and tracing the role of dirreversibilitiest of technological changes (i e. expectations that guide the research activities of scientists and firms,
but also the empirically driven monitoring activities EUROFORE 6 and EFMN (www. efmn. info). 465 E. A. Eriksson, K. M. Weber/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 462 482 distinct from‘technology forecasting'and the like. 3 This broadening
As a second important trend, foresight has become an increasingly participatory activity. Initially, foresight activities were mainly based on S&texpert opinion,
Although foresight processes have developed into quite sophisticated and well thoughtthrroug activities, the subsequent processes of strategy development still lack a similar level of sophistication,
because any kind of publicly funded activity is regularly under scrutiny in order to test whether the resources have been efficiently and effectively spent.
and demos and other activities to enable learning-by-doing and learning-byinteraacting 3. Adaptive foresight:
The practical tools and methods are available, based on many Fig. 1. Positioning recent forward-looking activities in the framework of Adaptive foresight. 31 31 For Details on these projects
especially when designed as a rolling or continuous activity over many years. However, this ability to take continuously on board new insights still needs to be built explicitly into the process, both within individual AF cycles and along the implementation of several such cycles.
because most AF-inspired processes have been conducted quite recently and in general as one-shot activities. Models still need to be developed of how to establish AF as continuous learning activities within public and private institutions.
The strength of AF could be enhanced further by building where appropriate on new modelling approaches.
and facilitated workshops where the results of Internet-based activities where discussed, validated and synthesized.
ERA NET activities pose several cooperation challenges. Because the participating funding organizations have evolved through path-dependent processes that reflect the characteristics of their respective national innovation systems,
what kinds of organizations and activities they can fund (e g.,, availability of funding to foreign researchers.
Thus, coordination efforts may be enacted best within various multi-actor governance structures where transparent and accountable intermediary interfaces enhance learning processes and new collaboration activities 13.
Here, tentative interests in prospective collaboration can be probed by inviting stakeholders from different countries to explore what research themes should be pursued through international joint RTD activities
and embedded foresight activities that help RTD stakeholders recognize how the benefits of international collaboration can outweigh the efforts needed to overcome regulatory, institutional, administrative and cultural barriers.
The main activities of Woodwisdom-Net consist of i) benchmarking and dissemination of good practices, ii) identification of complementary research activities,
iii) identification of practical networking and opening mechanisms for future cooperation, iv) implementation of joint evaluation and foresight activities,
Research activities are due to start in 2008. The activities in Woodwisdom-Net are carried out in five work packages (WP.
Within the WP for strategic activities, the tasks for the shaping of research agendas are concerned with the identification of research areas that are relevant for European cooperation.
Because these agendas are crucial to the overall success of Woodwisdom-Net, the WP Coordinator felt that a systematic participatory bottom up consultation process would be helpful.
, workshop activities), because it was expected that results from the earlier phases would be helpful in planning these tasks 17.3.2.
as well as the research team at TKK (Helsinki University of Technology) which was responsible for most activities in the design and implementation of the process (i e.,
scheduling, provision of IT infrastructure, compilation of results from Internet-based consultation activities, facilitation of workshops.
while more than 200 Researchers in total took part in the assessment activity. The questionnaire was open from December 2005 until Mid-january 2006.
In Mid-february, three workshops were organized to take stock of results fromthe Internet-based activities and to develop tentative recommendations about
Before the workshops, results from the Internet-based activities were compiled and distributed to the participants
Before the workshop, all results from earlier activities were compiled and disseminated to the workshop participants.
selected foresight activities and selected process elements such as decision support for the bottom up thematic prioritization and the formation of new networks may shift the locus of activities closer to national actors.
This is congruent with the ongoing transformation where the EU is seen increasingly as the facilitator of the international collaboration activities.
and evaluation activities, including the joint foresight project Finnsight 2015 of the Academy of Finland and the National Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes),
10.1016/j. techfore. 2008.02.004 public activities in research and development, regulatory impact assessment is a policy evaluation mechanism
Based on the tradition of regulatory impact assessments and foresight exercises, we define regulatory foresight as strategic activity undertaken by governments
Nevertheless, we could identify some activities attempting to determine the future demand for standards. In addition, we developed methodologies and approaches which represent revisions or adjustments of existing foresight methodologies,
The former indicator reflects better the activities in basic research whereas the latter covers the performance in applied research and development.
