path to take.

and creation is associated inherently with uncertainty. The issue remains that the degree to which modern societies have to deal with uncertainty

and complexity marks a novel feature of today's situation. Dealing with uncertainty becomes even more complex

if we consider that uncertainty, ambiguity and unpredictability have to be nurtured as wellsprings of creativity and innovation.

It calls for the establishment of an environment that encourages risk taking and is characterised by reflexivity

and the flexibility to adapt and respond to changing circumstances. The literature suggests that the emerging knowledge societies are also‘risk societies',characterised by decision-making conducted within an environment of increasingly uncertain or incomplete knowledge.

Dealing with uncertainty and partial or incomplete knowledge needs collaboration and the strategic alignment of actors.

and uncertainties but also in terms of identifying alternative solutions and commonly agreeing on actions to avoid undesired consequences.

Policy-making in the emerging knowledge societies needs to take account of uncertainty and lack of knowledge. It has to engage all interested and potentially affected stakeholders in this endeavour.

since it deals with uncertainty by requiring the development of alternative Fig. 1. Conceptual framework for the emerging‘knowledge societies':

which policy-making deals with uncertainty and lack of knowledge by promoting more participatory governance. Foresight also encourages the emergence of the new types of affiliations

The alignment of actors'interests, their active participation in dealing with uncertainty, the development of informed publics and, through all of these, to the evolution of strategies to cope with

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

d) managing uncertainty/risk; and (e) improving flexibility and complex adaptation. The factors facilitating networking are (a) enhancing organisation position and reputation;(

The alignment of actors'interests, their active participation in dealing with uncertainty, the development of informed publics and, through all of these, to the evolution of strategies to cope with

Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2001.13 A. Guimaraes Pereira, S. Funtowicz, Quality assurance by extended peer review:

They argue that foresight allows addressing trade-offs related to context uncertainties, value conflicts and sustainability deficits in a structured way.

Koivisto et al. examine how traditions of risk assessment are being adapted to the new more agile and greater uncertainties context of FTA.

The authors analyze the role of scenario planning to prepare public policy-making for the uncertainties and surprises of future developments and better manage complex decisions involving conflicting societal interests.

Fundamental uncertainty surrounds the exploitation and development of new technologies. Much has been made about the convergence of new technologies, particularly in the information,

One recent study, for instance, investigated uncertainty and the emergence of dominant designs in aircraft 2. While in retrospect

uncertainty is reduced fundamentally; processes of organizational and sectoral learning then assist in securing a niche for the new technology.

Trend extrapolation approaches, for instance, are based on tracking the emergence of new technologies only once a dominant design is secured 4. This solution of tracking dominant designs neglects some of the fundamental uncertainty associated with technological evolution.

Deep uncertainty characterizes many domains of decision-making in science and technology. In particular, under deep uncertainty, there is little agreement or consensus about system structure.

Thus, exploratory modeling is used to explore Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1138 1149 E-mail address:

seeking decisions robust under a variety conflicting forces 5. Uncertainty in new design arises in at least two areas 6. Technological design is an inherently uncertain process

which is therefore subject to epistemic uncertainty 7. Technological design entails the recombination of components in new and often unexpected fashion.

New techniques for managing the fundamental uncertainty in technological design and evolution are needed therefore. Previous work has provided technology analysts with a set of techniques for both integrating and decomposing new technologies.

high costs, high uncertainty, technological inexperience, business inexperience, lengthy time to market, and the general destruction of firm competence 17,29, 30.

Such subjectivity may be hard to remove given the epistemic character of uncertainty in new technology. It is important also to acknowledge that this is only a first demonstration of concept on a relatively limited sample.

