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Synopsis: Countries, cities, regions: Luxembourg:

Analysis of Regulations Shaping New Markets, European commission DG Enterprise (ed.),Luxembourg,(2004. 9 B. R. Martin, Foresight in science and technology, Technol.

Implications for Innovation policy, Office for Official Publications of the European communities, Luxembourg, 1999.580 A. Havas/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 558 582 15 OECD, New Rationale

The European Challenge, HLEG report, DG Research, Office for Official Publications of the European communities, Luxembourg, 2005.24 OECD, Frascati Manual:

Towards a Knowledge-Based Economy, Office for Official Publications of the European communities, Luxembourg, 2003.39 OECD, Main Science and Technology indicators, OECD, Paris, 2006.40 M. Thorne (Ed.),Universities

Policy 35 (10)( 2006) 1450 1464.43 EC, Key Figures 2005, Towards a European research area, Office for Official Publications of the European communities, Luxembourg, 2005.44 EC Cohesion Policy

Collection of EFMN Briefs Part 1, Office for Official Publications of the European commission, Luxembourg, 2008.45 I. Chatrie, J. Rachidie, AGORA 2020 Transport, housing, urbanism and risk, in:

Collection of EFMN Briefs Part 1, Office for Official Publications of the European commission, Luxembourg, 2008.46 H. Thenint, L. Lengrand, Démarche Prospective Transport 2050 For a better French

Collection of EFMN Briefs Part 1, Office for Official Publications of the European commission, Luxembourg, 2008.47 H. J. van Zuylen, K. M. Weber, Strategies for European

and immediate impacts of a recently completed two-year national technology foresight exercise conducted in Luxembourg. The paper covers the evolution of the foresight exercise over its two-year life span,

the case of Luxembourg Frank Glod a, Carlo Duprel a & Michael Keenan b a Fonds national de la recherche, 6 rue Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

, B. P. 1777, L-1017, Luxembourg b Manchester Institute of Innovation research (PREST), University of Manchester, M13 9pl, UK Published online:

the case of Luxembourg, Technology analysis & Strategic management, 21:8, 933-951, DOI: 10.1080/09537320903262298 To link to this article:

the case of Luxembourg Frank Gloda*,Carlo Duprela and Michael Keenanb afonds national de la recherche, 6 rue Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, B

. P. 1777, L-1017, Luxembourg; bmanchester Institute of Innovation research (PREST), University of Manchester, M13 9pl, UK This paper sets out to review the conduct and immediate impacts of a two-year national technollog foresight exercise

(2006 2007) conducted in one of Europe's smallest and wealthiest countries, Luxembourg. The country's small size brings into sharp viewmany of the underlying tensions present in those foresight exercises that explicitly attempt to set national priorities.

The exercise was organised by the FNR (Fonds national de la recherche or National research Fund), the only research council in Luxembourg.

Luxembourg; research system 1. Introduction In 2005, Luxembourg began to embark upon a‘national'technology foresight exercise, with the primary aim of identifying newresearch domains for the National research Fund (FNR) to support*Corresponding author.

Email: frank. glod@fnr. lu ISSN 0953-7325 print/ISSN 1465-3990 online 2009 Taylor & francis DOI:

1 As with other small countries, Luxembourg has limited public resources devoted to research and has a small (and young) public research base.

Thus, the challenge for Luxembourg lies not in distributing limited funds among its existing science community.

In an opening section, the general contours of science, technology and innovation (STI) policy in Luxembourg are traced, with a view to contextualising the FNR Foresight experience.

while a final section draws some summary conclusions and highlights lessons for future foresight practice. 2. STI Policy in Luxembourg Before the 1980s,

Luxembourg lacked a public science, technology and innovation infrastructure. R&d carried out in Luxembourg was largely the preserve of the private sector particularly the steel industry and even today,

a key feature of the research landscape remains the dominant role played by the private sector.

the Luxembourg government decided in 1999 to increase the level of publicly funded research. Accordingly, the government went on to develop a focused STI policy,

the Ministry of Culture, Higher education and Research (MCHER) as the key policy centre with respect to Luxembourg research;

These developments were followed up in 2003 by the establishment of the University of Luxembourg (UL.