Since research activities only being performed in basic research are less likely to create challenges for the regulatory framework in the near or mid-term future
The need for regulatory adjustment is highest in those fields with a rather low level of activity at the starting point,
it can be derived that dynamics in technology is reflected at least in standardisation activities as part of the regulatory framework in the European union.
Very illustrative examples of the relevance of patents as early indicators for upcoming standardisation activities are the case of GSM 26.
Nevertheless, only an indicatorbaase approach is able to be the basis for systematic regulatory foresight activities.
Whereas standardisation activities are connected meanwhile to science and technology indicators in a reliable way 21, the link between science and technology indicators and indicators describing the regulatory framework is established not yet.
research and export activities, taking subjective attitudes into account. The survey approach by Blum et al. was replicated for Denmark,
The start of standardisation activities within services is rather recent. De vries 32 33 was one of the first researchers who conducted first case studies on standards for services
505 K. Blind/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 496 516 increasing demand for service-related standards and to coordinate the different national activities better.
The figure confirms that in current standardisation activities, the respondents still deal with terminology, but more especially with measurement and testing issues,
The current standardisation activities are focused still on terminology and measurement and testing standards. The comparison between actual standardisation activities and the general assessment of the future relevance of the different types of standards exposes some discrepancies,
especially regarding quality and compatibility standards. 3. 2. 4. General assessment In general, there is only limited experience in the use of surveys for identifying future needs for standards and regulation.
Surveys can be used to ask stakeholders about future needs for standardisation and regulation activities. Finally, surveys have a high acceptance as a methodology
However, surveying the activities in the last years, we can only list some exercises, like surveys and trend workshops,
activities involving network ethics, such as copyright infringement concerning multimedia software use over a network and the violation of privacy. 2012 3. 47 3. 13 3. 70 1. 73 2
Among the central aims of the Frontiers Network-of-Excellence (Noe) programme1 are a. the coordination of research activities in the research institutes that comprise the Noe (alignment;
Frontiers initiated in 2006 one such programme of Future oriented technology assessment activities (FTA. FTA is used here as an umbrella term for similar forward-looking and/or interactive characteristics of TA approaches.
Activities in the FTA programme focus on designing tools and support systems which allow the Frontiers network to develop strategies for a number of different issues relevant to particular areas within nanotechnologies for the life sciences.
which aim to coordinate activities in enabling nanotechnologies for research in the life sciences. The Technology assessment Programme is part of the Science to Industry work package and the Ethical and Societal Aspect package,
which frame possibilities and activities. 10 For new and Emerging s&t, many paths are possible and thus speculation is needed.
In his seminal paper, Dosi 34 argued that technical paradigms direct activities in technology development and thus are both rules that guide heuristics
and constrain alignments and activities of persons, institutions and artifacts. As these entanglements become tighter,
and stabilisation in the evolution of affordance structures that guide activities in new and Emerging s&t.
activities and search heuristics add up to an emerging socio-technical path. We emphasise the emerging part to it
and protein expression and for assessing biological activity of potential drug targets. For the field of lab-on-a-chip there is a general agreement of four consecutive phases of technological development (see Fig. 1). Currently most developments still remain in phase 2. 15 http://www. ornl. gov/sci
This activity is a bit further down the line from the initial cutting-edge research and demarcates in many
but propel activities along a trajectory, such as the patch-clamping path 63. That is why there are always more paths as defined by underlying physical principles within the larger path.
