The objective of the programme was to gain a deeper understanding of issues, perspectives and dynamics in order to develop smarter strategies.
Within this context, a key issue for many potential stakeholders, and most of those that were the subject of this FTA exercise was
and selection of options) with the real issue of developing strategic agendas and plans that will lead to action.
in order to get close to the real issues being explored through the CTA. Building of the notions and gaps given above,
and workshops on the nano governance issue. 9 For example the nanoelectronics industry coordination efforts described in 34 which would lie in the coordinating bodies box of the IC+diagram.
There is a lock in around RRI in the focus on HES issues. This would have consequences for other elements as resources are shifted away from them (path dynamics.
At the micro-level these broad discussion are termed as a separate issue for longer term speculation.
In the meantime, for the health authorities, the issue of proper clinical trials became an ever-increasing issue.
but confidentiality of development hampers transparency (issues of competition) and thus watchdogs find it difficult to access data to assess practices.
Tensions in this scenario include the issues of timeliness of engagement when to incorporate actors? Early stage technologies are fragile
begins to separate to real issues (of health, environmental and safety issues of nano production) and speculation on broader ethical debates around Human Enhancement, Justice,
and theological issues. Monitoring signatory compliance becomes a major issue. Code initiators attempt annual monitoring through direct contact to signatories, by asking them to volunteer time to report.
Comparative and systematic methods do not exist. There is a lack of watchdogs; self regulation and voluntary reporting go unchecked.
Liability becomes the issue. When problems begin to occur with certain products secondary effects, lack of regulation means it's difficult to find who is liable.
roles and responsibilities of researchers and the issues around risk of nanoparticles. The scenario in Box 4 will be shown in more detail in Section 5. 4. 2. The effect of these scenarios in the workshop The three scenarios together covered the various positions and expectations of those actors active in the debate around RRI.
and discuss around these, allowing an easier route to some of the key issues. A full analysis of the workshop interactions will be given elsewhere. 33 In the following section
the ethical and risk debate begins to separate to real issues (of health, environmental and safety issues of nano production) and speculation on broader ethical debates around Human Enhancement, Justice,
and theological issues Forking and division of RRI labour: RRI topics begin to fork as actors focus either on Speculative Ethics 41 and nearteer Health Safety and Environment issues.
This creates a gap in ethics of the present and near future..Monitoring signatory compliance becomes a major issue Tension:
observed in many discussions of voluntary codes..Code initiators attempt yearly monitoring through direct contact to signatories,
Some issues of workers safety voiced but related to non-nano issues and passed to others.
This highlights another issue of where to locate responsibility for nanotechnology in applications, as nano is an enabling technology,
The report shows various gaps and issues (this was the case with the DEFRA report already.
a triggering event occurs which raises the issue of toxicity and exposure. This element of the narrative was inspired by NIOSH 2004 which raised concerns around the manufacturing of nanoparticles.
Because hazards and exposure issues are known not, it is difficult to decide whether nano is the problem or not.
The uncertainty is the issue. In the field of medical diagnostics, nano-enabled chips were beginning to be integrated into clinical practice
as medical nano enters the clinics user issues begin to emerge (previously unarticulated requirements come about.
The issue of MRSA links up to discussions on new standards for medical devices. This example is linked to a presentation given by manufacturing firm in the London meeting November 2007 on Nanomedicine.
Technical complexity becomes an issue. A number of legal actions were filed against medical device companies which in turn causes health insurance companies to withdraw their backing of the devices in their coverage.
clear issue of speculative ELSA in contrast to near-term ELSA 41..In contrast diagnostics for crime prevention and other non-health related applications continue to flourish A fork:
Public outcry as consumer organisations identify major issues in a number of sectors which could hold potential risk with no protection for the consumer (the house of cards collapses) Window of opportunity for selectors:
Liability becomes the issue Entrenched patchwork and lack of 13 REACH regulations Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances (EC 1907/2006) which entered into force on 1 june 2007.
and further responsibility issues were discussed, like how governance arrangements affect cowboy firms (and other organizations) versus good firms.
Special issue on Nanoscale research, Res. Policy 36 (2007) 871 879.41 A. Nordmann, If and then:
8 november 2009,915 916 EDITORIAL Impacts and implications of future-oriented technology analysis for policy and decision making*Most of the papers in this special issue were presented at the Third International Seville Conference on Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) that took place in October 2008.
They address a wide variety of issues in FTA including methods and policy and governance impacts with discussions and demonstrations at the regional and corporate levels.