The RAND Pardee Center, 2003.6 L. Fleming, Recombinant uncertainty in technological search, Manage. Sci. 47 (1)( 2001) 117 132.7 W. E. Walker, P. Harremoes, J. Rotmans, J. P. Van der Sluis, M. B. A

. Van Asselt, P. Janssen, M. P. Krayer Von Kraus, Defining uncertainty: a conceptual basis for uncertainty management in model-based decision support, Integrated Assessment 4 (1)( 2003) 5 17.8 G. S. Altshuller, Creativity as an Exact Science

, Gordon & Breach, New york, 1988.9 J. Terninko, A. Zusman, B. Zlotin, Systematic innovation: an introduction to TRIZ, Florida:

Due to long life times of infrastructures, strategic decision making has to explicitly consider uncertainties in context conditions,

allows addressing trade-offs related to context uncertainties, value conflicts and sustainability deficits in a structured way.

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:(

Over the past decades, strategic planning in these sectors was focused mostly on narrowing down context uncertainties, value considerations and system configurations to reduce complexity and ease implementation 1, 4. Given the increased range of uncertainties,

the recent literature has provided a number of new approaches and tools like modeling tools, real option approaches and decision analysis. However,

these approaches are often deficient with regard to addressing the broad range of uncertainties associated with the long planning horizon (more extensively treated in 5). Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1150 1162 Corresponding

however much less well developed in strategic planning contexts as it often misses the link between analyzing uncertainties to assessing options

reduction of uncertainties was the guiding principle for structuring the decision problem, we will propose a foresight based approach that allows for considering a maximum range of uncertainties.

This enables the identification of the major trade-offs associated with context uncertainties, newly emerging technological solutions and potential future interest conflicts associated with the implementation of specific system configurations.

Finally, we will also address the issue of sustainability deficits of decisions: how to anticipate and integrate them into the formulation of a long term management strategy for infrastructure development.

tending to blind out alternative solutions, context uncertainties and broad goals. We therefore consider strategic planning in sanitation as an appropriate test domain for the methodology.

Section 3 presents the procedural outlay of the Regional Infrastructure method and introduces concepts for addressing the trade-offs relative to context uncertainties, conflicts and sustainability deficits.

Due to the long term horizon of infrastructure decisions, the planning process has to deal with lately increasing uncertainties in different fields.

Firstly, uncertainty in context conditions has been increasing substantially due to changing regulations, rapid urbanization and shrinking rural regions as well as market liberalization 3. Secondly

a more elaborate and open approach to strategic planning seems very timely. 2. 2. Foresight supporting infrastructure planning Foresight methods have been developed over the past decades to explicitly address substantial uncertainties in technology development.

Given that conventional planning approaches are optimized for blinding out uncertainties in contexts, system alternatives and value considerations,

Via the exploratory approach, the amount of uncertainty considered will be increased:(1) opening critical context developments,(2) broadening the range of analyzed system alternatives,(3) using sustainability criteria

In terms of methodology, the value driven assessment follows the multi-criteria analysis approach (e g. 52) which is expanded to include uncertainties of context conditions (see e g. 53.

deriving trade-off mappings related to context uncertainty, potential interest conflicts and sustainability deficits and utilizing the results in the formal decision making process (Fig. 1). 3. 1. Structuring exploration:

At the end of the process, the results are transmitted to the decision makers who then decide about specific strategies. 3. 1. 2. Foresight generation Phase in the generation phase, the exploration of context uncertainties,

Strategic choices based on the above listed arguments take into account uncertainties in context conditions and interest constellations.

uncertainties, trade-offs and decision making The data generated in the workshops and core team sessions are synthesized finally by the core team into a recommendation for strategic planning.

Depending on the respective uncertainties, strengths and weaknesses of the options, new sub-variants may be formulated that (i) would be less vulnerable to critical context conditions,(

Weaknesses incorporate the uncertainty about system reliability of the technology and uncertainties associated with service reliability,

potential problems with quality control and the risk of creating new strong path dependencies. In the downturn scenario, assessment results were rather antagonistic.

which uncertainties and trade-offs became a resource for decision makers to provide more robust solutions.

a more discursive and open consideration of uncertainties in context conditions, values and options is needed compared to the established planning practice.

More specifically, we aimed at maximizing the uncertainties considered in the planning process. This enabled the process of explicitly mapping key trade-offs among different strategic options with regard to potential conflicts of interest, surprises in the development of context conditions and potential sustainability deficits.

