and Development in 1992 23 by representatives of 179 countries) and is at the heart of the quest for new forms of global governance. 5. Corporate industrial activity
Their aimis to ensure thatmnes operate in harmony with the policies of the countries where they operate.
More recently, industry and retailers in some countries have taken independent initiatives to develop standards and health related schemes.
The fourth section presents the respondents'profile summary with a set of descriptive statistics including (i) the country of residence (
2. Country of residence; 3. Affiliation-type of organization represented. Then, the in the second part, the respondents were asked to identify a list of trends, drivers of change, wild cards/shocks, weak signals and discontinuities.
years of experience, country of residence and affiliation;(3) 15 STEEP Categories for each domain of interest:
3. 1. 3. Further analysis Analysis of each of the Domains of Interest according to%distribution by years of experience, country of residence, affiliation;
This gave the main orientations of the trends were represented with a radar diagram (Fig. 4).(TD$FIG Fig. 1. Country of residence.
Joint assessment of country of residence and trends. Amajority of the respondents (over 55%)that assessed
and contributed trends were from the EU-27 countries. There was a balanced distribution between the respondents from the EU-candidate countries and Australasian countries,
which amounted approximately 28%of the respondents, who contributed trends. Impact assessment. The majority of the respondents around the globe considered that more than 75%the trends will have high impact on the STEEP systems.
Within the respondents from Australasia and EU Candidate countries the percentage went up to 90%.%Likelihood and time horizon assessment.
whereas the respondents from Australasia and EU Candidate countries mostly stated a medium likelihood of occurrence for the majority of the trends.
More than half of the respondents from North america and the EU countries suggested a medium time horizon (between 2016 and 2025) for the occurrence of the trends identified.
The assessment of the respondents from EU Candidate and Associate countries seemed to be the opposite with high controversy expectations.
and how the EU countries in contrast to the EC Candidate countries have had now the experience
Joint assessment of country of residence and drivers of change. Approximately 60%of the drivers were assessed by the EU-27 respondents.
Again, a balanced distribution was observed between the EU-candidate countries and Australasian countries. TD$FIG Fig. 6. Orientations of drivers of change.
The respondents from North america and the EU countries suggested similar assessments for the likelihood of occurrence of the drivers identified.
The majority of respondents from the EU member and associate countries and North america considered that around half of the drivers will occur between 2016 and 2025.
whereas the majority of the respondents from the EU Candidate countries assessed the time horizon for the occurrence of drivers after 2025.3.2.3.3.
Energy 17 Rising cost and crises in oil production Bio-fuel generation Spread of nuclear energy production toward developing countries Lack of energy sources Innovation for new energy sources
affiliation and country of residence. Experience time horizon. As the years of experience increased, the time horizon for the occurrence of wild cards tended to remain between 2016 and 2025.
Country of residence time horizon. Respondents from the EU Candidate countries have a longer time horizon,
compared to the respondents from the rest of Europe. The respondents from North america have balanced a more distribution of time horizons among short
shift to alternatives Ecology Economy 32 Global trade conflicts intensify between developed and developing countries Civil war in China Unexpected freeze of northern hemisphere pushes population to immigrate south G8
3. 2. 5. 2. Joint assessment of country of residence and discontinuities. Over 60%of the respondents assessed discontinuities were from the EU-27 countries.
The candidate country respondents constituted the second largest group. Impact assessment. The impacts of the discontinuities identified were considered to be high by most of the respondents around the globe.
The figure was opposite for the EU member countries where most of the respondents (46%)considered high likelihood of occurrence for the discontinuities.
of weak signals by time horizon, affiliation and country of residence. Experience time horizon. The respondents with a Foresight experience longer than 1 year expect most the majority of the weak signals to emerge in the medium term future (2016 2025),
Country of residence time horizon. Regardless the country of residence most of the respondents have medium term time horizon, with a higher emphasis from the EU Associate countries.
