Level

Country level (3)
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General level (8)
Global level (12)
High level (53)
International level (27)
Level (697)

Synopsis: Level: Level:

Trends were appearing in terms of focus of countries at different stages of economic development with those countries with lower development levels favouring a socioeconomic focus while those with higher levels of economic development lean towards a techno-economic focus.

A three-level framework on the case of nanotubes is presented to analyse and visualise the dynamics in three interrelated context:

However, although the dominant model of foresight pursues a more modest level of aspiration than forecasting,

It stresses that foresight needs to go beyond the level of a collective process and be brought down to the level of individual actors'strategies.

As a consequence, we propose combining phases of open participation with closed processes of targeted strategy development.

the subsequent processes of strategy development still lack a similar level of sophistication, for instance in terms of deriving basic strategies for dealing with the opportunities and threats that have been identified in the context of foresight exercises.

However, at the level of options it is sometimes useful to make a distinction between two key dimensions:

Note that robustness at package level can be achieved by fixed options that are by themselves not particularly robust.

The matter is complicated further by the fact that policy options can have an impact at different levels.

technology and innovation policy at national and regional level. 21 These projects stress in particular the need to understand Adaptive foresight as a continuous monitoring,

goals and an strategies at different levels to actual developments in reality. Also this is an immediate consequence of and an input into adaptive planning.

two projects are about to be finalised at national 41 and regional level 42 in Austria.

A predecessor project at national level was conducted in the area of transport technology policy 43.472 E. A. Eriksson

these focal issues are usually related to societal goals at fairly aggregate levels (How can we achieve an overarching transition towards a more sustainable energy supply system?.

they are generally quite enlightening at a conceptual level. It is our experience that a good initial focal issue is important for a successful first workshop,

By developing consistent pathways, the backcasting exercise represents a second level of testing the credibility of a scenario.

Therefore it suffices to say that this is the counterpart at the individual client organisation level of Phases 4 6. 3. 2. 10.

identification of individual strategies (portfolio analysis) In analogy to Phase 8, this is the counterpart at the individual client organisation level of Phase 7. 3. 2. 11.

but also to policy implementation and learning, at strategic as well as at operational level. More specifically, the experiences made in the course of hands-on implementation need to be monitored

Another issue is bringing the real options approach to bear at more than just the conceptual level.

Over the past years, he has been contributing to and leading several foresight exercises at European, national, regional and sectoral level,

Separate analyses were presented at the aggregate level (i e.,, by taking into account all evaluations) and at the country level (i e.,

are defined first at the national level, followed by the development of higher level priorities through negotiations among the representatives of member states.

, participating countries, thematic sub-areas, levels of aggregation, modalities of research), which in turn leads to processual requirements such as modularity and scalability.

In this context, systematic methods like RPM Screening can lend structure to consultation processes so that inputs from one level of analysis (e g.

and taken forward to another level of analysis. A challenge in using the Internet as a platform for structured deliberative consultation processes is that such processes are new to many participants.

or by industrial classifications 22 allows us to define the most dynamic fields both worldwide and at the national level.

The need for regulatory adjustment is highest in those fields with a rather low level of activity at the starting point,

However, the methodological challenge is to meet the adequate level of specification and differentiation of the technology indicators,

30%from current levels through the expansion of telecommuting and tele-shopping. 2015 3. 73 3. 04 2. 93 2. 00 2. 21 Production on order rather than production on estimated demand becomes the norm due to the increased

Our tool can be applied in strategic management of research andr&dat the level of science-to-industry networks.

The project has added benefit at two levels: 1. developing recommendations for the Frontiers research network;

At both intra-organizational (department-level) and inter-organizational levels in technology and industry, roadmapping has become a fashionable alignment tool.

These different paths at the different levels can be anticipated and mapped to some degree. The resulting maps can support in a very early stage (spinning-off of start-ups;

paths as macro-level paradigms characterised by socio-technical alignments and entanglements; and path as micro-level actor strategies projected towards a future paradigm. 11

when there is multiple alignment across and between levels (c. f. Fujimura 43 and Rip and Robinson 32).

be it on the individual actor level (such as an entrepreneur) or on the level of the paradigm (national agencies, international consortia).

and the lack of successful innovation chains meaning lab-on-a-chip remains at the research level,

much of the discussion of cell-on-a-chip development remains at the level of projections and claims.

what we show here as the possible future path/paradigm at the level of an application area (drug discovery) may also be called an innovation system.