and can be integrated into FTA ACTIVITIES enhancing the quality of assessment/alignment activities. We mapped initial, potential multiplicity paradigms with path characteristics,
If path creation at the level of application areas is the aggregate outcome of activities at actor levels,
Such diffusion could be accelerated with support of FP7 Activity Areas. At the time of writing (March 2007) we can undertake some preliminary impact assessment
and Technology'(ATBEST) Final Activity Report, University of Twente, June 2005.31 D. K. R. Robinson, Identifying
and activities likely to lead to the attainment of both lower and higher level system goals,
the evaluators considered that even significant dissemination activities could not replace the importance of addressing clearly defined clients
the eforesee Malta case study, International Journal of Foresight and Innovation policy 2 (1)( 2005) 84 103.8 L. Georghiou, M. Keenan, Evaluation of national foresight activities:
focussing on their research activities. The modest intention of the futures presented in this paper is to demonstrate how to use the proposed new approach,
and evaluate research activities. Given the complexity of these factors, it is of crucial importance to underpin the proposed new round of reforms by thorough and systematic prospective analyses, e g. by developing‘futures'(‘visions'or‘scenarios').
but limited instances of clearly documented FTA3 activities (p. 2). Although the‘sponsors'of the reviewed exercises range from a single university to international organisations (the EU, OECD and UNESCO),
and to some extent influencing the rationales of regional and national STI policies, all affecting the activities of universities.
as it is composed of all other EU, national and regional policies affecting RTDI processes and performance, the activities of firms, various types of R&d units and institutes, higher education organisations, financial intermediaries,
the futures devised for universities (Section 4) only consider their research activities. No doubt, it is a somewhat artificial‘partitioning,
the aspects of education activities can easily be added. 10 7 Foresight processes (programmes, projects, exercises) are part of the broader‘family'of prospective analysis or FTA ACTIVITIES.
they have focussed on twomain activities: training the future generation of researchers, engineers, managers (including R&d managers), experts,
More recently, some patient groups and other types of NGOS are engaged also in research activities.
the balance of research activities between universities and other players; the competence of national vs. regional governments to regulate and fund universities;
whose activities are also of crucial importance for successfulrtdi activities, either directly (e g. legal, financial,
13 A number of typologies could be used to define/classify research activities, e g. the ones developed by 23 25.
i e. to involve them in research activities while they were students. In short, that was the Humboldtian model of universities:
and immersion in, research activities 36. The last few decades, however, saw a major change: with 30 48%of the relevant age cohort attending tertiary education in most OECD countries, we cannot speak of the same‘higher'education (HE) system.
as well as across EU countries, by taking into account the‘quality'and‘efficiency'of their research and education activities.
as well as driving forces can be identified that are likely to influence universities'research activities, and thus will be used to underpin the futures for universities,
and patents) because the principal outputs of its scientific and technological activities are consumed by government itself in terms of advice,
A detailed analysis of some recent trends in universities'research activities can be found in 5. 21 Other key trends
and drivers for change, affecting the education activities at universities are discussed, e g. in 2, 3, 79,21, 28 300,36,
and that dimension is interconnected obviously closely with the research activities of universities, both in terms of the present research projects (in
and as the training of the future generation of researchers. 565 A. Havas/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 558 582 The most important driving forces can be derived by considering the increasingly intense global competition in research activities;
and evaluating research activities. Regional, national or supranational policies can toughen some of the above driving forces,
and control the various activities of universities for managerial purposes and the nature of academic activities would most likely be resolved in different ways by different players.
The emergence of new players and new business models for universities is likely to add‘more colours'to this picture.
therefore, can only be taken as points of departure for two types of activities. First, they are aimed at triggering a debate among experts on the relevance of the proposedmethod, that is, the 3-level structure for devising futures.
activities (across national borders) Widely occurring across the EU and globally; policies aimed at promoting the integration of RTDI activities have an explicit aim of fostering cohesion, too,
among other EU-wide issues Mainly among strong, successful regions across the Triad, driven by businesses,
and radically reformed universities under those conditions, focussing on their research activities. 33 There are important driving factors,
and a mutually acceptable way. 32 Universities, obviously, have a certain level of autonomy in choosing their strategies. 33 Teaching activities of these two types of universities,
and evaluation of the efficiency and impacts of their activities would be perceived as a burden.
