| Complex process (5) |  |
| Continuous process (4) | |
| Formal process (4) | |
| General process (3) | |
| Iterative process (5) | |
| Participatory process (16) | |
| Political process (5) | |
| Process (1176) | |
| Process design (22) | |
| Process management (14) | |
| Process needs (5) | |
| Strategic process (6) | |
| Structured process (3) | |
but very necessary to embed futures analysis into the strategic decision-making process. The issue related to combination of methods was reviewed and
and identified that context was a main determining factor in shaping content and process. 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.
The main proposal in terms of process advanced the view that full use should be made of ICT in enabling data collection
and analysis. The process element also highlighted the importance of the management process for foresight studies
The process is targeted mainly to the private sector and is a useful service for companies to monitor the complex business environment
& Social Change 72 (2005) 1059 1063 1062 process on how the system operates, the players involved,
and the process of agenda building. A three-level framework on the case of nanotubes is presented to analyse and visualise the dynamics in three interrelated context:
the participants were asked for an assessment of the process and whether it had been useful for them to participate.
One of the industrial participants spelt out very explicitly that by participating in the process his firm became aware of a mis-perception of the future potentials of the technological trajectory they had pursued so far
and that as a consequence of participating in the process they were revising their own business and R&d strategy.
and modification of actual policy strategies because the perception and the expectations of actors with respect to future developments have changed as a result of the process.
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.
The third section, in contrast, is practice-oriented in providing a process outline and examples of AF.
according to visions of sustainable development, developed in a participatory foresight process. We, therefore, see adaptive planning as a way to overcome this lack of realism in much foresight work
These so-called process outputs are regarded often as more important than the actual substantive outputs like reports and websites. 5 In this sense
and closed process elements in order to bring foresight fully to bear on decision-making. 3. 2. Principles and process of Adaptive foresight Adaptive in Adaptive foresight can be understood usefully in at least three different ways:
Adaptive with respect to the balance between the ability to shape and the need to adapt to the future.
Therefore, any process outline must be seen as provisional. With these caveats, we do believe AF to be a good answer to many of the queries currently harboured in and around the foresight community.
Therefore, to help disseminate the approach this section is devoted to a process outline. To serve this purpose the outline strives to be as hands-on as is possible within the limited space available. 22 3. 2. 1. Relationship to clients
and therefore can more easily be reconsidered during the process. There are several typical elements and aspects that need to be addressed in the course of an innovation system analysis24:
The process dynamics, by which these different elements of innovation systems are coupled. 3. 2. 3. Phase 2:
and explainable reasons in order to ensure the ownership of the scenarios by the participants of the process. 3. 2. 5. Phase 4:
In other words, so far we have been mainly discussing the early phases of the 477 E. A. Eriksson, K. M. Weber/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 462 482 policy process.
It allows adapting to the advancement of knowledge in the course of an AF process,
However, this ability to take continuously on board new insights still needs to be built explicitly into the process, both within individual AF cycles and along the implementation of several such cycles.
Drawing on the results from the Woodwisdom-Net consultation process, we discuss the broader potential of Internet-based decision support tools
and implementation of an embedded foresight process that was organized in the ERA NET program on wood material sciences 8. Building on the experiences from this process,
Within the ERA NETS, the general objectives of an embedded foresight process can be defined as i) vision-building for clarifying shared interests and joint benefits of international collaboration,
It is against this background that we describe experiences from the implementation of an embedded foresight process in Woodwisdom-Net, one of the ERA NETS.
the WP Coordinator felt that a systematic participatory bottom up consultation process would be helpful.
-Net consultation process was developed in close collaboration with the Coordinator. Because the Woodwisdom-Net program will involve RTD communities from eight countries
this process was designed so that extensive use was made of Internet-based decision support tools (see the consultation process homepage5).