Andersen and Borup's paper addresses the issue of foresight and strategy processes of national research councils and research programmes.
Technical University of Denmark, Produktionstrovet 424, DK-2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark This paper addresses the issue of foresight and strategy processes of national research councils and research programmes.
To some extent this issue is discussed also in the strategy literature. In the 1990s Henry Mintzberg, in a book and two papers (Mintzberg 1994a c), argued that strategic planning focuses too much on analyses
and (3) the resource-based view on strategy A strongly related issue is the understanding of decision processes.
and instruments are also important issues in research strategies. The implementation phase is a key element in any foresight exercise,
therefore between thematic priorities concerned with scientific fields, technology areas, industrial sectors, issues, etc. and structuura priorities concerned with issues such as research infrastructures, higher education teaching programmes, innovation promotion initiatives, venture capital markets,
system networking and community-building, and so on. It is not unusual for these priority-setting exercises to set out to identify only thematic or structural priorities at the outset,
issues of granularity of S&t areas for prioritisation; the availability and use of background data; and the nature of processes of deliberation. 5. 1. Variety and change in the meanings of Foresight The FNR Foresight was born out of the necessity for the FNR to define new research programmes.
This steering away from structural issues caused considerable discontent among participants of the exercise. Furthermore
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.
and they understandably tended to veer towards wider discussion of a whole range of structural issues which,
more immediate issues prevailed and seemed to be the main focus for them. 6. Foresight impacts Given the wide scope of participation in foresight exercises,
We will now deal with each of these issues in turn. First, the number of priorities:
This is also related to the issue as to whether the exercise was intended to set FNR or national priorities.
A final issue concerns the degree to which the exercise was supposed to identify new domains (regardless of existing competences)
This issue was resolved never satisfactorily, owing to a lack of common vision among the various stakeholders on the position and contribution of S&t to Luxembourg's socioeconomic development. 7. 2. Setting the‘granularity'of priorities The priorities identified by the exercise were set at a level
other medium-and longer-term issues can be discussed on the grounds of the process design and its key characteristtics The concluding section will synthesise some of the most interesting insights that could be gained from the experience of the project. 2. Framework for the impact assessment of foresight processes1 2. 1. Changing insights into processes of innovation and policy making
This converging understanding of the issues at play is likely to contribute to an improved coherence of the distributed decisions of these actors
Figure 2. Main fields of action and associated kickoff projects. focus on gender issues and parts of the population that have been neglected in the past (e g. university graduates with a migration background).(
Under the slogan‘Vienna research in dialogue',the City will address essential contemporary and future issues in the field of science, research and technology.
3) In revising the City of Vienna business promotion principles‘ZIT 08plus'more attention will be given to crosscutting issues of RTI policies,
technology and innovation among different players that are primarily dealing with other issues. While still being distributed very much among different municipal departments,
and avoid the formulation of contentious issues that might put into question the agreement by other councillors.
and other research and innovation actors is one of the issues on the future agenda, including the dialogue with the public.
However, while some long-term issues were debated in the different panels and events (see City of Vienna 2007b),
and explicitly left some of the more controversial long-term issues out (e g. issues of political governance).
and thus policy-relevant, time horizon implied that severra important longer-term issues, likely to be of a controversial nature,
This issue, 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,
Avoiding these sensitive issues was necessary to reach consensus on other proposals. Finally, the largely inward-looking nature of the process, focusing very much on the scope for action by the local government
Overall, the need to achieve consensus on immediate policy actions among the key local policy actors implied that several of the more controversial issues,
containing also some controversial issues, in parallel with a shorter‘official'strategy document that outlines the common ground of urban research and innovation policy.
and issues only rather than aiming at solutions. 3. See the study on methods and dimensions of impact assessment by Rhomberg, Steindl,
the project leadership resolved issues of stakeholder interests and futures literacy before they received their contributions.
Thirdly, this discussion of stakeholder image construction in foresight is inspired by issues of reflexivity in social theory (Giddens 1991;
and future issues and to act responsibly in a changing environment. Less attention, however, is given to the paradoxical aspects of reflexive knowledge in its relation to expectations and the organisation of the future.
Social Living their future lives in Lundal Concentrate on issues of well-being in society! Ask your parents and neighbours!
This becomes a power-related issue when organisations intend to create one desired vision of the future.
Stakeholder image construction is a political issue in foresight. In the case of Lundal's visioning project,
Onkey issues of foresight: participation, prioritisation, implementation, impact. Technikfolgenabschätzung 12, no. 2: 32 8. Bood, R. 2002.