Table 6 Examples of weak signals. Examples of weak signals by category A b c Society & Culture 61 Concept of rational behaviour in modernity losing value
1) trends and drivers by experience, country of residence and affiliation and also by responses on impact, likelihood, controversy and horizon time;(
Analysis of these interviews paints a picture of FTA as an increasingly important approach being adopted in many countries to address the many challenges which are emerging at this time in human history.
since the 2006 International Seville FTA Conference had seen significant development in FTA capacity across many countries and regions:‘‘
Inmany countries government officials have been largely resistant to the concept and value of FTA. It does not fit easily with established public administration procedures and protocols.
The reduction of at least 80 per cent is at the lower end of the range (80-95 per cent) estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC, 2007) for industrialised countries in accordance with the two-degree target.
The backcasting approach has frequently been used in countries like The netherlands, Canada, Australia (e g. Dunlop, 2009),
(what a small country such as Finland does, has no effect on the global problem; therefore it does not make sense to burden oneself with trying), scattered community structure, motoring as every man's right,
knowledge intensive services highly concentrated in the south of the country. Middle-and northern parts of the country live from agriculture,
forest industry and mining Buildings Very strict norms on energy consumption for both old and new buildings,
Similar projects and funding can be seen in the other industrialised countries as well. R. O. van Merkerk, H. van Lente/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1094 1111 1095 2. Method:
Many countries and firms feel the need to explore and stimulate its possibilities. The future of nanotechnology has become an important topic for technology firms, policy makers and research institutes.
which exemplifies the procedures followed in most countries when rural land is rezoned as urban. Thus, urban planning can be conceptualised by two major sets of elements (see Figure 1). The first set is articulated by the urban planning value chain,
This conceptual model may vary a lot from one country to other. For example, some steps of the value chain may be mandatory in certain places,
as well as the political capital invested in regulatory management systems PAGE 344 jforesight jvol. 14 NO. 4 2012 now established in most OECD countries.
In the last years, in many countries due to economic and social pressures there is a shift of focus towards technologies that stimulate
New perspectives for developing countries. World Development 13, no. 3: 441 63. Polanyi, M. 1998. Personal knowledge:
‘What I resent is the pressure from Europe to force one country to adopt this very dangerous technology'(371.
In most OECD countries, for instance, nanotechnology is listed now as top priority; referring to the efforts other governments have planned (Berube 2006.
and Asia) and countries, by breaking down global scenarios into the firm's main sectors and business areas,
These country and business scenarios derive from a more focused analyssis which considers a larger set of framework variables,
and trucks in different geographic areas and countries. Foresight and decision-making Decision-makers at BASF seamlessly embedded foresight activities in the strategy formulation process.
The key drivers of change for example, rise of new rivals from emerging countries and financial crisis had relevant consequeence on the evolution of the main components of the business (micro) environment and thus on the organisation.
BASF and Daimler could clearly know in advance who were (i) competitors (i e. in case of Daimler, other major carmakers and historical rivals such as BMW or new major companies from newly industrialised countries);(
iii) customers (firms and citizens of the most industrialised countries and the emerging ones; and (iv) providers of complementary products (fuel from oil majors.
Daimler's managers could be quite confident as well of the main activities of the value chain for example, assembly of components and production and distribution of cars and the main markets industrialised and emerging countries.
and information security), on the layer of four Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark) and on the layer of the Nordic region as a strategic entirety.
The second phase, the SWOT analysis, identified trends in the national ICT business and research environment in the four Nordic countries.
In the final research phase, the action workshop, a set of actions to be taken by the key players in the Nordic countries was depicted.
and compare the implications of the ICT applications in four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden).
Knowledge Key systemic capacities space Description associated with the space Forms of project knowledge Strategy Assessing the implications of the ICT applications in four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway,
Creation of four context scenarios on the adoption of ICT in four Nordic countries Building system-level strategic
and Rossini (1985) developed a TDS for microcomputer technology in developing countries, spotlighting the importance of language barriers.