More specifically, the consultation processes sought to respond to the general objectives of embedded foresight in the following ways, among others:
One of the key considerations in this process 5 http://www. woodwisdom. tkk. fi/./486 V. Brummer et al./
too, was based on the definition of explicit roles and responsibilities for the different phases of the process.
, phases for different stakeholder groups in the Woodwisdom-Net consultation process. In the presence of interdependencies, it is imperative that the preceding tasks are completed before new ones are started.
In Woodwisdom-Net, some‘slack'was built into the process schedule as a risk mitigation measure,
because the possibility that some process phases might be delayed could not be ruled out. Moreover, the tasks in the last phases were specified not fully at the outset (e g.,
Representatives from funding organizations were targeted the client of the consultation process. The design of the consultation process was presented
These Representatives had several roles in the process, both as active participants and users of the information that was produced.
and Industrial leaders to participate in the different phases of the process. Project Team consisted of the Coordinator and Secretary of Woodwisdom-Net,
as well as the research team at TKK (Helsinki University of Technology) which was responsible for most activities in the design and implementation of the process (i e.,
Furthermore, the process engaged an extensive set of RTD stakeholders from eight countries, most notably Researchers and Industrial leaders:
Specifically, the process consisted of consecutive phases with specified roles and responsibilities for stakeholders, whereby inputs were solicited
The main phases are summarized in Table 1. Over 400 stakeholders from all participating countries participated in the process.
These issues were assessed by Researchers and Industrial Table 1 Phases of the Woodwisdom-Net consultation process Task Participants Schedule 1. Solicitation of research issues Researchers Mid-july Mid-october‘05
the experiences from this process have implications for other ERA NETS and consultation processes, too. In effect, the bottom up consultation process in Woodwisdom-Net where the participating researchers and industrialists interacted with a large shared pool of research issues can be contrasted with less transparent processes of international RTD priority setting where the preliminary priorities
are defined first at the national level, followed by the development of higher level priorities through negotiations among the representatives of member states.
Here, one of the benefits of a bottom up process is that the wealth of information generated can be made available to the participants from other countries.
Extensive participation in a bottom up process also increases the visibility of coordination tools such as Woodwisdom-Net:
/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 483 495 participants will be invited to workshops and in what phases of the process.
The promising experiences from thewoodwisdom-Net consultation process, together with those from related processes for the Forest-Based Sector Technology platform 3, suggest that further work on the development of consultation processes within European coordination
selected foresight activities and selected process elements such as decision support for the bottom up thematic prioritization and the formation of new networks may shift the locus of activities closer to national actors.
The majority of experts consider foresight essentially as a collective and consultative process, with the process itself being equally or even more important than the outcome.
Foresight exercises are ways of obtaining opinions about future developments. Foresight is different from prognosis or prediction.
The methodology facilitates a relatively strongly structured group communication process, revealing conflicting as well as consensus areas.
The Delphi survey should be addressed to all parties involved in the regulatory process itself, but also to all possible direct users of the regulated products and services and indirectly influenced parties.
but also researchers, to be involved in the regulatory process. Based on the few existing experiences with surveys, it can be concluded that this methodology allows the identification of very specific future regulatory issues.
and a long-lasting process of convincing stakeholders about the need and effectiveness of such approaches are required.
knowledge of path dynamics need to be integrated into a process of controlled speculation in combination with other analyses.
Path dependency is a self-reinforcing process beyond the control of the actors involved leading to lock in.
We fed MPM-1 into the process of developing MPM-2 to combine both field level MPM with practitioner specific MPM.
in order to broaden at an early stage the decision making process. The MPM-2 project involved a collective mapping of projected actor strategy paths (or actors'paths-into-the-future) and a reflection on the future socio-technical path or entanglements
This start-up company is attempting innovation chain 4 (heterogeneous clusters) based on an application oriented innovation chain where users are involved already in the design process.