Journal of Social issues 58, no. 3: 411 27. Thomas, H. 1994. Values and planning. Aldershot:
Then, one can automate routines to generate composite information representations (bonepageersq that address the issues at hand, the way that the target users want.
13 Management of Technology (bmotq) issues! 39 MOT questions! 200 binnovation indicatorsq. 2 We gratefully acknowledge support of the U s. National science Foundation for"QTIPS-24-Hour Technology intelligence & Forecasting"(DMI-0231650.
and issues is vital for QTIP to work. Having standard information dramatically enhances managerial receptivity:!
In addition to scientific fields and technological areas, even other dimensions of balance had to be addressed (e g. gender issues, representation of geographical regions.
of which addressed structural issues (e g. regional innovation policy; intellectual properrt rights; demand-orientation of innovation activities. The objectives of this process whose Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:11 03 december 2014 Axes of balance in foresight 997 results were published in June 2008
This framework helped mitigate the risk that the panel discussions would drift to the structural issues
It also supports international scientific cooperation and acts as an expert organ in issues related to science policy.
In fact Slaughter made it clear in his review of a previous decade of futures studies that‘‘As we look ahead it becomes increasingly clear that technical innovation on its own is not the main issue.''
Two related issues emerged that were to prove persistent. The first has been a constant tension between, on one hand,
and more specifically for foresight, in terms of its inbuilt concern with research and innovation policy or strategy issues.
They call for a better understanding of issues to be considered by the FTA COMMUNITY so that it can support the quest for new forms of governance.
In this paper we address the issue of the tailoring of Foresight with respect to themes or field,
the issues of monitoring GM plants released in the environment and of co-existence between GM and non-GM plants have fostered collaboration with environmental sciences.
this paper proposes a reasonably validated framework which beyond its acknowledged limitations addresses directly the difficult issue of the design of Foresight activities fit for the emerging European research area (ERA.
(ERA), European commission, Luxembourg, 2008.19 D. Braun, Special issue on‘‘The political coordination of knowledge and innovation policies'',Science and Public policy 35 (4)( 2008.
and bringing those issues into the organization for early consideration and action. This article describes the scanning process as SRIC-BI practices it, the importance of open intelligence systems,
the complexity and breadth of the issues and forces driving marketplace turbulence militate, for the time being, against complete dependence on such tools.
Another abstract K. M. Patton/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1082 1093 1087 helps clients reframe design issues by citing designer Dan Formosa
and bringing those issues into the organization for early consideration and action. References 1 Mark Buchanan, Power laws and the new science of complexity management
the issue of ranking or resource allocation comes into play. A number of techniques exist, most
or scoring process (raising of course the issue of who is empowered to vote or assign scores or weightings).
L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena Harper/Futures 43 (2011) 243 251 245 issue is how actionable such lists are.
Projects are not the focus of detailed selection effort the primary issue is one of addressing broad technology goals
Foresight aligning actors in innovation policy Structural issues are also to the fore in an emerging important application of foresight
organisational and business environment related issues''28. Other corporate activities are engaged more directly with the specifics of innovation:
and a disconnection between the development and application of new technologies and the societal and business issues which are wanted by the public and their political representatives.
Considering these issues there is a prima facie case for the application of foresight approaches on a substantial scale.
sustainability and information society issues requires typically many types of participants as well as different kinds of methods to adapt to the interests
Other benefits that could be achieved through the Foresight process include creation of linkages among participants, development of a shared understanding on the various issues at stake,
''‘Japan contributing to Global Issues''and‘‘Japan Opening to the World''.''Fixed The methodology was fixed at the beginning.
Consensual The‘‘Revision of 3rd Korean TF''has analysed the impacts of 19 megatrends & issues,
which separates development issues into social and economic factors, emphasising that material gains are not sufficient measures or preservers of human well-being 14.
A quick scan was performed on foresight projects that address security, sustainability and/or information society issues. The suitability of the identified projects was discussed
/Futures 43 (2011) 252 264 260 considered extremely challenging due to high uncertainties related to the issue.
For foresight activities on emerging issues that are not yet proven to be of high policy importance it may be difficult to engage policy-makers in the process.
The key foci of the VTT Water Research Roadmap were the creative combination of wide-ranging water related issues at VTT as well as the generation of new R&d initiatives.
which meant that also competitive and delicate issue could be addressed alreadyduring the process. The second project identifiedwas a foresightprocess attachedtofinnish Foresight Forum, whichengageddifferent stakeholder groups, encouragedthemtosubmit ideas on prospective innovations,
Most of the projects we analysed have important informative functions in sense that they aim to provide new knowledge for better understanding of issues and of their future implications and challenges.
