All of them are specifically knowledge dynamic fields. 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Foresight process Fully fledged foresight Bibliometrics Strategic partnerships Research alliances 1. Introduction In September 2007, the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) launched a new foresight process
From this knowledge, new therapies as well as new products may be derived. Energy concert: the energy supply and demand are still a cacophony.
but also solid knowledge about thinking, feeling, communication and behaviour. The dynamic interplay at the borders of disciplines is the focus that opens up a new perspective.
or proposed to deepen the knowledge of some of the topics by inviting external experts
and codifying this knowledge in reports for BMBF contributes directly to the first two objectives of the process (objectives no. 1 and 2). It is expected that policy implementation will be facilitated by this information, by defining strategic partnerships and recommendations,
but was promoted by the coming year 2000 and the demand for knowledge about the future.
but includes information and knowledge from different sources and by different means and methods. The information and topics gained in these processes may also be interesting for other actors in the innovation system.
and from foresight studies 22 27 and took into account knowledge from 15 years of foresight in Germany and internationally 4, 5, 6, 17,21, 28 31.
, 2000, pp. 78 92.8 Horizon scan Report, Towards a Future Oriented Policy and Knowledge Agenda, COS, The hague, 2007, www. horizonscan. nl. 9 K. Cuhls
, Strategic intelligence for an Innovative economy, Springer, Berlin, 2008.26 A g. Pereira, R. von Schomberg, S. Funtowicz, Foresight Knowledge Assessment, International Journal of Foresight and Innovation policy, vol
In particular this concerns examples of futures thinking that failed to make knowledge useful failed to link it to the real concerns of decision makers,
and failed to provide knowledge at the time it was needed. Oftentimes, external experts are commissioned by governments and public administration to produce forward-looking analysis,
create a learning framework to flexibly incorporate new advancements in knowledge, adapt structures and decisions to new insights and trigger more long-term changes in the organisations'overall awareness for constant anticipation, learning and adaptation 12,43.
and knowledge platforms is a useful first step. Creating the right incentives for policy-makers to engage in scenario planning
and to synthesize this knowledge base within a comparative analysis. Sound process management needs to exploit existing routes to influence, such as policy networks, the media, business schools or schools of government.
i) motivation,(ii) power,(iii) knowledge, and (iv) legitimization. The current paper discusses the application of the‘situation'cum CSH metaphor for the case of nanoscience,
Nothing can be known with certainty all previous foundations of theoretical knowledge have been shown to be unreliable History has no‘final causes,
as it lies at the heart of Foresight Environment of knowledge development: 7. Trust between organisers and all participants, even among those whose opinions may not be deemed to be‘influential'8. Establishment of a new balance between participants with special expertise
and means of ameliorating it as it evolves Challenge claims to knowledge, rationality or‘improvement'of a situation that rely on hidden boundary judgments
as the participant group will evolve rather than be selected as in current Foresight practice. 4. 1. 3. Sources of knowledge 7. The heuristic nature of Inclusive foresight places special emphasis on all opinions.
that their opinions have re-entrant value. 8. Knowledge, know-how or opinion relevant to the dynamics of the situation ought to be the judgemental criteria exercised by the programme managers with respect to the evolving population of participants. 9. The heuristic nature of inclusive foresight means that the implementation of proposals ought to be dynamic and relevant
The population of participants in Inclusive foresight and their knowledge, know-how or opinion relevant to the dynamics of the situation ought to represent, within statistical limits,
The Sources of Knowledge part of the metaphor draws attention to the use of the term nano artifacts.
(which includes services as artifacts) that links these aspects to the public and corporate worlds, a further component of the Sources of Knowledge part of the metaphor.