Overall process and detailed modules, Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 72 (2005) 567 583.13 E. Lichtenthaler, The choice of technology intelligence methods in multinationals:
, T. Propp/Technological forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 517 538 39 R. Garud, P. Karnøe, Path creation as a process of mindful deviation, in:
in order to identify the factors affecting the success of the whole process. A model is needed thus that links all the different variables and reference levels.
Foresight is referred increasingly to as such a process, with‘hidden'or often overlooked benefits relating to learning at the level of individuals, organisations and communities.
In terms of factors that affected the implementation of the process, its outcomes and its overall success,
or between the players initiating the constituency-building process and potential or target constituencies such as suppliers and users.
assessing rationale, process and impact, Technological forecasting and Social Change 73 (7)( 2006) 761 777.9 A. Havas, Context, focus and coherence of foresight programmes, Lessons from the Czech republic and Hungary, Paper
futures are devised for universities. 4 The most visible ones are the so-called Bologna process, the regular meetings of education ministers,
but those can be added during an actual foresight process. 7 In any case, this article does not report on the results of an actual foresight process on universities:
it is a proposal to apply the foresight toolkit in this field by following a new approach.
22 A further recent key trend is triggered by the so-called Bologna Process. Its original goals are of direct relevance for the teaching role of universities,
however, the need to incorporate doctoral studies into the Bologna Process was mentioned specifically 41, and that dimension is interconnected obviously closely with the research activities of universities, both in terms of the present research projects (in
An actual foresight process in turn, might have many different outcomes. Following the usual distinction in the literature, we can think of‘process benefits'and‘products'.
'The first would include more intense, regular communication among the stakeholders even when the process is completed;
stronger co-operation; shared visions and consensus on the actions need to be taken; commitment to act upon the recommendations emerging from the process.
The second refers to lists of priorities and proposed actions (for different stakeholders, in this case e g. university rectors and deans, regional, national and EU policy-makers, businesses and local communities as partners of universities), inputs
i e. if it is mainly a process-oriented exercise, a productorieente one, or a mixed approach is taken.
various EU polices under the label of the Lisbon Process, especially concerning the relative weight of competitiveness27 and cohesion objectives,
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.
This well designed process breaks new ground in being concerned explicitly with enabling foresight as a sustainability asset for Germany's status as a R&d-innovation leader with specific elements also aimed at four innovative targets:
reconfiguring policy structures and as a dynamic process, symbolizing policy evolution-change. In many respects the BMBF foresight demonstrates how in practice many of the new approaches are actively engaging a changing view of policy for the knowledge economy.
One approach to the management of technological uncertainty has been to initiate the technological forecasting process only once a dominant design has emerged 3. Once a dominant design has been selected,
seeking decisions robust under a variety conflicting forces 5. Uncertainty in new design arises in at least two areas 6. Technological design is an inherently uncertain process
and content scoring remains a subjective process. 2. Application to distributed design environments Our purpose in exploring this topic is to better consider the information needs of designers.
may contribute to the process and management of radical innovation 17,18. Radical innovation establishes a new dominant design,
it is still important to make clear the role of the designer in this process. The primary role of the designer should involve creative recombination of new ideas.
If the routine process of exploring for new technological components can be automated, then the designer will be free to spend more time at value-enhancing activities.
and fitting process allows a comprehensive search process for small models. The sufficient statistics for the observed network can be calculated.
Larger networks prevent this exhaustive search process. Nonetheless, a systematic technique for searching through the space of models is still necessary.
and can be restarted anew at any stage in the process. The search process requires only a limited look ahead.
While a mix of node types might be desirable (for instance technology as well as process), it may be difficult to establish a uniform definition of the technological components of the network.
used inadequate assessment methods and failed to conclude the process by actually informing strategic action 37.2.3.
we propose to apply a strong exploratory perspective to these core elements of the strategic planning process.
The proposed process thus follows the model of an analytic deliberative decision making process 54. As a result, these procedures will most likely not provide very specific recommendations which can be implemented directly.
but is rather an important first step in an overall strategic planning process (Coates 1985 cited in 25).