The next six countries are South korea (267), Japan (192), Taiwan (181), the USA (167), Switzerland (101), and India (81.
Such details can enrich cross-charting procedures to elucidate which key players (countries and institutions) currently pursue which priorities.
Microcomputers in developing countries: Industrialization in the information age. International Journal of Applied Engineering Education 1, no. 5: 321 8. Scapolo, F.,A l. Porter,
and each country also has its own specific issues, for example rapid aging of the population or economic stagnation.
and many countries have shown a clear tendency to place special focus on science and technology policy in their innovation strategies.
and define priorities for the whole country. All the information from scenario building is dependent on each theme.
Given the crucial role of research output in the global competitiveness of countries, in securing employment and in reaching and setting benchmarks of innovation capability,
and trends for the country's research and enterprise base 2. The project, ‘‘Review of Global Drivers and Trends from a National Perspective in a Global context'',was a four-month exercise that sought to‘‘to develop a catalogue of global drivers and trends,
I. A further important aspect of this stage was to begin to identify how other countries were responding to global challenges.
and trends were as relevant to Ireland (as they might be to other, larger countries).
globally mobile investors and concerns within the country regarding the scale and constant need for significant research investments Does Ireland have in place the enabling mechanisms
it emerged as a significant(‘‘grand'challenge for the country's research and innovation system. The participants that were involved in the consultative events recognised the significance of certain drivers (around
Ireland‘‘punches above its weight''in international arenas achieving a strong reputation as an independent country with good governance and respect for its global commitments and partnerships.
Its strong institutional and governance arrangements are an advantage as a small, smart country. However, Ireland is challenged in maintaining this position as the smaller countries become increasingly marginalised within multilateral frameworks
and where the traditional political and governance models are being disrupted. How can Ireland maintain its standing
The small country context was an important dimension throughout the exercise and in constructing grand challenges.
and meaning of grand challenges for individual countries. 5. 1 Scale the European versus the small country context European-scale discourse can sometimes unwittingly neglect the specificities of national contexts especially the smaller country contexts.
For research and innovation policy, the implications of grand challenges may be quite different in smaller country contexts particularly those that are on the periphery of Europe.
There were other instances where thematic emphases may be very different from the European to the small country scale (e g. certain dimensions of security.
The marginalisation of Ireland (as a small country) within multilateral frameworks was identified as a challenge by participants in the exercise.
technology and innovation (S&t&i) priorities have become an integral part of government policy making in almost all developed countries,
However, approaches and techniques used to identify priority areas for S&t&i development in various countries strongly depend on local peculiarities, socioeconomic policy objectives, the availability of natural resources, the state of the environment,
1995), Norway (Nordic Innovation Centre, 2007), Canada (National research council Canada, 2005) and other developed countries have accumulated significant experience with such projects.
Russian companies that are active in the natural resources sector routinely display high emissions figures several times higher than in other countries.
Calculated as (No. of‘‘At the level of leading countries*100 þ no: of‘‘Somewhat behind*50 þ no:
and the country's international S&t co-operation potential through the development of a national innovation system.
and the results among selected countries are cross-compared and visualized in an aggregated view.
Findings By this standard mapping taxonomy and structured analysis, future technology themes in strategic foresight reports from countries in focus are mapped systematically
Similarities and discrepancies for prospecting the future technology trajectory among these countries are identified also. Research limitations/implications It would be a significant contribution
This research may help to solve the practical difficulties faced during the secondary analysis of foresight studies in foresight preparatory studies by providing a consistent classification framework to make comparison and aggregation of future technology options from different countries/regions.
Therefore, many countries not only use foresight as a tool to improve anticipatory intelligence but also use it as a priority-setting tool.
Even in some small countries in Europe like Austria foresight results have been used for the implementation of policy measures (Aichholzer, 2001.