Creating, Using and Manipulating Scientific knowledge for Public policy, Edinburgh University Press, 1993.6 J. Stiles, Neural plasticity and cognitive development, Developmental Neuropsychology 18 (2)( 2000) 237 272.7 D
institutional and social factors in shaping a technology. 4 Braun for example describes the early notions of innovation as being characterised by a‘linear'view of innovation as an automatic spill over process between basic knowledge
a significant difference between today's knowledge-based economies and the industrial economies of 30 or 50 years ago is that technological development has become crucial for economic development
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,
4) to create positiiv external economies through the exchange of information, knowledge and vision; and (5) to facilitate the formation of markets (Johnson and Jacobsson 2001.
It is based on the knowledge-based view of the firm and on organisational learning (Prahalad and Hamel 1990;
As competencies and knowledge are important assets, knowledge creation and learning naturally come into focus (Nonaka 1994;
The new production of knowledge. The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. London:
The knowledge-creating company. Newyork: Oxford university Press. Porter, M. E. 1990. Competitive strategy. Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors.
(or otherwise) to underpin the foresight process with sufficient and appropriate‘objectivised'knowledge (including national statistics,
and a capacity to absorb knowledge across a wide range of global knowledge networks. But in small countries, this is particularly difficult to achieve across the board as many S&t areas lack sufficient‘critical mass'to keep pace with all the latest developments.
Furthermore, many participants will probably lack the requisite knowledge to make such detailed assessments. This is an important (and often under-reported) limitation in many priority-setting exercises.
and it is accepted now generally that the users of S&t knowledge and artefacts, including social and commercial interests,
on the understanding that it would provide a more participative (involving knowledge users as well as producers) and future-oriented (visionary) approach to identifying topic areas suitable for new FNR programmes.
'i e. areas of potential economic success which may only be achieved through a knowledge base developed in Luxembourg.
and that it should have started with a stronger voice from knowledge users both societal and commercial.
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,
Smith 2002) draws our attention to various policy practices relying extensively on the knowledge, experience and competence of the different stakeholders concerned.
(knowledge network) Intermediate Articulation of joint visions of the future, establishing longer-term perspectives Ultimate Integrating new able actors in the community that is shaping an area of concern Counselling Immediate Making hidden agendas
it is captured not fully by The english translation‘Vienna Looks to the Future knowledge means change'.
2) Research priorities and knowledge transfer;(3) Science and society;(4) Urban development for research. Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 Trade-offs between policy impacts of future-oriented analysis 959 Panel 1 FTI in business Integrative concept for RTI-strategy Panel
By means of a new set of measures called‘Vienna research in dialogue'a critical and continuous exchange of knowledge about RTI with the citizenry is to be fostered.
What is the‘knowledge economy'?'Knowledge intensity and distributed knowledge bases. Discussion papers 06. Maastricht: United nations University, Institute for New technologies.
Smits, R. 2002. The new role of strategic intelligence. In Strategic policy intelligence: current trends, the state of play and perspectives, ed. A. Tübke, K. Ducatel, J. Gavigan and P. Moncada-Paternò-Castello.
such as knowledge workers (including experts), stakeholders and users of public services. In its ideal form, Foresight today integrates long-term planning,*Email:
What results can we expect from their participation in a visioning project in terms of knowledge, perspective or future literacy?
however, is given to the paradoxical aspects of reflexive knowledge in its relation to expectations and the organisation of the future.
How do we mobilise knowledge for futureorieente activities and expectations about future development? Giddens (1991,29) argues that our present knowledge about social institutions
and relations between social actors relates to existing structures and could limit our openness to new insights.
Thus reflexive knowledge might in the end confound our expectations. Therefore we need a broader understanding of reflexivity Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:10 03 december 2014 Foresight and governance:
thus adapting the knowledge of other, more informed social groups to create their‘own'ideas. Another preconditionwas a request to imagine themselves as grownups.
Instead of contributing to the organisational knowledge and attaining operative power in the municipality plan the future visions were redirected'to being used by the young people themselves, arguably with less political and operative impact.
participants should possess some type of knowledge, if not expertise then lay knowledge about a specific area,
defining them as non-experts (Cañellas-Boltà and Strand 2006), or they should be able to influence the activities of an organisation.
which they constructed an image of this group as authentic stakeholders regardless of their knowledge or possibilities to influence political decision making.
and scholars have discussed the value of a futures approach in the field of community planning as not necessarily‘in discovering new factual knowledge about sustainable urban developmment
but in producing perceptions and insights to that body of knowledge and‘imagineering'novel ways of addressing city sustainability'(Ratcliffe, Krawczyk,
and the approach proposed within inclusive foresiigh as giving room to lay knowledge and inclusive, non-expert participation.