We take this proposition as a strong invitation to explicitly specify the organizational and procedural interfaces between the exploratory phase in a strategic planning process
potential interest conflicts and sustainability deficits and utilizing the results in the formal decision making process (Fig. 1). 3. 1. Structuring exploration:
The RIF process typically runs for nine months during which several working groups interact in a highly structured way.
In the recruitment phase, the decision makers commission supported by the process facilitators a core team of approximately half a dozen representatives from the political decision making bodies
For selected process phases a wider group of stakeholders is involved 59 to diversify the knowledge sources 30.
At the end of the process, the results are transmitted to the decision makers who then decide about specific strategies. 3. 1. 2. Foresight generation Phase in the generation phase, the exploration of context uncertainties,
Options are regarded as combinations of technical and organizational system characteristics that cover the entire process chain of the infrastructure service 64.
Fig. 1. Process, participation and exploration flow chart of the RIF process. 1154 E. Störmer et al./
/Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1150 1162 participate in the different stages of the process.
a proper transmission of the facts and arguments gathered throughout the RIF process should be guaranteed 7. 4. Case study Kiesental In the following section,
In the next section, we present the process and results of the Kiesental case that allows illustrating the different elements of the method
Two arguments proved to be important motivations for the Kiesental to participate in the RIF process:(
It must be noted that the solution developed in the course of the process was not entirely new to the participants.
In this process the result was a radically different solution compared to an earlier recommendation gained in a conventional planning process less than two years earlier:
but reached high desirability and consensus in the RIF process. The other case study was run in a suburb of the city of Zurich with a high pressure of settlement growth
This enabled the process of explicitly mapping key trade-offs among different strategic options with regard to potential conflicts of interest, surprises in the development of context conditions and potential sustainability deficits.
By carefully defining the interface between the foresight process and the formal strategic planning process we could considerably improve the range of critical context conditions 7. As experienced in our empirical application case,
despite the high level of complexity that became apparent in certain process phases. Members of the core team had to invest about seven full days over a nine months period for participating in the RIF procedure.
Nevertheless, in the final evaluation of the process, they strongly welcomed the opportunity to conjointly develop the scenarios
Throughout the process, core team members built up a high level of trust among each other and with the results;
insights from the FORLEARN mutual learning process, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag. 20 (3)( 2008) 369 387.21 J. F. Coates, Scenario planning from my perspective, Technol.
an application of perspective-based scenario analysis using the analytic hierarchy process, Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 70 (4)( 2003) 359 384.54 O. Renn, Participatory processes for designing environmental policies, Land use Policy 23 (1)( 2006) 34 43.55 B. Truffer, Wissensintegration
For instance, risk assessment in the context of industrial process safety aims to predict the risk caused by a failure, deviation,
new businesses, climate adaptation) and some recent methodological considerations of the VTT foresight team (especially modular foresight/risk assessment process design that allows flexible tailoring of the process for varying needs and objectives.
development of proactive risk assessment methodologies for different corporate risk management purposes (identiffyin the vulnerability of corporate and process actions, managing the risks in occupational, industrial and environmental safety, managing business risks, etc.),
Foresight is defined as a process involving iterative periods of open reflection, networking, consultation and discussion, leading to the joint refining of future visions 9. Pre foresight, recruitment, generation,
action and renewal are mentioned as the phases of the foresight process 9. The process starts with the pre foresight phase where rationales and objectives,
The recruitment phase builds the network of experts, stakeholders and others meaningful to the process.
This phase is ongoing during the whole process. The generation phase includes three main stages;
Process industrial operations also became more complex and larger volumes of chemicals were used at higher pressures than previously.
Various major accidents in the process industry in the 1970s (e g. Flixborough, 1974; Seveso, 1976;
In addition, various risk analysis methods exist for different purposes in the process industry 21,22. Tixier et al. 23, for instance, reported about 62 risk analysis methodologies.
which the participants are selected based on their relevant knowledge and experience of the industrial process. The pertinent literature and other kinds of external expert knowledge are consulted also as deemed necessary Traditionally,
and risk analysis methods are designed to be a tool of systematic risk identificcatio process. In traditional methods, risks are identified component by component.