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 issues arising here. Tools that have been developed in such contexts for horizon scanning trend extrapolation, stakeholder mapping, eliciting expert opinion,
Other tools can help us visualise issues, make choices among competing priorities, and the like. We can point here to such approaches as risk assessment, roadmapping,
which are the subject of FTA analysis. It is typical for decision-making about S&t-related issues to require intelligence that extends well beyond
Enactment participants identify information that influences their view of an issue and then‘bracket 'and‘label'it,
or a small group, can be informed sufficiently well about numerous issues so that they can develop
and of sources of specialised knowledge about the issues and actions in focus, than characterised many earlier futures studies.
Even technocratic FTA has to confront the likelihood that no single organisation will itself contain expertise on all of the matters that bear intimately on a specific set of S&t issues it will be necessary to go out to a wider set of communities.
Quite often, too, there will be nobody that is really expert on the social issues connected with Emerging s&t developments,
in the sense of having systematically researched these issues and being able to draw on a well-established literature concerning them.
Perhaps the least important but quite possibly a factor whose importance will grow in coming years is the rise of public concerns and associated social movements around many S&t issues.
These include issues that centrally involve the application of new knowledge as in the case of genomics (controversies over stem cells, use of genetic information, etc.;
issues where S&t‘‘solutions''to widely shared problems may well be contentious (geoengineering and other technological solutions to the climate change crisis as opposed to change in lifestyle and corporate practice);
Where the issues at hand are complex, involving overlapping fields of expertise, ill-defined, and so on as is the case for many of the core topics that FTA addresses design of such texts can be very challenging.
and deal with logistic issues as they arise. Typically such facilitators have acquired their skills through involvement in these and similar group activities,
Often, something like the STEEPV approach in which people are asked to identify factors and issues under the headings social, technological, economic, environmental, political,
This simple conceptual tool constitutes a useful way of ensuring that a broad range of issues is considered;
Here we have related methods in FTA to knowledge and knowledge management issues. Even a cursory examination of the KM literature will confirm several things.
and those stressing more organisational and managerial issues and social learning. Other divergences in practice and philosophy do not precisely map onto the IT
This is not an issue of technology versus interaction, since IT can be used to support activity at all poles of Popper's diamond.
Such issues do not only arise in the highly formal techniques of modelling. The influences of specific procedures (and the‘‘technical''choices made in implementing them) on the outcomes of creativity sessions
there is not a great deal of analysis of such issues. Our KM decisions are undertaken from a limited evidence base;
which issue was taken with core assumptions, where alternative sources of expertise were mobilised, where dimensions of the system that were marginalised in the main work were highlighted.
In the UK, there had been major scenario work on strategies for developing a competitive edge in nanotechnology and literature/expert surveying of social issues associated with this field, in the early years of the present century.
The resulting report put much more focus on ethical issues and hazards than the earlier work had done. 11 A rather different tack was taken by the SWAMI study.
SWAMI took a more critical approach to the social, economic, legal, technological and ethical implications surrounding such issues as privacy, control of information, and identity.
and SF authors. 13 These are only two of many examples of lively debate being occasioned by efforts to bring FTA METHODS to bear on issues that have already been the subject of influential FTA studies.
b Manchester Institute of Innovation research, United kingdom 1. Introduction The paper addresses Future-oriented technology analyses (FTA) in the context of the issues that ought to be considered for its application to support the quest for new forms of governance embracing governments, wider
Setting a new landscape for FTA ACTIVITIES around the concept of governance, is the aim of the paper while shedding some light on the issues
Setting a new landscape for the FTA, the paper concludes with those issues where the FTA COMMUNITY is starting to devote attention,
The paper concludes with those issues in which the FTA COMMUNITY is starting to devote attention to as well as those it still ought to consider. 2. History Governance is an outcome of the continual battle between risk and regulation.
a series of diagrams are used later to illustrate some of the issues that will need to be incorporated into any future mantra of governance and the evolution of S&t.
and future issues with the characteristics of trans science 16 that require direct public participation. -Help meet societal expectations of increased transparency and involvement in decision making.