It follows up on the idea of participation as not being based upon knowledge-founded authority but on representing an authentic social group, contributing perspectives and insights different from all the others.
based on the knowledge acquired by asking parents, friends and neighbours. 20 Nevertheless, the scope of their possible contributions was limited clearly through the preconditions they received from the project leadership.
developing organizational foresight in the knowledge economy',11 13 july 2002, University of Strathclyde Graduate school of Business, Glasgow, UK.
knowledge flows and the coordination of innovation. http://www. iesam. csic. es/proyecto/formwp1. pdf (accessed September 2009).
reflexivity and the social construction of knowledge, a note to authors in COSTA22. European Science Foundation. http://www. costa22. org/articles. php (accessed June 2009.
Against reflexivity as an academic virtue and source of privileged knowledge. Theory, Culture, & Society 17:26 54.
foresight in the knowledge economy, ed. H. Tsoukas, and J. Shepherd, 77 97. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Knowledge discovery in databases 1. Introduction How long does it take to provide a particular Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA?
or policy decisions relying primarily upon intuitive sources of knowledge. That need no longer be the case.
and, thus, how best to use this derived knowledge to make better decisions. In this way technology intelligence gains credibility as a vital decision aid.
Company Knowledge Network Fig. 2. Organizational ddone-Pagerq. A l. Porter/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1070 1081 1076!
What could be better than this deep, personal knowledge? Well, it turned out that actual data were better.
K. W. Boyack, Visualizing knowledge domains, Annual Review of Information science and Technology 37 (2003) 179 255.7 A l. Porter, E. Yglesias, A. Kongthon, C. Courseault, N c. Newman, Getting
The Quest for Knowledge Visualization, Springer, London, 2003.13 R. M. Shiffrin, K. Borner, Mapping knowledge domains, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101 (Suppl. 1)( 2004
or apply knowledge that is based on R&i activities and (2) and, by doing so, seek to respond to societal and industrial needs.
what societal and industrial needs would be addressed by strengthening the focus area,(iii) what possibilities the focus areawould offer for the concrete application of related knowledge,
and applicatiion of knowledge pertaining this focus area of competence?)and (ii) the future demand for this expertise (i e. how strongly will the generation
and of knowledge in this focus area of competence respond to the societal and industrial needs in 2015?).
nor did its members have substantive knowledge about the full range of scientific and technical matters addressed in the panel reports.
Management and modelling of biological knowledge 7. Information and communications Sensor technology applications Data mining, analysis, management and retrieval Bio-information technology 8. Understanding and human interaction Multicultural
and drawing upon wider sources of knowledge than experts so as to use the broader participation not only to inform
which individuals who address the future share their knowledge and link, present and discuss information and insights with each other.
Methods in turn need to manage the complex knowledge flows that are entailed. FTA is a work in progress
, Future-oriented technology analysis impacts and implications for policy and decision making, Technological forecasting and Social Change 76 (2009) 1135 1137.14 I. Nonaka, H. Takeuchi, The Knowledge-creating Company, Oxford university Press, Oxford
In all these approaches to characterising innovation regimes the knowledge base plays a crucial role.‘‘‘‘Central to the systems approach is the view that the key resource of a firm,
or an industry is the knowledge base from which it draws its competence in refining, developing and creating
The characteristics of the knowledge base such as complexity, diversity and observability are used as key factors for generating innovation typologies 17,18. 6 Forlearn project and Forlearn online guide coordinated by DG JRC-IPTS;
and policy instruments and that the properties of the knowledge base is a crucial factor for such a differentiation.
disseminate and transfer knowledge. Each one of these three arenas functions in the context of a specific institutional arrangement.
and degrees of international inter-linkage or even post-national institutionalisation for different knowledge areas.
knowledge tends to be cumulative, meaning that two different pieces produced in different places will converge towards deepening the given paradigm.