In the foresight experience of small countries such as the foresight activity conducted in Austria named‘‘Delphi Austria,
and then specializing in small segments of the world market become the main focus of a small country.
Also, survey results of Delphi topics are collective intelligence from the expert interaction of scanned countries
South korea and China. 3. 1 Mapping technology interactions in Delphi topics 3. 1. 1 Summary result of the mapping in three countries.
Technology 19 (Basic materials chemistry) is prospected also by these three countries as second hot application technology before the year 2020,
The overlapping result for technology interaction mapped by the Delphi topics from the three countries can also be seen in Figure 2. The overlapped interactions identified among the three countries include source technology 12 (Control) to application technology
technology 15 (Biotechnology) to technology 1 Figure 2 Summary result of the mapping in three countries PAGE 62 jforesight jvol. 15 NO. 1 2013 (Electrical machinery
Table VI Keywords of Delphi topics that link with the overlapping result of the mapping in the technology interaction Source technology Application technology Country Key words in Delphi topics 12
3. 2 Mapping interactions across technologies from the top 25 percent important Delphi topics in each country Since the foresight results of these three countries were intended to be used for reference in priority setting
it may therefore be strategically important to identify what kind of technologies are rated as important for these three countries;
Therefore, the top 25 percent important Delphi topics before 2020 are selected according to the foresight result in each country,
and associating the future technology themes described in strategic foresight reports from selected countries with a state of the-art-the art technology classification system.
and discrepancies in future technology options among countries are analyzed successfully, and important technology trajectories for each country are highlighted specifically
and compared. In summary, there are some operational and methodological benefits that can be provided by the integrative analytic method of this study.
the mapping and comparison of future technology options from different countries/regions become more effective. Also, the method combines both the advantage of strategic technology foresight and competitive technology intelligence, by utilizing the results derived from the former as a target for analysis
and some of the technology interactions are prospected differently by these three countries. The difference in technology options or prospects may be derived from the different context of energy use
and specific intentions that these countries want to achieve. Therefore, regional characteristics may bias the results of the research.
or development priorities is different in each country, the technology intelligence demonstrated by this research still needs to be monitored
an example of tailoring foresight to the needs of a small country'',available at: www. oeaw. ac. at/ita/pdf/ita 01 02. pdf (accessed March 8, 2010.
In both countries, public policy activities to foster nanotechnology were accompanied by efforts to establish governance structures to coordinate interactions between actors of the innovation system.
The FTA TOOLS used to develop governance frameworks for nanotechnology in these two countries differ along time.
In both countries, early FTA envisioned innovative future nanotechnologies, but did not support guidance either for future innovative governance or for using nanotechnology for disruptive innovation in order to address grand societal challenges.
Comparing these two countries, the main difference lies in the existence of an umbrella organisation in the USA that pools heterogeneous stakeholders
Because of the difference in patent law between the U s. and other countries, too many individual assignees are observable in U s. patents,
adopted to varying degrees by every country or organization with an official patent office. Lerner 25 introduced four-digit IPC codes to measure the scope of each patent.
and/or chronic scarcity. 3. Strategic or speculative behavior of countries that have a quasi-monopoly on the extraction of (rare earth) metals may seriously hinder the transition of modern societies towards more sustainable ones.
and technology varies widely between countries. Societies differ, just as economies, and governments deal with international scientific developments in different ways through the policies they pursue 14.
but rather on the longer-term interplay between the organizational settings in both countries and the future-oriented nanotechnology analysis. In countries such as the US and Germany, where FTA on nanotechnology were already underway in the late 1980s,
Compared with other countries, the US and Germany started assessing the status and future trends in the area of nanotechnology early on 5,
In both countries, the public policy activities to foster nanotechnology were accompanied by efforts to establish governance structures to coordinate interactions between actors of the innovation system.
