In addition to one-of-a-kind exercises, important elements of foresight activity are ingrained in policy processes at the highest level of decision making:
and the level of ambition of large-scale national exercises elsewhere (for example, in Hungary, France, Germany and United kingdom, see Havas 2003;
and to facilitate the development of meaningful priorities at an appropriate level of aggregation. The following key concepts and templates were employed in Finnsight:
which analysed content driven Knowledge dynamics on the one hand and the development of institutional and governance arrangements on the meso-and macro-level of research (national and post-national) on the other.
and (2) implementing the processes of funding to allocate resources to the research performers, at institutional, research group or individual level;
Whereas the Futuris work has been focussed on the national level for analysing The french R&i system we will mainly consider here the institutional arrangements which are governing/organising public R&i system at the European level assuming that relevant thematic research
This choice does not mean that the national and regional levels are not to be taken into consideration.
which are organising research agenda at transnational levels are also to be considered as contributing to the programming of research.
doc, word, person or institution levels. Growth network dimension Growth pattern relative position of clusters within the network Complementarities-relations within the network Cognitive Technical Institutional Journals network Number of journals Citations
and programming arena by a stronger institutional steering on EU level. 5. 2. The case of Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies (N&n) Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies (N&n) are seen as the‘top-down'miniaturisation movement of three domains:
Research programmes share fundamental explanations but diverge on lower level hypotheses or experimental techniques/objects 47.
writing in strategy+business 1, refers to these new types and levels of risk as interdependent risks.
Employees from all levels of the organization, from CEO on down, participate in the process of submitting abstracts and attending Scan meetings.
At a basic level a priority is simply an activity which is preferred over another. Normally it is encountered in the context of resource allocation,
Level of granularity: Typical lists that emerge are at a high level of aggregation (ICT, biotechnology, nanotechnology, etc.
or at one level down listing around 100 key technologies. Functional priorities are normally far fewer in number
and might typically concern resourcing (finance, human resources and infrastructure) for science, and industry science linkages.
At one level this shows a successful transition away from large emphases on energy in FP1 and ICT in FP2. 3 However
which it is used systematically to support these processes is probably at a fairly low level. 3. Structural foresight As the analysis of motivations showed,
and Kuhlmann 31, serving the function of enhancing the capability of innovation systems for self-organisation and raising the level of analysis for innovation policy to the system level.
The type of deficiencies that innovation policy seeks to correct include lack of integration also at the level of the policy framework itself,
At the level of the firm there are problems of short-term and reactive thinking caused by a preoccupation with immediate business problems
Foresight activities in Asian countries are conducted in different levels, such as national level, regional level, sector level and firm's level.
T. Ko nno la et al.//Futures 43 (2011) 252 264 262 3. 5. Innovations foresight (diverse perspectives and instrumental outcomes) Innovations foresight can be characterised as instrumental processes with diverse
This reflectsawareness that it isimpossible foroneall-knowing policy organisation or level of government to grasp all of the intelligence that is needed to make sense of future challenges and opportunities.
one is essentially ontological is known the knowledge at the individual level only, at the group level,
or inter-organisation levels? and the other is more epistemological is the knowledge tacit or explicit?
since the nature of the relationship could change depending on performance levels. One example is the nonlinear relationship of an inverted U,
which suggests there would be an optimal level of social environmental performance reflecting intuitive logic that improvements in environmental
innovations and business-institutional strategies 6. A critical concept associated with being a driver is the level of uncertainty.
North american and EU respondents considered the level of controversy medium. This distribution and differentiation could be a result of how recent technology challenges such as genetically modified organisms have attracted more intense controversy in Europe than in other regions
who expect low level of controversy. 3. 2. 3. Drivers of change The main orientations of the drivers are represented with the following radar diagram.
whereas the rest expect medium level of impact. Likelihood and time horizon assessment. The majority of respondents from Academia and NGOS expected a medium level of likelihood of occurrence for the drivers identified.
On the contrary, the respondents from Government, Business, and other Table 3 Examples of drivers. Examples of critical drivers by category A b c Society & Culture 46 Increased citizen participation with the help of collaborative Web tools International mobility of educated workforce improves cultural
sea levels prompt large infrastructure restructuring Geopolitics & Security 8 Europe becomes the most competitive economy in the world WW3 Nanotechnology and
NGOS and Students were identical, where about 52%of the respondents suggested medium level of likelihood. 50%of the respondents from Government and Business stated high likelihood of occurrence.