-or multidiscipllinarit for frontier science, one has analysed the need for inter-institutional linkages for problem-solving knowledge (collaborations between university and industry or between researchers and clinicians,..
In the first place the bipolar dimension of convergence/divergence should be substituted by a notion of pattern of growth that encompasses additional archetypes of transformations of‘‘bodies of knowledge''merging, death, birth...
/Futures 43 (2011) 232 242 236 For instance, the progressive sliding of the field of biocatalysis away from‘catalysis'within chemistry towards biotechnologies illustrates an actual reconfiguration of a current knowledge area that is combining splitting and merging
As a third new element we suggest to broaden the analytical framework (originally designed for purely scientific environments) towards the realm of technological knowledge,
Moreover, the combined analysis of scientific and technological knowledge brings a more original outcome in the sense that it provides an adequate framework for analysing researchers'coactivity,
For each domain, we will first characterise the institutional arrangement of the governance arenas and the knowledge configurations,
Plant genomics appears in two ways as a singular island in the post-genomics knowledge archipelago. In a first place
(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.
20 N. Brown, B. Rappert, A. Webster, Foresight as a Tool for the Management of Knowledge Flows and Innovation (FORMAKIN.
Presentation at the Conference‘‘Knowledge for Growth: European Strategies in Global economy'',Toulouse, July 7 9, 2008.46 B. Kahane, A. Delemarle, L. Villard, P. Lare'do, Knowledge dynamics and agglomeration phenomena:
Dorothy Leonard-Barton, in K. M. Patton/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1082 1093 1084 her Wellsprings of Knowledge 5, maintains that the process of introducing external streams
of knowledge into a company is just as important as managing information flows within the company.
and imports the knowledge that he or she develops into the decision-making process intuitively. Scanning processes are tools for systematizing the collection of early signals of change
and knowledge for an organization can begin in earnest. Researchers and analysts will need to examine carefully the clusters of abstracts
Only the Paranoid Survive, Doubleday, 1999.5 Dorothy Leonard-Barton, Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation, Harvard Business school Press, Boston, 1995, p. 135.6 Eric D. Beinhocker, Sarah Kaplan, Tired of strategic planning?
10.1016/j. futures. 2010.11.003 the planning and emergence of knowledge-based clusters is informed often by a vision;
technological knowledge and/or the capabilities to innovate. This can be by means of grants, loans, fiscal incentives, consultancy support,
for example, knowledge clusters. An early example of this concept was the Finnish Governments knowledge cluster programme of the mid-1990s.
Here the aimwas tomobilise actors and networks by reference to the research focus of their activities rather than to the location inwhich these activities are carried out.
Knowledge cluster programmes allow a focus on areas of an economy in which there is potential for innovation
Cariola and Rolfo link this to an evolution from hierarchical organisational structures with tangible assets to network knowledge-based organisational forms as a backdrop to the formulation of innovation policy 36.
Anticipation of intelligence (or knowledge) is a contribution to improve the knowledge base for the designing of policies.
and technology development by using the knowledge generated from roadmap activity. In the UK, the Development, Concept and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) a Directorate General of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) conducted a foresight process that produced as a key output a report‘‘the DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme
A knowledge-based perspective A. Eerola A i. Miles b a VTT Technical research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland b Manchester Institute of Innovation research, Manchester united Kingdom 1
Learning implies the production and reproduction of knowledge and this in turn implies that FTA necessarily involves knowledge management
10.1016/j. futures. 2010.11.005 2. FTA and knowledge management Talking about FTA in terms of‘‘knowledge''may seem to risk dealing in oxymorons.
so how can there be have knowledge about it unless we believe in divinely inspired prophets
deploying, using and fusing and, yes, even creating knowledge. The whole point of FTA is to better inform our decisions,
and this involves knowledge of historical and contemporary dynamics and developments, and what their implications may be for future circumstances.