B 34 (2007) 578 597.5 D. Dominguez, B. Truffer, W. Gujer, Tackling uncertainty in infrastructure sectors through strategic planning.

risk and uncertainties in new business creation and a project related to the climate change (CES. The case projects are positioned according to their important design dimensions (informative vs. instrumental outcomes;

risks and uncertainties related to new businesses (INNORISK) The INNORISK project aims at creating new tools to manage the innovation process

/Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1163 1176 The INNORISK Managing opportunities, risks and uncertainties project is a 3-year (2006 2009) joint research project between the Corporate Foresight

and management of future uncertainties and risks in companies that are giving rise to new business 29.

concept elaboration and business potential analysis. The criteria used forced to take into account various kinds of uncertainties

It will focus on the potential production and the future safety of the production systems as well as on the related uncertainties.

Risk assessment methods to evaluate the uncertainties and consequences of the climate change affecting the Nordic energy production system are developed in the project.

Foresight methods and activities approve the uncertainty linked to the different futures and take also the different pathways to the possible futures.

We can cope with the uncertainty by collecting and creating the best possible knowledge of the future and risks,

As a result, it has been discovered that both approaches seek to manage the uncertainty of potential futures,

Innorisk-project, www. vtt. fi/innorisk, Managing Opportunities, Risk and Uncertainties in New Business Creation Working Report, VTT Technical research Centre of Finland, Tampere

, T. Luoma, S. Toivonen, Managing uncertainty in the front end of radical innovation development, Proc. of IAMOT 2007 16th International Conference on Management of Technology, May 13 17,2007, Florida

(c) Ways to account for uncertainty in decision making,(d) Strategies for planning and management of nonlinear systems operating in the chaotic regime,

Uncertainty; Nonlinear systems; Futures methodology issues 1. Introduction There are many methods and approaches to the study of the future.

4. Decision making in uncertainty Uncertainty, arising from new and unprecedented events, noise, chance, systemic changes and experimental and observational errors, can never be eliminated completely from the decision making process.

uncertainty and underlying assumptions should be made explicit. Yet, the tools for dealing with uncertainty, for evaluating the adequate return for risk-taking,

are far from perfect and, outside of market beta theory, rarely used. Although some of the methods such as decision analysis, scenarios

or decision trees have proven somewhat helpful in decision making in uncertainty, the field is still very primitive.

Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Cambridge university Press, 1982. Theodore J. Gordon is Senior Fellow and cofounder of the Millennium Project of the American Council for the United nations University.

but the potential of scenario planning to prepare public policy-making for the uncertainties and surprises of future developments and better manage complex decisions involving conflicting societal interests is clearly not fully utilized.

Making better decisions under conditions of deep uncertainty does not only require rigorous analysis, but also political will

Decision-making under conditions of deep uncertainty is a consequence. Scenario planning has been developed as a method to represent

and deal with such deep uncertainties. Over the recent decades, it has formed a growing area of interest on the interface of academia and public and private sector policy-making.

As a field of policy action it is characterized by a high degree of problem complexity and uncertainty about long-term future developments.

help discover policy options demonstrably robust to long-term uncertainties and surface some of the blind-spots of an organisations'policy,

Making better decisions under conditions of deep uncertainty requires not only rigorous analysis. Even well-constructed, thoroughly analysed scenarios can be of little use and relevance,

because scenarios provide a potentially very attractive approach to addressing uncertainty and complexity. Furthermore, the focus of our review was on literature that explicitly attempts to evaluate scenario planning approaches,

(and either might be the case) scenario practitioners need to pay more attention to windows of opportunity, the areas of maximum uncertainty and doubt,

Problem Structuring Methods for Complexity, Uncertainty, and Conflict, Wiley, Chichester, UK, 1989.19 P. J. H. Schoemaker, Multiple scenario development:

lessons from regional projects, Development 47 (4)( 2004) 62 72.24 M. B. A. van Asselt, Perspectives on Uncertainty and Risk:

L. Wainfan, Presenting Uncertainty About Climate change to Water Resource Managers, 2008, RAND Corporation, TR-505-NSF. 28 R c.

or should exploration under uncertainty continue? The task of creating open-ended and context-rich scenarios encompasses a trade-off between recognizing the complexity of actual dynamics of innovation

There was a widely recognised uncertainty about the potential impacts and risks, whilst in the meantime proposals for regulation were being formulated

And there was additional uncertainty about consumer and citizen reactions to new nanotechnologyenaable products and processes fears of a public backlash and of barriers to public acceptance.

as well as quality control of nanoparticles and bioaccumulation uncertainties (particularly in liver, spleen and bone marrow). Public funding agencies form a blanket ban on financing nanoparticulate delivery systems.

Uncertainty in possible inroads for litigation and liability is covered not by such codes, for this reason our company will not sign up A strong position:

what gives it validity in current climate of high uncertainty An opposed strong position: In debates I have observed,

because they reduce uncertainty but also constrain a variety and new ventures. This section shows a playing out of a continuation of the current situation.

The uncertainty is the issue. In the field of medical diagnostics, nano-enabled chips were beginning to be integrated into clinical practice

and M. Borup However, there is often great uncertainty about how to implement foresight exercises within research councils and how to use the results.

and M. Borup With this understanding of strategy it is logical to use forecasting methods capable of analysing the uncertainties in the future strategic environment.

uncertainty around how MCHER planned to follow-up on the results of the exercise unnerved many researchers,

and scope created uncertainty around its consequences. 5. 2. Dealing with issues of granularity and identifying‘competence niches'The dilemma around the level of‘granularity'of research topics to be prioritised already highligghte in Section 3 was understood well by the FNR and its consultants from the outset.

as well as some others that could have given rise to uncertainties and thus to the consideration of alternative futures had been addressed in the forward-looking part Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 Trade-offs between policy impacts of future-oriented analysis 967 of the preceding research programme on the Viennese innovation system,

'Yet the uncertainty of different scenarios is seen also as‘politically weak and administratively untidy'as they rarely point unequivocally to one course of action.

and thus address the uncertainty of the future. Scholars of organisation theories, however, have questioned the direct influence of scientific expectatiion and technological promises on strategic development of organisations (Sanz-Menéndez and Cabello 2000;

'Foresight is thus a coordinated response to uncertainty and risk. Giddens (1991,29) argues that the‘popularity of futurology in the system of high modernity is not an eccentric preoccupation...

Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo, Norway and writing her Phd on values and uncertainty in foresight informing research policy priorities.

even if this may cause a certain degree of unpredictability and cause management challenges. In contrast, exclusive stakeholder engagement refers to expressly controlled stakeholder participation that may be driven,

Foresight in support to building shared visions of the future reduces uncertainties and helps synchronize the strategies and joint actions of different stakeholders (e g. 39).

A strong epistemic uncertainty exists a premium is given to top quality universities (signalling effect. Nano excellence seems to be concentrated highly (role of‘technology platforms'to work at the nanoscale) in 200 clusters where Asia has a strong presence:

The inherent unpredictability of technology development and commercialization processes, legal and regulatory developments, and changes in cultural factors and 0040-1625/$-see front matter D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:

Uncertainties and risks have proliferated during the past decade as a result of the increasing complexity of and turbulence in the marketplaces in

In both fields, in particular the development of alternative scenarios help addressing uncertainties and diverse interconnections between many drivers.

Diverse Description of a large degree of uncertainty of impact of ICTS on the environment. The scenarios developed during the project accommodated a diverse range of views

including diverse uncertainties in such scenarios. This challenge was dealt with in the brainstorming workshops, intensive e-mail communication, commenting and co-writing.

/Futures 43 (2011) 252 264 260 considered extremely challenging due to high uncertainties related to the issue.

) The findings of the project showed that a large degree of uncertainty existed on impact of ICTS on the environment,

or emerging (technological field or when the issues are characterised by high uncertainties. This allows addressing diverse perspectives and scenarios as well as common vision-building.