These unprecedented budget increases possibly place Luxembourg in a unique position among its partners in Europe,

although the level of gross expenditure on r&d (GERD) in Luxembourg at 1. 25%of GDP in 2006 still remains one of the lowest in the Europeea Union (EU). Afuller reviewof the evolution of the Luxembourg research system is offered by Meyer

but other initiatives (see Box 1) are meant also to contribute to upgrading Luxembourg science, as well as to improving its governance.

The University of Luxembourg was established in 2003 and implies a shift of paradigm, as it was considered always to be a national strategic advantage that Luxembourg students had to go to foreign countries to study.

The University has been created by merging three existing higher education institutes and its remit has been shifted from an almost purely educational role to one that has a stronger focus on research.

The City of Science is an initiative of the MCHER to regroup the University of Luxembourg and the Public research Centres on a single new site in the south of Luxembourg near the town of Esch-sur-Alzette.

The Centre is to be set up in cooperation between three US institutions, three Luxembourg public research centres,

and the University of Luxembourg. Research activities will mainly cover the topic of molecular diagnostics with a 5-year budget of¤140 million.

the FNR serves as Luxembourg's national funding agency in supporting the development of research competences in topics of national interest Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december 2014 936 F. Glod et al. through multi

In this way, FNR funding is intended to shift the Luxembourg research system towards conducting more leading-edge science

So the FNR has faced the challenge of identifying‘appropriate'programmes that will not only attract sufficient high-quality proposals from Luxembourg scientists

but will also steer them to conduct more leading-edge research in topic areas that are likely to be important for Luxembourg's future socioeconnomi development.

and Luxembourg has been no exception. In the section that follows, we discuss some of the generic dilemmas that characterise prioritisation processes before examining how these played out in the Luxembourg context. 3. Generic priority-setting dilemmas Priority setting is, more often than not,

an implicit activity that permeates all policymaking and implementation. An important attraction of technology foresight has been its promise to make such processes more explicit, and, by extension

Luxembourg, where in theory, it is possible to engage almost everyone in the prioritisation proceess Rather,

the major limit in places like Luxembourg is the breadth and depth of local expertiis to make prioritisation assessments.

b) where the first phase consisted largely of defining the current position of the Luxembourg research landscape,

In the first part of Phase 1 an initial‘diagnostic'step focused on mapping the Luxembourg research landscape.

and a series of face-to-face interviews with stakeholders, including senior researchers within Luxembourg and abroad, as well as companies and public administrators.

These were focused all upon identifying future research directions for Luxembourg. In parallel, key trends and thematic research priorities were collected from 13 countries.

5 but their full assessment was undertaken through an online questionnaire survey of much of the Luxembourg research landscape (around 300 participants), Online Questionnaire Young Res.

Workshop Exploratory Workshop‘Long list'of research domains Initial assessment Selection of broad research fields Stakeholder workshops No formal input General Challenges for Luxembourg Expert workshops per field SWOT Analysis Initial

assessment of domains Future trends Luxembourg context Research priorities candidates Conclusion & recommendations Phase 2: Setting Context/Identifying Priorities Data collection Bibliometrics Interviews International research trends Evaluation of FNR programmes Mapping of Lux.

Phase 2 of the exercise was devoted to establishing possible priorities for public research in Luxembourg. For this purpose

As a starting point for assessing research domains, representatives from Luxembourg society, business and research were invited to the Stakeholderworkshop with the aim of identifying the main challenges facing Luxembourg over the coming decade.

The subsequent series of thematic field workshops aimed to (redefine or review7 the research domains identified in Phase 1,

but for the most part, we have sought to deliberately focus upon those that we feel have been more unique to Luxembourg.

but that are developed still weakly in Luxembourg. The international group of experts also emphasised the need to balance any discussion of thematic priorities with a strong consideration of structural priorities.