with other players in (regional, national, sectoral, international) innovation systems and with the society A new balance of the main activities;
intense interactions with other players in (regional, national, sectoral, international) innovation systems and with the society Universities do not understand/take on their role in addressing societal issues New activities to promote cohesion among EU regions
not even from the EU Integration of RTDI activities (across national borders) Only a few‘world-class'EU universities can join global networks at the forefront of RTDI activities Widely occurs across the EU and globally;
policies aimed at promoting the integration of RTDI activities have an explicit aim of fostering cohesion,
all activities serve this goal; close co-operation with businesses Some of the‘elite'universities are adapted already well to this model,
brain-drain from laggard regions to flourishing ones, promoted by grants offered by universities located in the advanced regions Integration of RTDI activities (across national borders) Same as in the Double success case,
laggards are left out Some EU universities actively participate in cross-border RTDI activities, aimed at further enhancing the competitiveness of the advanced regions‘Elite'universities are active partners in these processes,
not directly related to research activities of universities, are discussed in 21.577 A. Havas/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 558 582 touch with reality.
As both the activities of universities and their environment are undergoing fundamental changes, it is timely to think systematically about their new roles,
prospective activities of universities should be promoted by organising awareness-raising events at regional, national and international levels;
This involved the inclusion of pre-engagement analysis of potential co-evolutions in the form of scenarios into interactive workshop activities, with the aim of enabling multi-stakeholder anticipation of the complexities of co-evolution.
Patent studies have used TRIZ to investigate the character of innovative activity 8, 9. Integrative methods also allow for the anticipation of converging technology.
then the designer will be free to spend more time at value-enhancing activities. The roadmapping activity achieves value by providing a single locus for coordinated research and development activity (see for instance 19.
It is perhaps not surprising then, that many users of technology roadmapping exist in a vertically integrated environment where a few big players have the interests and capabilities to assist in technological coordination.
Nonetheless, the purpose of this article is not to advocate flexible networks of innovating firms as a preferred form of innovative activity.
the technique did appear to anticipate significant standards setting activity, as well as presaging a significant reorganization of the science and technology database to better match technological progress.
The success of the method is itself dependent upon the collected, distributed activities of innovators, the activities
and Malaysian governments on their national profiles of scientific activity. He currently works for the Faculty of technology, Policy and Management, of the Delft University of Technology,
III) The top/flop scenario describes a downturn of industrial activity in the region. Inhabitants of peripheral areas leave the region
This also leads to a decrease in farming activity. In the next step, criteria for assessing system performance were identified.
Foresight and risk assessment activities are considered increasingly important throughout the R&d value chain, stressing the need for a flexible, integrative approach.
there was a growing public awareness and concern regarding the threat to people and to the environment due to industrial activities.
The same kind of activity is happening in the FTA action phase. The ultimate meaning of this phase is to arrange the knowledge in such a form that it is easy to use in decision making.
Also the action proposal and risk reduction/control phases share similarities to the practices and activities in the FTA action or prescription phase.
and evolving participant-led continuum of meetings and other activities, which maybe the case for example in expert panel work.
and holistic processes Foresight activities and methodologies may have benefits that will support the risk analysis methods and activities in the development towards a more holistic approach.
Foresight methods and activities approve the uncertainty linked to the different futures and take also the different pathways to the possible futures.
and improved computer translation will allow more international foresight activities to build collective intelligence through participatory feedback systems far more complex than the current futures research methods.
and identifies possible areas for development activities in national innovation policy in the future. Both parts are structured in a similar way enabling the linking of ex-post and ex-ante analyses mutually
The second part depicts the respondent groups'assessments of Finnish research activities, the prevailing state of technology development and various societal institutions,
and related indicators are the level of investment, entrepreneurial activity and the impact of technology development on the quality of life.
The second themeof discussion ismore comprehensive and concerns the future development of innovation and business activities.
whether this type of barometer activities could be carried out as an international collaboration exercise in the future.