(and perhaps also considered in terms of the main uncertainties associated with them) they are externalised ''and the outputs of subgroups can be collated together and‘‘combined''.

Opportunities and Uncertainties, Royal Society, London, 2005 (available at: http://www. nanotec. org. uk/finalreport. htm (accessed 29/07/09)).28 O. Stapledon, Last and First Men:

10.1016/j. futures. 2010.11.007 Foresight knowledge base regarding the directions and catalysts that are prompting our global future and its various contingencies and uncertainties.

factors and uncertainties that are accessible by stakeholders and create or drive change within one's business or institutional environment.

innovations and business-institutional strategies 6. A critical concept associated with being a driver is the level of uncertainty.

forks in the road and deep uncertainties that keep executives awake at night. In this context, the definition for drivers of change was decided to focus on things that are accessible

The concept of uncertainty enters again into the Foresight process when for purposes of scenario planning there is an attempt to define the key drivers

or those having both great uncertainty and potentially high impact. These are structured then into a matrix of 4 cells (2 drivers with high and low situations for each)

This is a key element of the art of crafting Foresight to respond well to plausible uncertainties and conceivable surprises,

2. Building on a survey of FTA Conference attendees-experts about critical trends, drivers, shocks-wildcards, discontinuities and weak signals, new insights can be gained about the state of Foresight and future uncertainties,

it is rather clear that trends involving technology change and uncertainties about environmental, climatic and energy systems change are on the top of respondents minds.

Many of the most articulately described drivers were associated those with the management uncertainties of change in the environmental, governance and globalization response systems.

For the most part, the drivers in particular suggest an adequate number of critical uncertainties and polarities so that scenarios development appears to be both possible and desirable;

‘‘Uncertainty about the future is always there. If you take a likely scenario with twenty components, each with a 90%probability,

manage and minimise risk within a framework that seeks to eliminate uncertainty, as opposed to recognising its inevitability.

and to reduce risks and uncertainties in transport decision-making. In a second paper, Horton argues that policy-making needs to assume that unexpected disruptive events will happen even with the best horizon scanning system in place.

risk and uncertainties should be reduced; unintended effects should be avoided. A variety of tools and methods of rather different character are applied,

Design/methodology/approach A literature review carried out in context of the EU funded transport project OPTIC (see www. optic. toi. no) reveals that differentiating between different types of uncertainty is possible.

It juxtaposes a problem typology and a typology of methods Keywords FTA METHODS, Transport planning, Risks, Uncertainties, Unintended effects, Uncertainty management,

and uncertainties can be excluded or a least controlled. In view of the high degree of complexity and uncertainty

it is not astounding that a huge variety of tools and methods for the anticipation of unintended effects of transport policies are applied to give guidance and orientation for planning processes.

and uncertainties that could lead to unintended effects. 2. The problem: risks and uncertainties Uncertainty and risk are only in very rare cases a consideration in transportation planning and transportation policy decision making.

On the contrary, typical, widely used transportation planning tools more often than not provide the impression that the consequences of policy interventions like new infrastructure projects,

since many policy interventions (and the actors responsible for them) are confronted regularly with unforeseen adverse some authors even call them perverse effects. 2. The issue of uncertainties

VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 283 Risk, uncertainties and unintended effects are obviously a problem for transport planning.

Generally speaking, the scholarly literature shows consistently that all decision making takes place under conditions of uncertainty

how to reduce the level of uncertainty while at the same time acknowledging that uncertainty is limitless. A literature review carried out in context of the EU funded transport project OPTIC (see DLR and KIT,

2010) reveals, that differentiating between different levels of uncertainty appears to be a promising approach. Positions differ on such typologies of uncertainties and the relationship between knowledge types and uncertainty.

An overview of the historical development of the latter is given in van Asselt and Rotmans (2002.