If path creation at the level of application areas is the aggregate outcome of activities at actor levels,

MPM can be of use at the level of research group leaders, portfolio managers, and start-up companies.

At the level of Frontiers the tool has been taken up in official documents as MPM-1 was included in the first round strategic planning document known as the Frontiers Roadmap for 2006/2007.

usually have different aims, scopes and levels of implementation. Thus evaluations typically focus on assessments of

and levels of implementattion aswell as facilitating the benchmarking and coordination of policies for socioeconomic development.

Another level of reference is needed, i e. foresight exercises need to be assessed in terms of their contribution to the attainment of higher level, generic goals.

a further higher reference level is offered by the trend towards participatory governance. This has increased in importance in the past few years,

thus that links all the different variables and reference levels. In this paper, a‘logic model'approach is used to develop an‘objectives hierarchy'describing the relationships between higher level goals,

However, collaboration and the alignment of actors'efforts are dependent upon levels of social trust.

with‘hidden'or often overlooked benefits relating to learning at the level of individuals, organisations and communities.

Table 1 groups together many of the reported objectives and impacts associated with foresight exercises under the headings of‘intermediate'and‘lower level'goals. 5. Approach for developing an impact assessment framework It is possible

it is more relevant to ask whether particular impacts in line with the generic Table 1 Grouping of foresight reported objectives and impacts a under‘intermediate'and‘lower level'goals Reported foresight programme objectives Reported

Increase levels of social capital a Based on the respective lists provided in 14.546 E. Amanatidou,

and institutions and communication between them) Governance and policy-making culture (including levels of commitment) Sociocultural factors in relation to public participation and the perceived utility and eventual impacts of foresight exercises The nature of innovation processes and the‘innovation system'in

did not manage to attract the same level of publicity and its dissemination phase was not as impressive.

The evaluation suggested that foresight might need to be done in parallel at different levels with different customers.

or may not have been targeted in the first place, a finer level of analysis is required. Given the diverse nature of the impacts in question, it is wise to study each of these impact categories separately,

'which provides the higher level of reference needed to assess foresight exercises irrespective of their specific aims, scopes and levels of implementation.

given the diverse nature of the impact areas in question, a finer level of analysis needs to be applied to the different areas of the impact assessment framework.

The results of a study exploring how logic models can be used to develop a methodological framework for the high-quality assessment of IST-RTD effects at the Strategic Objective level, Commission Contract No 29000,2006. 19 W. W. Powell, in:

A set of‘cascading'visions are devised to demonstrate the close links between three levels. First, alternative futures are developed for the EU by considering (i) the overall rationale of EU policies;

Third, skipping the national level, futures are built for the universities themselves, focussing on their research activities.

The proposed three-level structure of futures or‘cascading'visions offers several advantages for policy-makers at various Available online at www. sciencedirect. com Technological forecasting & Social Change 75

10.1016/j. techfore. 2008.02.001 levels, the stakeholders of universities, as well as academics interested in prospective analysis of innovation systems. 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

and hence a number of‘micro-level'factors might be missing, but those can be added during an actual foresight process. 7 In any case,

in Section 4 alternative visions are devised at three levels, with the time horizon of 2020 2025.

At the first level the overall rationale of EU policies, and its standing vis-à-vis the Triad regions are considered as major‘variables'of the alternative futures for the EU. At the second,

'but the main purpose of this paper to experiment with the proposed 3-level structure for building futures, rather than to offer fully fledged visions, covering all aspects.

micro-level discussion would be needed, and on that basis comparative analyses can be conducted either at regional/national level,

or across countries, but then taking only universities belonging to the same‘league',e g. those aspiring world-class research and education,

therefore, to offer the highest possible level of education, which, in turn, required high quality research. To further strengthen the link between education and research,