Approaches like inherent safety 26 in process design as well as resilience engineering 27 in process operating address the complex nature of industrial process.
It has been understood that process safety is not a creation of a component by component study.
Instead, the whole process should be understood as a complex socio-technical system in order to make the process safe.
Resilience engineering tries to strengthen the intrinsic safety potential in complex systems in industrial safety. This approach has raised recently interest in the risk management field.
As an analogy to Fig. 3. The process of risk analysis, risk assessment and risk management 20.1167 R. Koivisto et al./
/Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1163 1176 the resilient ecosystem dynamics, the resilience engineering stands for an industrial process
Instead of components, resilience engineering emphasises the meaning of practices, events and actions in the process 27.
A safe process is a process, which can handle and overcome errors and other kinds of irregular situations such that consequences are tolerable.
The process safety is considered not component-by-component anymore but rather as a complex socio-technical entity.
In fact, the process usually can manage the errors, because there is an intrinsic safety potential in the process performed by the equipments, personnel and organisation.
Although this entire socio-technical compleexit is addressed, the new safety approach does not, however, make traditional risk analysis methods useless.
Risk analysis methods should still be used for creating safety into the process, namely by creating systematic working methods into the safety information gathering,
The study addresses that the more the scope of risk analysis is moving into a not-so-well-known field the more the risk identification becomes the crucial part of the process 28.
and acting towards the future success and exclusively on the current success. The process begun from very general phenomena of politics, society,
The results of the process showed that the created scenarios were too generic to apply the traditional (process safety) risk assessment methods
the process, the technology, people, the environment and so on should be known as fully as possible. The project states that a good modelling tool would help to model the future interdependencies supported by an integration of the scenario work and the systematic risk assessment. 3. 2. Managing opportunities,
The ultimate benefit of this relatively light and fast roadmapping exercise is that the process forces one to think about all the important aspects of the new business creation.
and keywords in stimulating the brainstorming process. A special Opportunity Balance Matrix (OBM) is developed in the project based on PPA/POA brainstorming 35.
The tools to apply the future-oriented risk assessment are developed during this process, and they are at this preliminary stage as follows:
The seasonal plan, for instance, aims at stimulating the risk identification process by listing the normal seasonal routines of the hydropower plant,
In the context of the Nordic hydropower production and distribution, for instance, the most threatening scenarios are selected for the risk estimation and evaluation process.
some methods are better in scanning the situation in the early stage of the risk assessment process
The last phase of the FTA PROCESS namely the renewal phase is also present in the risk assessment process
Fixed vs. autonomous management o Fixed management can be characterised as centralised approach in which co-ordinators fix the scope and methods of the exercise at the outset and control the process,
in turn, refers to the process intermediated by the co-ordinators, who facilitate autonomous and evolving participant-led continuum of meetings and other activities,
and many kinds of stakeholders are invited to participate in the process. o Exclusive stakeholder engagement which means that stakeholder participation is limited
and accuracy of the analysis. The foresight process as well as the risk assessment process is a knowledge making process.
foresight studies may also benefit the systemic process common to the risk analysis processes. Risk assessment methods are fixed traditionally approaches,
and risk assessment traditions will be profitable at least the integration process would be easiest to carry on in this environment,
Instead of scanning the risks in the future by studying the process component by component a more holistic viewpoint would be possible.
Another option may be to keep the risk assessment approach in the process during the whole foresight exercise.
The same idea belongs also to the holistic risk management where safety is created in the process by evolving the intrinsic safety potential of the process.
and Signpost foresight methods were integrated in the risk assessment process. Risk analysis methods and climate change scenarios were integrated. How case studies contributed to risk management methodology?