Promoting Action for Sustainability Through Indicators at Local Level in Europe), INTELCITIES (IST-FP6) and REFORM (Rok-FP6),
how to reduce the level of uncertainty while at the same time acknowledging that uncertainty is limitless. A literature review carried out in context of the EU funded transport project OPTIC (see DLR and KIT,
that differentiating between different levels of uncertainty appears to be a promising approach. Positions differ on such typologies of uncertainties and the relationship between knowledge types and uncertainty.
one must be aware that different levels of knowledge exist. The authors differentiate between four levels;
two of them are subcategories of so-called‘‘deep uncertainties.''''The latter ones are similar to the third category that Sven Ove Hansson (1996) has added to the discussion of uncertainty.‘‘
Against this background, we propose to differentiate between three levels of knowledge (as also presented in Table I:
as a quantitative characterization of adverse effects in terms of the probability of its occurrence and the level of its impacts VOL. 14 NO. 4 2012 jforesight jpage 285 nodes that are interlinked.
In relation to the typology of levels of knowledge described in chapter 2 it can be concluded that models are focussed mainly on improving knowledge in the field of knowns.
But we will focus here on some examples related to the methods used and the levels in uncertainties in the process.
and evaluate the policy instruments deployed to promote variation 4. Identify alternative policy options that can minimize the impacts from the any identified risks 4. Remove the barriers that hinder the adoption of these strategies 4. Incorporate feedback from the‘‘grassroots''level
as well as reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 80 per cent from 1990 levels.
Results and policy implications The final results of the foresight process were four scenarios that all fulfil the targets of reducing GHG emissions by at least 80 per cent from the 1990's levels
New houses and buildings in rural areas either passive or plus-energy houses and/or relying on renewables At the 2008 level
remarked on that occasion that it was a major breakthrough achievement to have committed Finland to reducing its emissions to a sustainable level by at least 80 per cent from the 1990 level by 2050.
possibility of degrowth economy (since wellbeing was considered to be at least on the present levels, this would mean that in the future wellbeing is defined in a different fashion from today) was presented in scenario B. In the final publication of the results of the scenario process this notion was replaced with stable growth.
the level of the research groups, the technological field and the society. This three-level framework allows the analyst to study different perspectives of a specific case
and at the same time retain overview of the situation. By applying it to a particular application in nanotechnology,
Here we will present a three-level framework that does just this. In this paper we will address the issue how useful assessments can be made, given the enormous,
expectations and agenda building. 4 We distinguish various interrelated levels where variation and selection occur:(
and (iii) more global and diffuse, in society at large (see Fig. 3). The vertical dimension lists the three levels of aggregation.
The first level deals with research groups. Here, research is done at very specific subjects. The second level refers to a 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
2000 2001 2002 Fig. 1. Number of times dnanotubet is mentioned in article titles (Picarta. 3 The fact that we use the emergence of this specialised journal for this paper is the fact that nanotubes is one of the major topics in this journal.
The third level relates to the societal level, where governments, NGO's and other societal actors articulate the social, political and economic aspects of the new technological field.
Note that the levels are interrelated dynamic and. In addition, each level will have its own timescales: changes at societal level have a slower pace than at the level of individual research groups 7. Fig. 2 shows
what questions should be raised in order to address the particular cell in the matrix and Fig. 3 gives typical sources to address the questions.
By answering these questions empirically, main findings can be distilled. Subsequently, from these findings emerging irreversibilities can be derived.
The company plays an important role in the development of nonvolatile memories based on nanotubes. 3. 1. Tracing dynamics of expectations The three levels in the framework can be specified in relation to the case.
Therefore, we name the level of the research group: nanotubes used in nonvolatile memories, the level of the technological field;
nanotubes in electronic devices, the level of the society; and nanotubes as part of nanotechnology. Such a case specific typology gives a focus for each level
and is therefore useful to distinguish what the boundaries are of the case. 3. 1. 1. Society The scientific developments,
and understanding of nanotubes production and characteristics13 have led to expectations on the level of the society.