‘research domains in the public sector with short-term and/or long-term socioeconomic interest for Luxembourg society'.

To assist the development of outstanding centres of science and technology excellence in Luxembourg; To ensure the specialisation of public research centre facilities into centres with a limited number of specific areas of high level expertise;

Rather, all research domains presently investigated in Luxembourg would continue to benefit from at least current levels of financial support

which presented them as the research priorities for Luxembourg to the MCHER. An even more fundamental problem lay with the widening of the exercise's scope to include identification of‘national'priorities

it is necessary to take into account recurring discussions in Luxembourg on the need to identify Table 2. National research priorities in the shape of research areas and research domains.

Information security and trust management Telecommunications and multimedia Sustainable resource Managing sustainable development management in Understanding ecosystems and biodiversity Luxembourg Sustainable management of water resources Sustainable

'i e. areas of potential economic success which may only be achieved through a knowledge base developed in Luxembourg.

This expectation is informed by the so-called‘sovereignty niches'areas where the traditional wealth of Luxembourg has been built owing to geographical (steel) or legislative (banking industry) specificities,

despite the small size of Luxembourg, it was apparent that many people in the same thematic areas did not know one another.

and analysis. Similar shortcomings have also been noted by Meyer 2008 who comments that Luxembourg's‘current science policy appears to be almost too ambitious,..

'the interests of the participants were more widely spread (reflecting the reality of Luxembourg's research in that area)

contrary to previous findings (Crehan and Cassingena-Harper 2008), this did not make coordination easier in Luxembourg

6. 1. Sense-making and the construction of political ownership As the main S&t policy body in Luxembourg,

developing a new clearly defined strategy in order to sharpen its impact on the Luxembourg research landscape.

The exercise also helped the FNR to better comprehend the Luxembourg STI environment while strongly highlighhtin the dearth of statistics and analyses.

Overall, the successful conduct of the Foresight exercise and its implementation, together with all the other ongoing structural changes, indicate a growing maturity of the Luxembourg STI environment, particularly around public governance.

the experiences of Luxembourg are likely to be all too familiar, but the small size of Luxembourg also brings into sharp view many of the underlying tensions present in those foresight exercises that explicitly attempt to set national priorities.

Some of these are summarised below. 7. 1. Setting the scope of prioritisation Restricting the exercise to the identification of only thematic priorities was a mistake,

Discussion around this point tended to get tied up with the idea of identifying new‘competence niches'for Luxembourg to exploit.

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

first, the already-mentioned lack of vision of the role of S&t in Luxembourg's development meant that some of the criteria were used rather blindly.

This was problematic in the Luxembourg setting, as much national data was missing while international benchmarking was limited of use owing to Luxembourg's small size.

This therefore made assessment against some of the criteria very difficult and probably unreliable. 15 7. 4. Who prioritises?

Notes on contributors Frank Glod is senior programme manager at the National research Fund of Luxembourg

Carlo Duprel is senior programme manager at the National research Fund of Luxembourg and was involved in the conduct of the FNR Foresight study.

2.‘Competence niches'refer to areas of potential economic success that develop from the establishment of an exceptionally strong knowledge base in a particular domain. 3. As the GDP of Luxembourg has increased by 50%(from¤22 to 33.1 billion) between 2000 and 2006,

and their methodology had to be adapted to the degree of progress made up to that point. 8. Other elements included the review analysis by the OECD on Luxembourg's public research apparatus, the multiannnua development programmes of the public research centres and the University of Luxembourg,

Luxembourg: Fonds National de la Recherche (unpublished. FNR. 2007a. FNR Foresight Final Report. National priorities for public research and other findings.

Luxembourg: Fonds National de la Recherche. FNR. 2007b. FNR Foresight Final Report. Thinking for the future today.

Luxembourg: Fonds National de la Recherche. Georghiou, L, . and M. Keenan. 2006. Evaluating national technology foresight exercises.