Process safety is seen not anymore purely as a creation of component by component study, but a socio-technical complex system also interacting with its environment and the whole society.
13 T. A. Kletz, The origins and history of loss prevention, Trans ICHEME 77b (1999) 109 116.14 F. P. Lees, Loss Prevention in the Process
, D. Gaston, Review of 62 risk analysis methodologies of industrial plants, Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, vol. 15, Elsevier Science Ltd.
and Process engineering from the University of Oulu, Finland. Minna Halonen (MSC) has been working as Research scientist at VTT Technical research Centre of Finland since 2004.
systemic changes and experimental and observational errors, can never be eliminated completely from the decision making process. Thus, we and others argue that instead of using forecasting methods to produce single-value deterministic images of the future,
the identification of innovation is not a straightforward process for the businesses involved. Unfolding the definition of innovation
Moreover, the process of developing Finnish national strategic centres for science, technology and innovation is underway in the technology fields with future importance for businesses and the society.
The further development of barometer to respond to the above mentioned challenges is already in process.
Index (Fagerberg) Success of Software Process Improvement (Emam) 1184 T. Loikkanen et al.//Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1177 1186 Appendix B. Technology barometer 2007 Technology instrument for measuring citizens'attitudes and the nation's orientation towards a knowledge-based
The methodology combination of a national foresight process in Germany Kerstin Cuhls a,, Amina Beyer-Kutzner b, Walter Ganz c, Philine Warnke d a Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation research (ISI), Breslauer Str. 48,76139 Karlsruhe, Germany
the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) launched a new foresight process which aimed at four specific targets.
This paper focuses on the concept design of the process and explains one of the methods the future online survey in more detail.
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
The process started with four objectives and was tailored along them. The BMBF Foresight process as it was called,
The process linked both foresight and monitoring in its integrated approach. The process had impacts along the six functions of Foresight for policy-making that recently emerged in the Foresight debate (informing policy,
facilitating policy implementation, embedding participation, supporting policy definition and reconfiguring policy structures, as well as the symbolic function, see 1). Accordingly,
The process was considered to be the major approach of a German ministry in science and technology foresight.
The process started by monitoring present-day science and technology and was broadened to look into the future of the next 10 to 15 years and even further.
The foresight search activities were flanked by a monitoring process. With the assistance of an international panel
For the monitoring process, an international panel of well-known and acknowledged experts who have an overview in their fields were asked about the current state and new developments in research and technology.
The process therefore started with desk research research in databases and the internet. This search was combined with a bibliometric approach.
The milestones of the process are described in Fig. 2. The first workshop was held as a starting point in the process to define those topics which should be elaborated in more detail,
A bibliometric analysis provided further input in this process. For this stakeholder analysis, key words were defined by the topic coordinators.
in order to identify candidates for potential strategic partnerships which are proposed in 2009 at the end of the whole process (Objectives 3 and 4). In the last phase of the process,
the different phases of the process delivered different outputs and served different purposes. The following sections describe which methodologies were applied in which phase of the process.
Especially the online survey which had the function of focussing the topics as well as an assessment function is described in more detail (Fig. 3). 3. 1. Starting phase of the process The process started with 14 broader topic fields that were derived from the German High-tech Strategy 2,
the BMBF portfolio and information gathered from within BMBF about specific foresight activities in the specialist divisions.
In the first phase of the process 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.
Fig. 2. Milestones of the process. 1189 K. Cuhls et al.//Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1187 1197 The topic fields were:
process engineering etc.)7. Health research and medicine 8. Infrastructure technology, urbanisation and environmental development 9. Environmental protection technology and sustainable development 10.
In order to address crosscutting issues (objective no. 2 of the whole process a matrix was worked out in
/Technological forecasting & Social Change 76 (2009) 1187 1197 3. 2. Search phase of the process The second phase of the foresight process encompassed a further national and international search, interviews with Monitoring Panel participants,
In general, most of them remained in the process, often with a shifted focus and additions at the interdisciplinary borders of the thematic spectrum.