Concluding, the expectations on the societal level show a contradiction in the sense that on the one hand nanotubes are used without regulation
Second, at the level of the EU, a 6th framework programme has been approved. The Nanosafe project assesses the risks involved in the production
At the level of the society we observed open discussions on different topics. This indicates a growing attention for various aspects related to nanotubes as part of nanotechnology.
This at the societal level held discourse is marked as an emerging irreversibility. Nanotubes as part of nanotechnology Societal discourse on nanotubes Nanotubes as part of nanotechnology Societal discourse on nanotubes Nanotubes in electronic devices Recognition of a specific set of promising applications Nanotubes
the levels in the three-level framework are interrelated. A few examples from the case where this is visible will now be highlighted.
basic scientific results at the level of the research groups can influence the level of the technological field,
Second, sentiments at the societal level might influence the possibilities for the electronic industry to develop technologies that might receive negative publicity.
when a certain technology is received positively at the societal level. 4. Conclusions and discussion In this paper we proposed a route to deal with the intrinsic uncertainties of a new emerging field like nanotechnology.
The three-level framework makes it possible to gather findings of these first indications. As nanotechnology is still in the early phases of development
The three-level framework allows the analyst to study different perspectives of a specific case and at the same time retain overview of the situation.
insights are gained about the dynamics within the three levels and how the levels interact. These insights are valuable for understanding the dynamics of a particular technology
and help to trace emerging irreversibilities in the early phases of technological development. Acknowledgements The authors of this paper would like to thank Arie Rip, Ruud Smits, Ulrich Fiedeler and Nik Brown for their valuable comments.
and to view them in light of the dynamics at the separate levels. In addition the results and insights that are gained by applying CTA tools in practice can be fed back into theories of technology dynamics.
formulated at various administrative levels, and it is geared to satisfy the real estate demands of citizens, business and institutions.
At the national level, solidarity amongst regions has deteriorated significantly due to resistance by the wealthiest territories to share their profits with their least developed counterparts.
public policies regarding urban development are decentralised very much at the regional and local level. Regional governments play a clear role in setting territorial strategies,
In Scenario A, there are significant improvements in the governance model at the local level. Progress is reflected by transparent decision-making, effective public participation, public-private co-operation and better coordination among different levels of administration.
The existence of strong social capital permits a decentralised democratic system. This model requires a strong set of management skills in all public organisations to guide participation and coordination actions.
and implementing urban sustainable policies at the regional and local level, European and national public agents have taken over policy making.
Level of fertility at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next
Suggested strategies for Scenario C. The back to basics scenario is dominated by a high level of social frustration due to a longstanding economic recession and the lack of an adequate response by previous governments.
composed of three levels: the techno-socioeconomic‘‘flight simulator''(also termed as‘‘Living Earth Simulator'')a‘‘Planetary Nervous system,
This poses new challenges for roadmapping methodology in terms of level of aggregation and timeframe. D 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
and structuring to an industrial production level or about the health and environmental hazards that actually can arise from nanomaterials,
In response to these crises, he saw a need for new forms of dialogue at different levels,
He concluded that there is a lack of critical thinking at epistemological and ontological levels in particular, and too much of a business-as usual mentality (Hames 2011b).
3. It consists of four levels: the litany, social causes, discourse/worldviewand myth/metaphor. Inayatullah (1998) argues that,
the levels of certainty and rationality could be increased by better evidence and knowledge, and progress can be measured against an ideal of perfect knowledge.
At the level of goal-oriented acts, progress may be defined as successful problem-solving, evaluated in the context of a specific social activity.
Although the Bergsonian élan can be rather opportunistic, at social and cognitive levels, it is driven also by an internally generated push, for example,
In the second act, an organ that has unintended the capability for mapping levels of light with directions of bodily movement emerges.
In the activitytheooreti hierarchy, the focus of change is on the operational level as new ways of doing old things.