After the establishment of public funding programs in some countries and increasing risk debates, anticipatory activities included a wide range of stakeholders from politics, academia, industry and NGOS,
Despite these different traditions, both countries used FTA to develop governance frameworks for nanotechnology. 3. Future-oriented technology analysis of nanotechnology in the US
Several industrial countries established their first programs in that field in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
On the other hand, the increase was triggered by critics coming from voices outside the networks established in both countries.
Participatory FTA ACTIVITIES increased in both countries after 2004, when nanotechnology risks was perceived first as problems
and Russia to gather additional information on activities in those countries 5. In Germany, the report on the first forecast activities also documented international activities,
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several industrial countries established their first programs in 450 P. Schaper-Rinkel/Technological forecasting & Social Change 80 (2013) 444 452
In both countries, early FTA envisioned innovative future nanotechnologies but did not provide guidance either for future innovative governance or for using nanotechnology for disruptive innovation to address grand societal challenges.
Comparing these two countries, the main difference lies in the existence of an umbrella organization in the US that pools heterogeneous stakeholders
Innovationsschub aus dem Nanokosmos, VDI Technologiezentrum, Düsseldorf, 1998, p. 220.7 J. Youtie, P. Shapira, A. Porter, Nanotechnology publications and citations by leading countries
Similar tendencies are visible in investigator-driven Research funding models in most countries evolved but only slowly towards accommodating more interdisciplinary thematic approaches.
but a counter hypothesis would suggest that deeply embedded institutions are equipped better to fight for survival (one thinks of the persistence of at best partially-reformed institutions from the Soviet-dominated era in some post-transition countries).
For science the need to demonstrate impact dominates the policy agenda in some countries and even the most responsive-mode oriented of European programmes,
Some of the literature has suggested that a decisive context for national foresight exercises relates to the size of the country.
several papers have analysed foresight processes in small countries. In a paper titled‘Foresight in Smaller Countries',Crehan and Harper analysed foresight in Malta, Cyprus and Estonia 8. In another example, Glod,
Duprel and Keenan recently published a paper entitled‘Foresight for science and technology priority setting in a small country:
the case of Luxembourg'9. Other literature suggests that geographical regions are a useful form of contextual categorisation.
the Nordic countries, industrialising Asia, Latin america, and Central and Eastern europe 10. The chapters in the handbook explicitly consider the variety of approaches and contexts within each region,
Countries'or regions'political culture might be closely related to national governance culture. Havas et al. use governance culture to distinguish between the innovation policies in Western European countries, on the one hand,
The paper argues that this concept provides a more useful approach to the decisive context of foresight than the size or regional affiliation of a country.
In his original study from the 1970s, Hofstede analysed cultural differences based on attitude questions that were asked of IBM employees in 40 countries.
The analyses have later been extended to other types of organisations and countries, and covered 76 countries by 2010 22.
In the original study, Hofstede presented four dimensions of culture (see Table 1) 20. In later works
However, data on this dimension are only available for a much smaller number of countries,
In countries with more uncertainty avoidance, such as France and Japan, short-and medium-term scheduling
and planning receive more attention than in countries with less uncertainty avoidance, such as Great britain and Denmark.
In countries such as France and Japan with a high uncertainty avoidance indexes, time and the future are considered to be something that should be mastered and exploited.
In contrast, in countries with lower uncertainty Table 1 Hofstede's cultural dimensions 19. Dimension Description Power distance The extent to
Adaption to upcoming changes might be considered more important in these countries. The third implication of the uncertainty avoidance dimension on foresight relates to tolerance for deviant ideas.
Countries with strong uncertainty avoidance maintain rigid codes of belief and behaviour and are intolerant of deviant persons and ideas.
Hofstede notes that in countries with strong uncertainty avoidance deviant opinion on business, scientific, or political issues is associated with personal antipathies.
Hofstede also that in countries with weak uncertainty avoidance new ideas might just be ignored and not necessarily accept.