and we can bring knowledge to bear on determining who these experts are, how valid their methods are,
Another sort of knowledge we can have is knowledge about the views that others have (or profess) about the nature of the current situation,
This sort of knowledge may be little more than a specialised form of opinion poll analysis: many Delphi studies do take this form,
Bell and Olick 2 reframe the discussion about‘‘knowledge of the future''by arguing that we posit the future
but also differences from, the ways in which we create knowledge about the past and present.‘
‘Knowing'the future is thought better of as knowing about future possibilities, rather than knowledge of the future.
and explication of knowledge surrogates, and their use to support decision-making. Posits are such‘knowledge surrogates,
'for Bell and Olick 2. We can have knowledge about the posts themselves. We can examine their plausibility and limits, their internal consistency and conformity with models and data,
the extent to which they are consistent with expert judgement, etc. Posits are based on knowledge of (or assumptions about) past and present,
and analysis of posits and their implications for action requires examination of this underlying knowledge base,
its limits and quality, and its use in the generation of posits. The idea of posits provides us with a label for specific sets of knowledge.
These are the sets of knowledge that are to do with the consequences that our models of situations
and systems imply, when we bring various assumptions to bear about how these situations and systems may evolve into the future.
Various tasks for knowledge management in respect of such‘‘knowledge surrogates''can be identified. Posits need to be created, explicated, communicated;
whose knowledge of the future may well be far less than omniscient, and whose acts of creation are undertaken for the purpose of learning.
It will require managing knowledge in a wider community albeit that the precise community in question may have been constructed partly by the exercise itself.
and structuring of this community is itself a task that requires knowledge. And this knowledge involves knowledge management too
concerning, for example, the methods of stakeholder mapping that are employed, the ways in which suggestions for participants and dissemination approaches are elicited. 3. Methods and tools So,
Practically any source of insight into the dynamics of science and technology (S&t) their production, communication, application can be utilised as knowledge inputs into FTA.
These all contribute to the knowledge base and methodological development of FTA 3 7. The result is a proliferation of tools.
the accumulation and integration of knowledge about different tools and approaches is very uneven. Many (probably the great majority of) FTA practitioners are familiar with only a limited number of these tools.
But huge knowledge gaps are apparent, often stemming from the fact that much FTA work is conducted under pressure to provide results to inform urgent decisions.
and thereby producing foresight knowledge (some of this will be posits, in Bell and Olick's terminology.
the (iv) translation and (v) interpretation of this knowledge to create understanding of its implications for the future of the organisation in question (further posits.
subtask (v). She portrays this as the conversion of translated knowledge into understanding. It uses of methods such as roadmapping and scenario development relevant to the particular organisation/stakeholder.
which is liable to impede the effective use of the knowledge and posits generated. There is a missing KM link, in effect,
in terms of knowledge and posits, we can interpret as follows. The first dimension reflects how far the method relies on eliciting, working with,
The two dimensions might be seen as reflecting the balance between knowledge from experts and knowledge within communities,
and of sources of specialised knowledge about the issues and actions in focus, than characterised many earlier futures studies.
Enlarging the available knowledge base. This can be seen as a reflection of the growing complexity of S&t decisions,
which is associated with such factors as the combination of multiple scientific and technological knowledge bases in many 7 Naisbitt 36,
and with large-scale use of new technological knowledge). 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.
The knowledge and mental models of practitioners and stakeholders may have to be brought into play in such cases.
Methods for identifying key sources of knowledge and eliciting information from them in a form that can be used readily,
the aim is embed to the knowledge that has been generated in the programme into theirownorganisations and practices.
As well as knowledge being widely distributed, so are power and action. Of course both are distributed unevenly: some actors have more access to sources of information
This is liable to gowell beyond the knowledge that can be gained from poring over a report, let alone just reading an executive summary.
butwill be carriers of this FTA knowledge into their own organisations, working to create decisions
and is also likely to increase the commitment to making use of the foresight knowledge).