Nowadays, however, we tend not to pay attention to the contradiction between the level of quality what this very name would imply

and usually only at the postgraduate level. The Humboldtian model has thus become an exception,

consultancy for NGOS and policy-makers at national/regional/local levels is changing. Second, new roles are emerging,

(and innovation) projects at a global level and an EU level, as none of the Triad regions let alone individual countries can be self-sufficient.

what types of courses are offered to whom, at what level of quality; are they attractive for foreign staff and students;

First, they are aimed at triggering a debate among experts on the relevance of the proposedmethod, that is, the 3-level structure for devising futures.

for strategic planning (again, at different levels. The type of intended outcomes always depends on the design (objectives) of a foresight programme,

Finally, the most important trends and drivers are addressed at the level of universities. 25 These futures (visions

and sub-national regional level is skipped in either approach, given the huge diversity of the national (regional) education systems.

Skipping these levels from the current exercise, however, does not imply that national (regional) factors can be neglected in actual prospective analyses (e g. strategic planning or foresight programmes).

economists have different views even on the appropriate level of analysis: products, firms, value chains (production networks),(sub-national) regions, nations,

In any case, it is highly likely that key players of strong EU regions would act together both at an intra-regional and an interregional level probably also with their counterparts outside of the EU. a The current success of Denmark,

i e. across governance levels; and along the time dimension, too, i e. short-,medium-and long-term policies also need to be harmonised 48.

and the ERIA, on the other, does not deny the possibility that‘ERIA policies'of the EU can enjoy some level of independence from the overall strategy of the EU. Yet,

For an actual foresight process, aimed at assisting decision-making either at the level of universities regional, national or EU (ERIA) policies, a much more refined set of ideal types should be developed, based on a thorough understanding of the main features of existing and hypothetical future universities.

the alternative futures devised at EU and ERIA levels. Thus, their impacts should be discussed separately. As for legitimisation and validation of knowledge

and a mutually acceptable way. 32 Universities, obviously, have a certain level of autonomy in choosing their strategies. 33 Teaching activities of these two types of universities,

Prospective analyses can be conducted at various levels: individual universities, group of universities (e g. associations of universities), regional, national or international levels.

The main advantage of taking existing or hypothetical universities as a starting point unit of analysis is that a wealth of micro-level factors can be considered.

In other words, a set of‘cascading'visions have been developed to demonstrate the close links between these three levels.

national and regional levels) could be to‘simulate'the likely impacts of their decisions, by changing the various‘parameters',e g. the overall rationale of the EU or national policies (i e.‘

and hence the need for a set of structured futures, representing the various levels of governance.

however, another level needs to be introduced, namely the national one. For the stakeholders of universities their leaders, staff, students, businesses, the relevant community around them, be it local,

This sort of analysis a structured set futures, taking into account the links among systems operating at different levels can be of relevance in other Triad regions, too,

wherein foresight engages policy-making on six levels (informing; facilitating implementation; embedding participation; supporting new policy definitions;

and more narrowly defined technical concepts For instance Ajax is placed at the highest level, along with general purpose technologies such as web servers, Javascript and object-oriented computer science.

This approach may demand an unrealistic level of unanimity about the status and relatedness of specific knowledge claims. 7. Conclusions The paper concludes that the proposed method,

and mostly delegated to the local or regional level. Particularly in public organizations there is often a wide lack of capabilities for running strategic planning processes 2. Additionally,

i) the dependency of option rankings relative to different context conditions,(ii) the level of conflict among stakeholder groups that a certain option would entail and (iii) sustainability deficits of preferred options.

In contrast, the industry's stakeholders favor besides low tariffs, additionally low levels of bureaucracy as well as voice and participation in the associations decision board. 4. 4. Exploring the trade-off landscape The virtual future stakeholder groups

Throughout the process, core team members built up a high level of trust among each other and with the results;

Currently, different safety management standards guide the implementation of industrial safety at the plant level, e g.

but on constant surveillance of the safety margins and levels of risks taken 39. Hence, the risk management paradigm is changing towards a more holistic approach.

CES project, for example, stresses the operational level risk assessment whereas the INNORISK project's starting point is corporate strategic decision making.

On the operational level, fixed risk analysis methods are useful and dominate the analysis, while on the strategic decision making level the autonomous methods are convenient.