Fig. 1 shows a selected number of countries'scores on the power distance index and uncertainty avoidance index.
An Anglosphere cluster of countries (Great britain, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia and New zealand) has a relatively low index for both uncertainty avoidance and power distance.
there is a Francosphere cluster of countries (France, Belgium), which has a relatively high index for both uncertainty avoidance and power distance.
Countries such as Japan and South korea have relatively high uncertainty avoidance indexes, whereas other Asian countries, such as Singapore, Hong kong, China (and also, India and Indonesia), have low uncertainty avoidance indexes.
Among all 50 countries that are included in Hofstede's analysis, Denmark ranks as the 3rd lowest for both uncertainty avoidance and power distance.
and power distance index for a selected number of countries. Based on Hofstede 19 The authors of this paper are responsible for the selection of countries and for the indicative groupings.
P. D. Andersen, L. B. Rasmussen/Futures 59 (2014) 5 17 8 2. 3. Varieties of capitalism:
In their context, the term‘‘regional''refers to geographical clusters of countries 11. Countries are clustered into 6 regions:
Northwest Europe, Eastern europe, Southern Europe, North america, South america and Asia. The key argument is that the way in
This simplification leads to a categorisation of countries into three distinguishing political traditions:(1) established democracies,
The key point of view here is that history matters in the sense that foresight activities are inspired often by earlier activities in other countries.
it challenges the role of the history of foresight diffusion and adoption across and within the regions of many countries.
but the foresight activities of each country might reflect, to a higher degree, sociocultural traditions of power distance and uncertainty avoidance than foresight traditions in neighbouring countries. 3. The Danish context in relation to foresight The intention of this section is to sketch elements of Danish‘‘style
''foresight based on the socioeconomic and cultural features described above. 3. 1. Danish traditions and cultural context of governmental foresight and long range planning As history and cultural context are important,
Denmark was not among the first countries to adopt foresight and similar systematic processes in policy making in science, technology and innovation policies or other policy areas.
science and technology have played traditionally a less important role in Denmark than in most of the comparable OECD countries.
As late as the 1980s, the Danish governmental expenditure on research and development (R&d), relative to the country's gross national product (GNP), was among the lowest of the OECD countries.
It must also be noted that together with the other Nordic countries, Denmark has established a well tradition of policy evaluation,
Consequently, today, Denmark is among the OECD countries with the highest public expenditures on R&d.
A Council for Strategic research has been established to contribute to increased co-operation between public and private research within a range of areas of strategic importance for the country.
Although Denmark was not among the first countries to adopt foresight explicitly, it must be noted that over several decades,
The two processes also show some traits that are expected for a country that has low uncertainty avoidance and low power distance.
The country's low uncertainty avoidance is reflected in several ways in the two cases. When during the Research2015 process, the expert group worked to reduce the number of themes for strategic research
Hofstede mentions that it has been shown that strategic planning is actually more popular in countries that display less uncertainty avoidance,
than in countries that display more uncertainty avoidance 19. The reason for this is that strategic planning presumes a tolerance for uncertainty
Instead of using country size or a country's regional affiliation (such as Western europe or Asia),
due to a low degree of power distance and uncertainty avoidance as well as an approach that combines market and non-market coordination mechanisms, cannot be emulated directly in countries that have a very different cultural context.
when transferring experiences between countries and even more careful when planning cross-national foresight exercises. Even between culturally neighbouring countries, such as Denmark and Sweden, large differences exist in governance culture,
in addition to differences in industrial structure, academic traditions and so on. Our findings also have implications for the academic community.
Picking the Winners, Pinter Publishers, London, 1984.8 J. Crehan, J. Cassingena Harper, Foresight in smaller countries, in:
Handbook of Technology foresight, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK, 2007.9 F. Glod, C. Duprel, M. Keenan, Foresight for science and technology priority setting in a small country:
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