Luxembourg Foresight a‘standard'exercise in a‘peculiar'setting? Paper presented at the Second FTA Conference, 28 29 september, Sevilla, Spain.

the case of Luxembourg. Science and Public policy 35, no. 5: 361 71. OECD. 1991. Choosing priorities in science and technology.

Luxembourg. Paris: OECD. Thorsteinsdottir, H. 2000. Public sector research in small countries: does size matter? Science and Public policy 27, no. 6: 433 42.

Since then, six countries Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Luxembourg have chosen to ban Monsanto MON 810 modified maize contradicting EU Commission position.

(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.

IPTS-ISTAG, European commission, Luxembourg, 2001.27 Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering, Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies:

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European union. http://ftp. jrc. es/EURDOC/JRC55981. pdf (accessed July 2012.

revealing how Europe and other world regions navigate into the future'',Publications Office of the European union, European commission, Luxembourg, available at:

Time for the EU to Meet Global Challenges, EUR 24364 EN, Publications Office of the European union, Luxembourg, 2010.

Time for the EU to Meet Global Challenges, EUR 24364 EN, Publications Office of the European union, Luxembourg, 2010.

Experts'Perceptions and Scientific Relations Between Sub-areas, Brussels Luxembourg, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, 1997.22 National science and Technology Council, Nanotechnology, in:

the case of Luxembourg'9. Other literature suggests that geographical regions are a useful form of contextual categorisation.

France and Belgium are marked with a dotted circle in the upper right quadrant of Fig. 1. Between these clusters is a Germanosphere cluster (Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg),

the case of Luxembourg, Technology analysis & Strategic management 21 november (8))(2009) 933 951.10 L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena Harper, M. Keenan,

time for the EU to meet global challenges, Publications Office of the European union, Luxembourg, 2010.2 L. Y. Tang, Q. Shen, Factors affecting effectiveness and efficiency of analysing stakeholders

Time for the EU to Meet Global Challenges, Publications Office of the European union, Luxembourg, 2010, http://dx. doi. org/10.2791/4223eur 24364 EN, ISSN 1018

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European communities. Christensen, C M 1997. The Innovator's Dilemma:

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publicatiion of the European communities (Scientific and Technical research series, EUR 23633 EN.

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publicatiion of the European communities. United nations 2004. Creative industries and Development. Repoor TD (XI)/ BP/13.

In a comparison of industrialized countries only Japan and Luxembourg show a comparably low percentage of government financing for R&d (OECD

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European commission. Georghiou, L. 2011)‘ Connecting conference outcomes with policy needs, options and implications'paper presented during final plenary session at the Fourth International Conference on Future-oriented technology analysis, held Seville, Spain

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European union.<<http://ftp. jrc. es/EURDOC/JRC55981. pdf>,accessed Oct 2011.

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European communities.<<http://ec. europa. eu/invest-inreseearchpdf/download en/aho report. pdf>accessed 15 dec 2011..(

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European communities.<<http://ec. europa. eu/research/era/pdf/eg7-era-rationales-final-report en. pdf>accessed 15 dec 2011.

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European communities. Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. 2010) Envisioning Future research Horizons: Scenarios for the European research Landscape 2025.

In Luxembourg this is below 10, %while in Lithuania over 50%of gross expenditure on r&d is performed by this sector (calculaation based on Eurostat data for 2009).

'Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European union. European commission. 2002)‘ Thinking, debating and shaping the future: Foresight for Europe'.

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European commission. Bo schen, S.,Kastenhofer, K.,Rust, I.,Soentgen, J. and Wehling, P. 2010)‘ Scientific nonknowledge and its political dynamics:

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European commission. Botterhuis, L.,van der Duin, P.,de Ruijter, P. and van Wijck, P. 2010)‘ Monitoring the future.

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European commission. Fuerth, L. S. 2009)‘ Foresight and anticipatory governance',Foresight, 11:14 32.

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