The future target, e g. a scenario, may not have a sufficient level of detail. It was noticed also that both processes

because the risk assessment methods applied have been in a more general and not so detailed level.

(e) Ways to improve understanding of psychological factors that lead to irrational decisions (f) Appropriate levels of aggregation in investigation of forecasting problems.

since many forecasting problems can be investigated at various levels of aggregation, what levels are appropriate?

The indicator-based data can be used for the generation of index figures to display the nations'techno-scientific base and level of societal development in comparison with the reference group.

i e. the members of the Finnish association of graduate engineers TEK, young people studying at the senior secondary school level, political decision-makers and business decision-makers.

young people studying at the senior secondary school level, political decision-makers, and business decision-makers. The member group of TEK consists of the organisation's elected union representatives, the council members of the board of trustees,

and related indicators are the level of investment, entrepreneurial activity and the impact of technology development on the quality of life.

like the idea of including interactive and mobile media skills to science education curriculum at the elementary level. 3. 3. Synthesizing discussion Each technology barometer consists of concluding discussions of certain topical issues

and have an impact on strategic policy-making all the way up to the highest levels in the decision-making processes.

The German Foresight process of the BMBF delivers results on different levels: broader future fields as well as single future topics.

and technology foresight processes on a national level 13,16, 17,28, 29. Even as follow-up of the High-tech Strategy of the government 2, administrated in the same ministry,

these fields were selected as starting points to search for new topics in science and technology, at first at the national level, later on internationally.

itwas designed in away that it had different levels and the user could always quit.

the questionnaire was opened. on this level, longteer relevant topic areas that were selected already from the process were shown.

On the next level, research questions and tasks were formulated. This forced the topic coordinators of the process to formulate the future topics very precisely similar to a Delphi survey.

On the next level, the participants were asked about their own expertise in order to judge later on if the high level experts assess the topics differently from the mainstream.

In the future, the mechanisms of ageing on the molecular level of the whole body and specially the brain will deliver new insights for cognition, emotions and psychomotoric or other concepts.

The results can be put to use for different strategy building activities on different levels and different objectives (see the reservoir approach 18 or 20).

The level of political difficulty is higher for these forms of scenario-based decision support, as they touch upon a number of vested interests around policies,

Participants were ask to rate the importance of a number of different success factors (see Fig. 2). Political factors, the level of user-involvement,

Several studies point to the need of central coordination and a high political backing, ideally at cabinet level or head of government level,

Barker and Peters'5 taxonomy describes six levels of cognitive difficulty for public policy makers in terms of the policy field's character as follows:

as does 1 above 3. Greater opportunity for participation from all levels, ages and gender throughout the scientific and technology community,

However, there were also some discrepancies that led to the idea of a bifurcation above the Belonger level,

with the two paths converging again at the highest level (Integrated). The new arm introduced lifestyles (I-Am-Me,

When asked to self-evaluate their own level of expertise, these participants are cautious 1213 D. Loveridge,

Consequently, the circumstances prevailing at the time of a Foresight study can influence the outcome in ways that remain unknown. 2. Seeking opinions from a mixture of people from so many different levels in the typology will introduce new issues to be resolved to retain credibility between all the participants.

when faced with situations involving levels five and six in Barker and Peters 5 taxonomy.

uncertain and involve multiple actors working at multiple levels shot through with anticipatory strategies and expectations on risks and benefits of the emerging technology field.

Dynamics are visible at all three levels, although there is little alignment yet. The repeated occurrences and acceptance of acronyms such as ELSA (Ethical, Legal, Social Aspects) and HES (Health, Environmental, Safety) in discourse on,

I have placed innovation journeys at the micro-level, technology developer coordination attempts at the meso-level and selector coordination and control at the macro-level.

This is for ease of showing linkages and emerging entanglements across levels. Conceptual development of this multilevel perspective has been explored elsewhere 2. Box 2 Scenario 1 summary.

Proliferation of engagement/communication approaches at the micro-level allows justification of societal awareness as a strategy for ensuring societal acceptance.

