Assessment in horizon scanning by various stakeholder groups using Osgood’s semantic differential scale – A methodological development

Abstract

The interdisciplinary research group consists of professional futurists and ecologists carried out horizon scanning (HS) studies with the involvement of academic experts and practitioners under the umbrella of the Centre for Ecological Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA). Its purpose was (1) to map the possible changes in natural and social systems until 2050 in the country in a complex manner and (2) to show possible interactions between the changes to enable formulation of research tasks useful for practice. For this purpose, the Horizon Scanning process had to be specified and our research team has decided to improve the HS methodology in two relations: (1) beside futures practitioners and ecologists, young business developers were also invited in the evaluation process because of their ability to help the realization of new research lines and the application of research results in business environment; (2) applying the Osgood’s semantic differential scale (i.e. to assess for each future statement its strength and type, like trend or hype, etc.) in questioning focus groups of three stakeholder groups to categorise the future statements, thus make the evaluation more complex. This paper gives an overview on these two lines of methodological changes and their results.