On a theoretical level, the lack of predefined ontological blueprints means that weak signals cannot in any straightforwaar way be interpreted in a realist context,
A similar three-level structure emerges when we analyse the communicative meaning of sentences. We cannot derive the communicative meaning of a sentence by adding up word definitions,
a high level of perception and awareness of the relevant components of the situation. Persons of thought were the conventional experts who had deep knowledge of matters relating to a particular component of the situation or of a tightly related set of components.
and Loveridge (1982)) that permitted an understanding of their level of expertise. The headings of the self-assessment criteria were:(
Verbal equivalents to different probability levels (Alpert and Raiffa 1982) were used during this part of the elicitation to seed the interviewee's thinking processes.
A for confidence levels and P for the pedigree of the number, that is, where and how was generated it
and will vary in level, content and modality (Konrad 2006). The level of expectations may range from encompassing, abstract sketches of the future (macro) to detailed elements (micro.
In terms of content, expectations may concern technical, commercial or societal aspects, and probably in a mix of these.
These were built via a top-down process that started at corporate level, by first taking into account the global economy
At the market level, more focused scenarios are built and take into account the likely competitive moves of rivals
seen as likely to undermine general profitability levels. Future pharmaceutical R&d activities also promised to require huge investmennts so implying that resources had to be shifted from other, more attractive, business areas.
At business and operational levels, strategic foresight supports the definition of target features for enhancing products and services,
It offers the possibility for each firm to assess its position regarding five maturiit levels for sustainable development.
and preparing the whole network to walk into a higher sustainability maturity level 5th Maturity Level Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:04 03 december 2014 812 C. Cagnin
Clearresearch produces link analyses at multiple levels of detail. The steps involved in producing these maps are as follows:!
and understood at many levels of detail. Details about any data record are also available upon demand.
The first level of analysis consisted of identifying relationships between technologies and multiple IAS. The relationships exposed by this analysis were intended to reveal potential overlapping
N. Rahal/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1122 1136 1130 The first level of analysis identified a macroscale understanding of the overlaps as well as the unique competencies and capabilities that each IA possessed.
The second level of analysis consisted of the identification of specific relationships between IAS. Fig. 5 depicts a very strong relationship between EP and MST.
The third level of analysis consisted of a technology-to-technology relationship assessment within a single IA.
but that different approaches offer different perspectives and levels of detail that can each be of benefit to the analyst or manager.
There are three basic temporal levels that condition the strategic development path of an organisation:(1) the future development options in the context of anticipated and unknown challenges,(2) the past decisions that affect the organisation either explicitly or implicitly,
and wider currents at the level of the strategic landscape. For example, Smits and Kuhlmann (2004,11) argue that innovation is a systemic activity that‘involves a variety of actions within the system,
At the strategic level, the structural openness enables the combination of these different temporal dimensions.
Process-based roadmapping is a scalable method that can be used to study the micro-level for example,
This visual emphasis enables the use of roadmaps as crystallised strategy charts that open simultaneous perspectives both on macro-level currents
The roadmap scope (below) refers to the level at which the roadmap is aimed. Scope is a more traditional insight into roadmapping methodology that separates, for example, technology roadmaps and market roadmaps.
This space is devoted to the exploration of futures on different levels of plausibility. Our model starts with a presupposition that in the technology and social/actor spaces
The building services roadmap was constructed through two roadmap levels. The first level was a metaroadmap that crystallised the project's results.
The metaroadmap formed an umbrella for the second level thematic subroadmaps. Knowledge spaces and systemic capacities The building services roadmap can be perceived as an R&d
I type of technology roadmap that is aimed to contribute to the technology space and the social/actor space.
It focussed on building a policy-level perspective for Nordic-level developmeent The systemic policy orientation distinguishes Nordic ICT Foresight from the three previous examples.
Creation of four context scenarios on the adoption of ICT in four Nordic countries Building system-level strategic
and fostered systemleeve strategic abilities at the level of the Nordic region. In addition, the project built a systematic set of actions in the medium and long term
and even towards fostering a visionary innovation Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:05 03 december 2014 838 T. Ahlqvist et al. culture at the level of nation-states.
Futures of the ICT environment and applications on the Nordic level. Helsinki: VTT Publications, Edita Prima Oy.