Hence, a core issue to CSR is partnership development. 2()TD$FIG Fig. 1. The new governance landscape.
communities and other stakeholders to do business offering a concrete way for a business to identify social issues that matter to its stakeholders
or the trade-offs nor does the enthusiasm of a stakeholder group necessarily signify the importance of an issue either to the company or to the world.
prioritise and address the social issues that matter most or the ones on which it can make the biggest impact. 5. 1. Research on corporate social responsibility The business case for CSR can be divided into theoretical and empirical categories 30
The issue of the causal sequence between financial and social environmental performance remains unresolved. Descriptive research suggests that managers focus on the economic dimension of CSR revealing two shortcomings on firms'approach CSR
environmental andsocial issues can becomeeconomically relevant for companies. CSRGOES beyondcompliancewiththe lawandobviouslynot all externalities are internalised. For this reason stakeholders put firms'under additional pressure to internalise more of the social and environmental externalities that they create.
Nevertheless, companiesmust ensure theirown economic survival in a competitive and volatile business environment while dealing with social and environmental issues 31.
SRI plays an important part in creating corporate and public awareness about CSR issues and about the active role that the financial community can play in furthering social causes without suffering financially.
The more a social issue tied to the firm's business the greater the opportunity to leverage the company's resources and capabilities,
and processes address the complex issue of literacy asymmetries of different stakeholders? How can FTA strategies
Thus issues underlying social reaction to new technologies and the undisclosed ways in which industries take decisions must be resolved.
which social issues to focus on. The short-term performance pressures companies face rule out indiscriminate investments in social value creation.
It then becomes critical to understand how FTA practices can support the need to choose which social issues to pursue strategically on a participative, consensus-oriented and inclusive way
Few companies have engaged operating management in processes that identify and prioritise social issues, based on their salience to business operations and their importance to the company's competitive context 29.
a new role for FTA The new role this paper suggests for FTA brings with it issues
/Futures 43 (2011) 279 291 288 community's readiness to address global issues and to building governance at a global level.
At the same time, the contribution and intervention of FTA on global issues still needs to be conceptualised better to enable the community to take action.
The current paper goes beyond the issues already outlined by Cagnin et al. 43. It does so by indicating that the time has come for the FTA COMMUNITY to go beyond the current major focus of identifying
and Conferences was expressed the concern by some attendees that an opportunity was being missed to use the assembly of Strategic foresight experts to gain more insights into the state of Foresight content regarding critical issues and trends,
Horizon scanning may explore novel and unexpected issues as well as persistent problems or trends''(http://horizonscanning. defra. gov. uk last visited on March 14, 2009.
The real issue is how they should be contexted, and when and with what intensity they can
Sometimes it is referred as future oriented information, sometimes more like emerging issues. Hiltunen 16 has tried to clarify the confusion about the weak signal definitions
by combining signal, issue and interpretation in the concept of the‘‘future sign, ''which more holistically describes how these signals relate to change.
, Moral & Legal Issues 2. Science & Technology Science Culture & Discoveries Technology Progress Innovative, Transformative Applications & Products 3. Energy Current Energy Use
Trade, Debt and Related Globalization Issues BRIC Rapid Development Economies Climate change, Global Warming=sustainable ecology, new economy 5. Geopolitics & Security East-West
, North-South Issues, Governance, Health of Democracy, Failed States Global, Cyber terrorism & Nuclear & Bio WMD Water, Food and Resource Shortages, Disasters O. Saritas,
governance in dealing with critical issues Escalation of terrorism and political instability Increased global unrest related to resource shortage and affordability Nationalist and nativist backlash prevents the world from realising globalization
and puts extreme stress on infrastructure Economic measures to meet international environmental commitments Growing localisation in response to supply chain vulnerability Foreign affairs fail to be harmonised to cope with global issues Patterns
and deniers create discontinuity Global security issues rise, e g. nuclear crisis O. Saritas, J. E. Smith/Futures 43 (2011) 292 312 308 2016
materials and food Democratisation of China Sunspot theory of climate change Privatisation criticised more China implodes due to several political conflicts Diverse opinions on environmental issues Geopolitics
The survey responses provide a rich and diverse array of issues that cover most of the provocative policy issues now engaging public debate and offer a new set of prospective future issues as well;
Detecting and analysing emerging science and technology issues: the EFMN issue analysis, Foresight 10 (2008) 6, 90 102.3 DCDC, The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme:
2007 2036, third edition, Swindon, 2007. Available at: http://www. mod. uk/NR/rdonlyres/94a1f45ea883049db-B319-DF68C28D561D/0/strat trends 17mar07. pdf (last visited on:
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