Currently, the organizations responsible for these kinds of activities, e g. WEF and IMD, are research institutes or university units.
knowledge management 3. 3. 2. Entrepreneurship and economic regeneration 3. 3. 3. Networking and openness in international activities 3. 4. Sustainable development 3. 4. 1. Social
Some of the results of this foresight process will be integrated directly into national policy activities, others are just more indirectly filtered into the innovation system of the specific sectors in the country.
1) Identification of new focuses in research and technology 2) Designation of areas for crosscutting activities 3) Exploration of fields for strategic partnerships 4) Derivation of priority activity lines
from international foresight activities 3 were taken into consideration, as well as new, creative methods. The themes to be investigated,
The foresight search activities were flanked by a monitoring process. With the assistance of an international panel
recommendations for priority activity lines for R&d policy were derived also in the sense of 11. The last phase ended with a conference.
the BMBF portfolio and information gathered from within BMBF about specific foresight activities in the specialist divisions.
The results can be put to use for different strategy building activities on different levels and different objectives (see the reservoir approach 18 or 20).
2 reveals a broad diversity of activities. Specific units or departments have been institutionalized in public administrations and international organisations 1. Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1198 1207 This article does not represent any official opinion of the European Environment Agency,
was described to often be isolated a rather activity. 4. 2. Factors determining success Institutional capacity-building was deemed an important requirement for making overall progress.
or is pounced upon as a means of prioritizing activities private and public. The practicalities of bridging the gap between Foresight
management of the activity will need to deal with much greater volumes of raw opinion of highly variable content and quality.
Public acceptance of corporate activity is interlinked with public participation as intended in the metaphor. Each of the four categories in the metaphor is relevant to the interlinking between the public acceptance of corporate activity and public Fig. 3. Interaction between scientific possibility
technological feasibility and artifact desirability of a nano artifact. 1218 D. Loveridge, O. Saritas/Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1208 1221 participation in Foresight relating to these issues.
corporate liabilities in a whole range of activities but especially health and safety, and environmental law;
Direct experience and vigorous involvement are desired strongly in all their activities. Probably the most highly Inner-directed in the hierarchy and the most artistic and passionately involved with other people.
This paper presents a research project that took the recent activities in and around the notion of Responsible Research and Innovation of nanotechnologies as an opportunity to develop support tools for exploring potential co-evolutions of nanotechnology and governance arrangements.
This involved the inclusion of pre-engagement analysis of potential co-evolutions in the form of scenarios into interactive workshop activities, with the aim of enabling multi-stakeholder anticipation of the complexities of co-evolution. 2009
Trodden more often, the activities along the path will become more predictable (as with incremental innovation.
1 where activities are underway to enable those nanotechnologies which would provide benefit whilst constraining those that may cause harm.
Such an emerging reconfiguration of actor relations, their roles and responsibilities is particularly striking in nanotechnology in the diverse activities in
of actor activities (including anticipation in the form of agendas and strategies) and of enabling and constraining factors
which aim to coordinate activities in enabling nanotechnologies for research in the life sciences. The Technology assessment Programme was part of the Science to Industry work package and the Ethical and Societal Aspect package,
and these expectations influence their attempts to shape activities 21. Recent projects such as Socrobust 11 were an attempt at creating anticipatory management
and targeting Constructive TA activities. I begin by exploring evolutionary approaches and what they have to offer. 2. 1. Lacunae in evolutionary models of technical change How do innovations come to be selected from a number of possible options;
and prospecting innovation/selection activities, studying open-ended situations of emergence, and other topics. Against this background I propose that there is a clear gap in the literature so far regarding the shifting natures of selection environments
interacting based on regimes of activities. Thus the innovation journey (represented in Fig. 1 as a branching line) is made up of a path to innovation (a pathway represented by the bubbles in the centre of Fig. 1) where the emerging technology itself
feeling pressures to incorporate ELSA and HES into their ongoing activities (similarly with corporate social responsibility).
and shows some of the activities in terms of coordination, promotion and control. This shows the status of the IC+game board at the time of the workshop and was the starting point for the development of realistically complex scenarios.
in general most public engagement activities initiated by R&d actors focused more on enlightening the general public on the potentials of nanotech R&d-engagement as a lubricant against public friction.
researchers interested in NGO activities, and a number of technology assessment scholars. The elements and actors were recognised by the participants
and their activities. The process provides a means for the creation of rich, context aware and plausible scenarios,
the scenario introduces actors and their activities, responses and shifts that have a certain plausibility given
what may happen as activities play out, and certain entanglements of actors and their activities prevail in one direction or another.