The senior actorswill thus be primed to receive the detailed knowledge that is gained by the more junior actors.
develop and use knowledge, coming close to Boisot's idea of social learning cycle (17,18). Taking account of cultural factors, values and opinions,
and deploying the knowledge and posits that they make available and that are generated during the FTA PROCESS.
and knowledge One of the most influential contributions to thinking about organisational learning and KM has been the model of the dynamics of shared knowledge creation developed by Nonaka and Takeuchi 19.
combination and internalisation) represent a knowledge cycle undertaken in the course of organisational learning. Two dimensions underlie the Nonaka and Takeuchi 19 account:
one is essentially ontological is known the knowledge at the individual level only, at the group level,
and the other is more epistemological is the knowledge tacit or explicit? In fact, a spiral of several successive cycles is needed usually for innovation
Interacting individuals share their knowledge, linking, presenting and discussing information and insights with each other. This also enables them to internalise this knowledge through interpretations in specific contexts.
This is highly reminiscent of what takes place in FTA, even if the four knowledge conversion modes in the Nonaka model do not correspond precisely with the three steps of Horton and Weick,
or the five of Saritas. While there is great value in the distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge
and other such external manifestations and products of knowledge as suggested by Dawson 20. Dawson also reformulates the Nonaka framework accordingly (Fig. 1),
as representing movement between knowledge (which requires knowing agents, and is embodied thus human), and information (that can be codified
along with ideas about knowledge being contained''in things and knowledge flows happening (e g. in technology transfer), that it is hard to shift.
The critique of this terminology is mentioned here to highlight‘‘knowledge''as a property of knowing individuals.
This emphasis is highly relevant for FTA. Individual actors in FTA organise information in ways that are relevant to their purposes practical problems, conceptual challenges,()TD$FIG Knowledge Information Knowledge Socialisation:
Transfer of knowledge between people (through interaction rather than mediated through captured information) Externalisation: Capturing people's knowledge by rendering it as documents or structured processes Informationinternalisation:
Knowledge acquisition learning how to use models, formulae, equipment, methods etc. Combination: systematising and/or translating formalised concepts into new frameworks, procedures, etc.
Fig. 1. The knowledge cycle. Source: Dawson 20 after Nonka and Takeuchi 19.9 For a much fuller survey of the field,
though one with a high orientation to IT solutions, see Alavi and Leidner 38. A. Eerola,
I. Miles/Futures 43 (2011) 265 278 271 understanding themselves and their worlds, or whatever.
Codifying this knowledge (and posits) as written insights, sets of procedure, and the like, provides information resulting from the knowledge.
This information may be an account of the knowledge and/or posits, or may simply imply such an account (which an observer equipped with relevant knowledge will be able to reconstruct).
Different agents may interpret and organise the information in different ways, deriving different sorts of knowledge from it.
For example, a detailed account of a scenario represents a codification of posits, from which it is possible to reverse engineer at least some of the knowledge that informed the scenario work.
Good FTA practice will make it easy for later users of the work to assess the validity of its knowledge base
and the derivations that have been made from it. What then of concepts like‘‘knowledge transfer''?''Since knowledge is not a‘‘thing''out there,
it cannot simply be transferred like a document or technological artefact. People can gain knowledge from the act of interpreting, reading, reverse engineering texts and other artefacts;
and they can also gain knowledge by examining nature. Knowledge is deposited not simply in texts and machines,
or embedded in the natural world, for that matter. Knowledge is achieved through an interrogation of these things.
Well-designed texts are particularly useful in how they have been designed for interrogation. 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.
This is one reason for the stress on stakeholder engagement. Mutual learning can be accomplished in the interaction between knowing agents.
What is transferred is information about knowledge, rather than the knowledge itself. New knowledge and posits is constructed on the basis of this new information and past knowledge.
The agents in question may well make use of technological aids and texts notably whiteboards and flip-charts on which diagrams
The joint construction of knowledge by participants may result in a great deal of the key knowledge being shared within the team or workshop involved.
