The Mutual Role of Scientometrics and Foresight – A Review

Abstract

Foresight, a science and art, that helps human beings to know the future events, opportunities, and threats and to wisely choose the optimal futures from among possible (exploratory) ones and to consider future as an uncertain and instable setting. Foresight is the process of developing a range of views of possible ways in which the future could develop, and understand these sufficiently well to be able to decide what decisions can be taken today to create the best possible tomorrow. Scientometrics addresses science measurement in different areas and its overall objective is measuring the creation, distribution and consumption of science both quantitatively and qualitatively. Both scientometrics and foresight are interdisciplinary and are quite similar in observing scientific activities, analyzing the trends, scientific prospective and predictions. Indeed, making use of foresight means taking action for making policies in order to realize an optimal future through which a number of other helpful results would be obtained: developing new networks and communications, goal-setting and enhancing the sense of shared commitment, publishing the information, and prioritizing the options and actions. In this paper, the authors try to examine and elaborate the mutual relationship between scientometrics and futurology in different scientific texts then they will discuss the status and role of scientometrics as a tool for foresight-related studies.