The co-evolutionary scenario approach is a contribution to the growing field of socio-technical scenarios 3. Other members of the family include regime transition scenarios14,
and the challenges faced by their strategy activities. The authors analyse the strategy processes of the Danish technical research council
The objective of encouraging other actors of the R&i system to initiate foresight activities has lead to many spinoof activities,
and programmes and the challenges faced by their strategy activities. We analysed the strategy processes of two organisations:
and innovation policy is one of the most important rationales for implementing national foresight activities. Important users of this type of foresight activity are often national research and innovation councils,
and sponsoring foresight activities as a strategic input to funding activities. In other countries foresight exercises have been carried out on the national level by entities (private or public) other than research councils and related organisations.*
Instead of analysing directly the difficulties with using foresiigh as a strategic input to research council funding activities,
Hence, many countries have initiated technology foresight exercises and other activities for prioritising strategic research. Sociologists have noted this development,
We see foresight as a specific type of strategy activity. Foresight is a part of the much larger area of strategy activities in general,
and of the range of methods and systematic approaches existing in the strategy field. With its long-term perspective and its emphasis on connecting perspectives of different knowledge areas and different actors and stakeholders, foresight differs from corporate strategic planning,
since the 1960s from the first generation of technology-oriented forecasting to the current third-or fourth-generation activities that also include wider social dimensions (Reger 2001;
In the same way, foresight exercises and similar strategic activities aim to position national research optimally in relation to future opportuniitie in the strategic environment of national research programmes:
and there exists identifiable positions for research activities. The context of science is strategic research and emerging technologies,
It is difficult to obtain comparable statistics for research council funding activities on the scale of the European union (EU) or countries of the Organisation for Economic cooperation and Development (OECD). In Denmark,
3. 3. Strategy processes in the Danish technical research council One of the activities of the Danish technical research council over the last 15 20 years has been to develop 5-year strategy plans.
The council's annual contribution to the national budget negotiations, another strategic aspect of its activities, was coordinated with the 5-year plans.
and continued the activities under new terms. In the period studied, the amount of research money managed by the Technical research Council was in the order of DKK100 million(¤13.4 million) per year.
Together with major changes in the Energy Authority and the ministry responsible for it, this turbulence had a major influence on the strategy activities of the Energy research programme.
Even more clearly than in our first case study, it is obvious that one cannot understand strategy developments in isolation from other activities in and around the programme.
However, the development of strategy between these programmes also implied that there was room for activities other than those defined in the strategy plan.
Thereby, it contributed to legitimatiin these activities. However, at the beginning of the turbulent period following the change in government,
4) Planning for specific actions and follow-up activities (roadmaps, etc..Steps 1 3 were carried out in 2003 and the first half of 2004,
whereas the follow-up activities and the roadmaps for some of the areas are being undertaken currently.
Second, strategy activities concerning energy-efficient technologies and biofuels were launched by the Danish energy authority. In addition for the other priority areas of technology roadmap exercises were recommended as a follow-up activity.
It was, in general, the intention of the programme managers and the core group of the strategy activities to interact with key actors in energy research.
There is a distinct energy community in Denmark, and members of the core group knew many of the actors in the area.
The same groups of people also take decisions on the funding activities. Table 1. An overview of the two case studies.
the strategy is a description of existing activities and some interesting perspectives The strategy of coordination:
strategy is about coordinating activities, creating or reinforcing networks The strategy of new measures or instruments;
Evaluation of national foresight activities: assessing rationale, process and impact. Technological forecasting and Social Change 73: 761 77.
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