The idea that knowledge development takes place through a (typically clockwise) multi-cycle spiral movement through these different SECI cycle categories is a powerful heuristic for explicating FTA EXERCISES and activities.
The SECI framework portrays the knowledge cycle of organisational learning as a dynamic interaction process.
The design and planning of the FTA can be interpreted as the preliminary‘‘S''phase of the knowledge cycle.
In the Nordic H2 energy foresight, the appropriation of the knowledge from the foresight process into various stakeholder organisations was seen as being accomplished through such activities as pilot projects
The complexity of FTA PROCESSES means that they can involve application of similar techniques for different purposes, at different points in the foresight knowledge cycle.
and necessarily internalising the knowledge and posits being developed in the foresight process, relating these to the interests and goals of their organisations.
The boundaries between the phases of the SECI knowledge cycle may thus be rather permeable.
We can even see some of the more ambitious FTA METHODS as themselves involving several or most of the knowledge conversion phases of the SECI spiral.
which knowledge is exchanged and posits developed and assessed. The various phases of knowledge A. Eerola,
I. Miles/Futures 43 (2011) 265 278 272 management in a scenario workshop are discussed in the next section,
in order to illustrate the relevance of thekmapproach even in the context of individual/specific FTA METHODS. 6. Scenario workshops as knowledge processes Scenario workshops typically feature a sequence of activities.
identify participants for the scenario workshop it is vital to include the right range of interests, knowledge and expertise,
and often gathers knowledge it may be undertaken with KM objectives firmly in mind, or this may be more implicit.
''often the two knowledge activities are hard to demarcate. We typically ask participants to brainstorm factors that are important under each of the STEEPV headings in turn,
and presenting their own disciplinary and practitioner knowledge. They have to work together to cluster ideas
The scenario framework can be a valuable tool for encouraging people from very different backgrounds to apply their knowledge in new ways.
A major task will be to move other parties through their own knowledge cycles, so that they can seriously incorporate the thinking of the workshop in their own decision-A. Eerola,
they will have much deeper knowledge of the underlying knowledge base, the assumptions and decisions that have gone into the posits,
Understanding the knowledge objectives of the FTA PROCESSES we are embarked upon, and ensuring that the design is conducive to achieving these objectives,
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 other tools to locate people with specific types of knowledge input. Social learning and‘‘PKM''elements of FTA can be augmented by use of IT,
and using knowledge and posits. Telepresence and virtual reality systems are enabling much more intensive person-to-person interaction through IT systems.
and sorts of knowledge and posits that result from them. Different stakeholders have not only different interests,
but they also have different modes of access to and use of knowledge: FTA practitioners thus confront the problematique of diverse social goals and power arrangements,
In terms of how knowledge is assessed in FTA, a number of points can be made. Experts (engineers, designers, social analysts, political actors) are seen as possessing particularly valued-and sometimes privileged knowledge.
They may thus be deferred to, with their claims and posits left unchallenged. It can require considerable technical expertise
on the basis of posits about technology development (how realistic these are given current knowledge and activities) and about possible outcomes (have similar things actually occurred).
It will be the task of the‘‘knowledge manager''to design systems that can facilitate this,
A Framework for Learning in Organizations, Institutions and Culture, Routledge, London, 1995.18 M. H. Boisot, Knowledge Asset:
The Knowledge-creating Company, Oxford university Press, Oxford, 1995.20 R. Dawson, Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, Butterworth-Heinemann, London, 2000.21 A. Eerola, B. H
I. Miles, Eliciting experts'knowledge: a comparison of two methods, Technological forecasting and Social Change 73 (6)( 2006) 679 704.34 H. Linstone, M. Turoff (Eds.
Create Knowledge and Make Decisions, Oxford university Press, Oxford, 1999.36 J. Naisbitt, Megatrends, Warner Books, New york, 1982.37 L. Georghiou, J. Cassingena Harper, M. Keenan,
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