Futures of the ICT environment and applications on the Nordic level. Summary report. Publication of Nordic Innovation Centre.
and national policy-makers as they formulate infrastructures to encourage innovation. 2. Background 2. 1. Tech Mining and FTAS Bibliometrics counting activity levels and identifying patterns in R&d bibliographic records,
''2.‘‘World's highest level medical environment underlying a healthy society with longevity'';''3.‘‘Health information infrastructure for eliminating disparities'';
On the other hand, the scenario themes with many low-scored topics are characterized by a low level of matching,
I. Other elements that possibly assume a high level of importance come from such areas as fundamental technology (e g.
and maintenance of education level by standardization 12-E Strategy toward a sustainable infrastructure systemb Notes:
strategic dialogues have been employed on multiple levels in the process of research policy development: Firstly, strategic dialogues have helped to overcome the necessarily limited perspective of individual units within an organization such as a federal ministry by connecting units with each other in a loose network where ideas can VOL. 15 NO. 1 2013 jforesight jpage 21
Learning happens at multiple levels, both within groups of similar stakeholders and across groups. The‘‘dialogue''aspect is in line with the definition of Bohm (1996) who draws a clear distinction between‘‘discussion''as an exchange of views aimed at winning an argument
such as new funding programs, both at the level of individual organizational units and through cooperation of multiple units and departments.
Undertaken by Forfa's under the guidance of a high-level Steering Group, the 12-month exercise has had the aim of identifying up to 20 priority areas for the allocation of public funding of research and development over five years.
This work led to the production of an intermediate output, the‘‘First Level Catalogue''.''3. 3. 2 Phase 2:
from drivers and trends to grand challenges 4. 1 Catalogue of global drivers and trends from the national context The third level catalogue is a substantial volume that analyses global trends and drivers from a‘‘national
In terms of engineering science and technology, it was a relatively simple process to identify possible responses from the research and innovation systems at a national level, through addressing known gaps in capacity and building on emerging areas of strength.
and adapted at a national level. An alternative approach would be to begin by explicitly addressing the grand challenges as they have been defined broadly in several European initiatives
and one million reside in regions where the level of pollution is dangerous for health. The only efficient way to deal with these and many other problems,
of which include the low level of innovation activities of Russian companies, an underdeveloped innovation infrastructure, inefficient legislation, etc.
and levels of analysis, is characterised in the next step. Then we present the project's methodology (methods used, stages,
B Direct impact (high) This means that the project results were used directly for decision-making at government level for the development of national strategic documents.
The structure of this study has three levels. There are nine thematic areas at the first level
(which correspond to National S&t priorities), 56 technology areas at the second level (which correspond to critical technologies) and more than 900 topics.
The thematic areas include: B Information and Telecommunication systems; B Industry of Nanosystems and Materials; B Living Systems;
B current level of Russian R&d; B world leader country; B support measures for Russian R&d;
The study covers three thematic levels, the first of which corresponds to the revised list of National S&t priorities:
It included three critical technologies (at the second thematic level: B prevention and liquidation of environmental pollution, monitoring
The third level of‘‘Rational Use of Nature Resources''covers 40 technology groups, which were identified on the basis of the most important and well-developed FS1 topics combined into extended technology FS2 groups.
including R&d level, contribution to innovative relevant projects, availability of human resources (researchers, engineers and technicians), required level of funding and fixed assets.
Calculated as (No. of‘‘At the level of leading countries*100 þ no: of‘‘Somewhat behind*50 þ no:
this index shows an average estimation of R&d level according to aggregated expert opinion. bcalculated as sum of the number of answers for the two top scores (among the following possible answers:‘‘
The general scheme of the structure of the projects'interrelation is shown in Figure 3. The FS1 structure had three levels
and the FS2 structure also had three levels. The main difference was at the third level.
B estimates of the level of Russian R&d vis-a vis the world leaders for major S&t areas;
because the results were used for decision-making at the level of the Ministry. At the same time the FS2 project showed that for full use of the priorities identified for the natural resources sector,
importance, current level of Russian R&d, support measures and others A large database of promising S&tareas, estimated by nine criteria by 2, 000 experts.
contribution to innovative relevant projects, availability of human resources (researchers, engineers and technicians), required level of funding, fixed assets and others Estimation of resources and risks List
assessed the current level of Russia's S&t development, and the country's international S&t co-operation potential through the development of a national innovation system.
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