At the micro-level these broad discussion are termed as a separate issue for longer term speculation.

but are at a considerably low level (minimum damage but some damage all the same) Selectors attempt at modulating governance arrangements:

while some nanomaterials will be produced below that level. 1236 D. K. R. Robinson/Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1222-1239 standards causes complication:

and policy and governance impacts with discussions and demonstrations at the regional and corporate levels.

In other countries foresight exercises have been carried out on the national level by entities (private or public) other than research councils and related organisations.*

Today, total public expenditure for energy-related research and innovation has increased to approximately the same level as before,

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,

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

Explicit S&t priority setting is performed commonly at different levels, including the policy (government) level, the strategic research funding agency) level and the operational (research performing institutes) level (OECD 1991).

Furthermore, different sorts of things might be prioritissed including scientific fields, industrial areas, research facilities, types of research performing institutes, and so on.

The OECD (1991) has distinguished therefore between thematic priorities concerned with scientific fields, technology areas, industrial sectors, issues,

This tension is particularly acute at the national level, simply because of the breadth and possible number of potential topic areas.

In terms of depth, to what level of detail should criteria be formulated? The finer the criteria, the better the assessment at least in theory.

and To determine appropriate investment levels through support instruments such as the FNR programmes. However, the MCHER also asked the FNR to limit the exercise to identification of thematic priorities only with the argument that structural aspects would be analysed by the OECD. Thus,

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

and identifying‘competence niches'The dilemma around the level of‘granularity'of research topics to be prioritised already highligghte in Section 3 was understood well by the FNR and its consultants from the outset.

Thus, a four-level granularity schema quickly emerged during Phase 1 (FNR 2006) and was applied for‘nesting'research domains in the‘long list'(see Table 1). The FNR was interested most in Level 3 research domains as this was considered the most‘natural'level at which to formulate new FNR programmes.

It was at this level that respondents to the online survey were asked to make their‘attractiveness'and‘feasibility'assessments,

with a view to formulating a ranked list of research domains, but the FNR was interested also in Level 4 research axes

since these could be used to structure and populate future FNR programmes. Accordingly, the online survey and subsequent workshops invited participants to nominate new research axes as well.

Table 1. Levels of‘granularity'for mapping research areas (a few examples are shown). Thematic field Research area Research domain Research axis Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Environmental sciences Global change and ecosystem Water management Drinking water

ICT Infrastructure Telecoms Voip Social & human sciences Economy, policies, institutional framework Economy and finance Dynamics of financial wealth creation Downloaded by University of Bucharest at 05:09 03 december

Picking up on the OECD distinction between different levels of priorities (i e. policy, strategic and operational), the MCHER should have been interested naturally in Level 2 of the schema research areas.

rather, prioritisation was being carried out at Level 3. In other words, the exercise was only able to identify Level 2 research area priorities

insofar as Level 3 research domain prioritisation implied them. The extent of this problem became apparent only near the end of the exercise

when the MCHER requested the FNR to provide a shorter list of priorities to the 18 presented by the FNR Board.

Rather than further prioritise the 18 (Level 3) research domain areas, 11 the natural FNR response was to provide the MCHER with a list of six (Level 2) research areas (essentially headings) under

and the level of personal conflicts (trench wars) was much lower. In other sectors where the FNR Secretariat could not draw upon a local‘champion,

which wanted fewer priorities at the same level of granularity as the FNR programme priorities. 7. 3. Setting the criteria for prioritisation The criteria for prioritisation were borrowed largely from international practice (imported by the various consultant groups

the levels of engagement by the private sector and other branches of government were disappointing,

and structured to different levels of depth during the first phase, the workshops had unequal starting points

(or tangible) outputs like reports and websites. 2 We can also observe an increasing interest in foresight activities that aim at supporting strategy formation both at the collective level and at the level of individual organisations.

and innovation thatwas blessed by the highest political levels. In fact, when the research programme was started at the end of 2004,

The short-term counselling effects of the process were dependent on the level of interaction and networking that could be achieved in the course of the process.

What seems to be necessary is either a full backing from the top level of the city's administration

and goals should be anchored in/embedded on all levels of the municipality plan. 11 Thus the resulting visions were defined already as those desired by the political leadership of the municipality of Lundal.

On another level, the Dutch government allocates research support to universities based in part upon their publication records.

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