Knight, in his widely acknowledged conceptualisation of risks, distinguished between‘‘risk, ''which involved effects for which knowledge and parameters are available to assess the likelihood of an outcome,

and‘‘uncertainty'',referring to a more genuine lack of systematic understanding of causal relations (Knight 1921, see also Runde 1998).

uncertainty is characterised by a limited quantifiability, a lack in knowledge, epistemic uncertainty/or unresolved scientific controversies.

van Asselt and Rotmans (2002) provide a categorisation of the sources of uncertainty, whereas a general differentiation is made between uncertainty due to variability and uncertainty due to limited knowledge of the system.

In a similar way, Walker et al. 2010) argue that, in order to manage uncertainty, one must be aware that different levels of knowledge exist.

The authors differentiate between four levels; two of them are subcategories of so-called‘‘deep uncertainties.''''The latter ones are similar to the third category that Sven Ove Hansson (1996) has added to the discussion of uncertainty.‘‘

‘‘Great uncertainties'',as he calls them, are situations in which a decision maker lacks most of the information about his options and of the values of the different outcomes.

Against this background, we propose to differentiate between three levels of knowledge (as also presented in Table I:

1. Knowns. A category that is, in principle, related to what is called risk in the Knightian sense. Solid knowledge is already available.

Uncertainties may exist with respect to the actual quantifications but these may be reduced with increasing empirical research that improves the error margins.

These are the uncertainties in the Knightian sense or as described by Grunwald in the quote above.

and the nature of its impact, are understood well Related concept Great uncertainty Uncertainty Riska Strategies Build awareness about reasons for fundamental limits to knowledge Attempt to anticipate,

and quantification of knowns rather than for the. focus on unknowns (uncertainties) detection of unknowns. main focus on knowns (risks) Examples:

They help identifying uncertainties, blind spots, contradictions or dilemmas. So, they allow the identifications of unknowns

might be subject to a high degree in uncertainty. This relates also to external factors which might take an influence on developments in the transport sector, in particular in transport demand.

there are still many examples that uncertainty in relation to such assumptions is acknowledged not sufficiently. This can be illustrated by a recent example for

But we will focus here on some examples related to the methods used and the levels in uncertainties in the process.

Also in this case, more open methods would have been needed to raise awareness for the uncertainties in the planning.

Rather open, interdisciplinary assessments are needed to cope better with these uncertainties and to provide for a better basis for the quantification of potential effects.

and structurally closed methods in a careful and transparent manner. 5. Conclusions Policy interventions in the transport sector have to consider risks and uncertainties,

uncertainty and underlying assumptions should be made explicit. The categorisation suggested here helps to raise awareness for this step of including

and it helps to sharpen sensitivity to risk and uncertainty in planning processes. Further, the categorisation increases awareness for a more careful design and integration of structurally open methods.

the approach aims at supporting a more proper handling of uncertainties by enabling a more appropriate application of fta methods.

''Technological forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 72, pp. 1064-9. Grunwald, A. 2007),‘Working towards sustainable development in the face of uncertainty and incomplete knowledge'',Journal of Environmental policy and Planning, Vol. 9

Hansson, S. O. 1996),‘Decision making under great uncertainty'',Philosophy of Science, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 369-86.

Kleindorfer, P. R. 2008),‘Reflections on the decision making under uncertainties'',Faculty and Research Working Paper, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, available at:

www. tekno. dk/europta Knight, F. H. 1921), Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

Coping with Uncertainty in a Complex World, Earthscan, London. Renn, O.,Webler, T. and Wiedemann, P. Eds)( 1995), Fairness and Competence in Citizen Participation:

Runde, J. 1998),‘Clarifying Frank Knight's discussion of the meaning of risk and uncertainty'',Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 22, pp. 539-46.

http://optic. toi. no van Asselt, M. B. A. and Rotmans, J. 2002),‘Uncertainty in integrated assessment modelling'',Climate change, Vol. 54, pp. 75

Walker, E w.,Marchau, V. and Swanson, D. 2010),‘Addressing deep uncertainty using adaptive policies: introduction to section 2'',Technological forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 77, pp. 917-23.

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