The results from this survey, expert interviews and a set of criteria were supposed to be inputs to select interesting candidates for BMBF relating to the targets 1) and 2) of the process. 3. 3. The online survey Intentionally
the whole foresight process did not start with asking for the demand as e g. the predecessor process Futur 13,14
and technology landscape are really relevant and if theymeet the criteria of the process. In order to keep it simple and user-friendly,
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.
but the process of integration is continued still. Therefore, this paper focuses on expected impacts and the conceptual design.
Expected output and impact of the process What are expected the outputs and impacts of the BMBF Foresight process?
Direct outputs in the sense of deliverables were three reports to BMBF as well as a scientific report at the end of the whole process.
which described the starting points in the thematic fields as discussed in the first workshop of the process.
in order to inform them about the start of the process and deliver some first preliminary impressions of topics that would be the start of the search phase.
Nevertheless, the process had four different objectives and there are many more impacts and outputs in-between. One impact is by informing BMBF about things to come.
In these cases, the expected impact of the process will be an addition to the research agenda,
jointly translating outcomes from the collective process into specific options for policy definition and implementation. 1194 K. Cuhls et al./
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,
as well as by including BMBF as one of the participants in the later phases of the process.
Participation is supposed to be broadened by involving very different kinds of experts in the process. Expert means a person knowledgeable about the topic, it can be someone from industry, policy-making itself, academia or the civil society in general.
The predecessor process of BMBF (Futur 13,14) tried to involve more persons from civil society, but in the later phases the need also to involve experts in the focus groups was felt,
The workshop in autumn 2008 is supposed to directly contribute to the theoretical and case study discussion for the translation of outcomes from the collective process into specific options for policy definition and implementation.
Later in the process this will be performed very concretely in the thematic cases which are identified. Also for them, in joint workshops and discussions, the topics and outcomes will be worked into recommendations for policy options.
Therefore, the objectives of the process are formulated in such a way that they are realistic primarily for BMBF strategic departments to deal with
The process is in its first search phases open to all topics, but stress science and technology because other topics may not be implemented directly by a BMBF.
In this sense, the BMBF Foresight process is not an inherent, completely embedded process because intentionally, two institutions are performing the methodological part of the process that are regarded as neutral in having no direct thematic stakes in the process (although indirectly,
as they are part of the Fraunhofer Society whose institutes have strong stakes in the research landscape) but in close cooperation with BMBF.
but the process tries to channel the different interests. In the integration phase of the process in 2009,
the embedding is realised step by step. But it is definitely too early in the process to exhaustively evaluate the impacts according to these five dimensions.
Nevertheless from the current point of view, there are already some contributions. 5. Preliminary assessment and outlook Until the end,
Especially the direct predecessor process Futur 13,14 was promoted directly from the beginning. It was well-known and therefore,
so that at different stages of the process the previous work of BMBF (such as in the identification of the starting topic fields) as well as the foresight and other futureorieente processes planned in BMBF were taken into account.
On the other hand, the process was designed as a neutral process which is thematically not directly influenced by the ministry
There is already interest from BMBF departments to get involved into the process. This is already a success. Nevertheless,
The process is linked not to any particular political goal. The results can be put to use for different strategy building activities on different levels
The process is a fully fledged process that takes into account the sponsor and implementor of the results in different feedback loops, different internal discussions and internal workshops.
and included in the process in order to make use of the strategic intelligence of the innovation system 24,27, 32 but this time very cautiously and step by step.
even if the large process is acknowledged not after the next general elections in 2009, there is already an impact on some of the ministerial departments.
Cuhls, N. Ludewig, Introduction to futur the German Research Dialogue about the Futur process, in:
insights from the FORLEARN mutual learning process, Technology analysis & Strategic management, Special issue FTA Seminar 2006,2008, pp. 369 387.19 E. A. Eriksson, K. M. Weber, Adaptive foresight:
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