Foresight Initiatives Research Articles

Bridging foresight and evaluation: A bridge worth building

AbstractFocusing on and supporting the integration of two overlapping but siloed disciplines is an exciting but uncertain endeavor. We can anticipate ambiguity in that it is an exploratory activity, as well as novelty in that we don't know exactly where we are going until we get there. However, we are sure it is worth the effort. As evidenced by the papers in this volume, evaluation and futures studies are two disciplines that have much to offer one another. Evaluation can inform the quality and effectiveness of foresight initiatives, such as whether an environmental scanning system surfaces signals of change that supports organizational long‐term thinking and preparedness. Systematically thinking about the future can free evaluation from being a primarily hindsight‐based discipline and activity and enable it to play a more active role in informing strategy and decision‐making that benefits evaluators, clients, and the program. Looking across this volume's papers, and beyond, we identify themes important to advancing foresight evaluation thinking and practice. In particular, we focus on how foresight thinking and methods can inform evaluation practice (and vice versa), the foresight capacity required on the part of evaluators, and the evaluation capacity that foresight practitioners currently have. Additionally, we provide some observations on gaps and challenges, and recommend ways that evaluators can look inward and outward to advance their foresight evaluation practice.

Futuring Fragility: Embracing uncertainty, identifying opportunity, unlocking development

AbstractMotivationClose to a third of the world's population and more than 80% of people living in extreme poverty live in contexts of fragility. With agencies such as the OECD and UNDP conceiving of such places in terms of multiple and serious risks, the framing has come to be one of pathology: fragile contexts are defined by deficits with respect to idealized governance and sustainable development goals. In consequence, development options are locked into managing risks—confining opportunities to develop potential.PurposeCan strategic foresight unlock the development potential of fragile societies?Approach and methodsBecause there is still little documentation of foresight initiatives in contexts of fragility, the approach here is theoretical and conceptual. We draw on literature from the fields of fragility, foresight, and cognition, as well as insights from expert exchanges and roundtables.FindingsIt is uncertainty, not risk, that lies at the heart of fragility—an insight that challenges standard decision‐making. With the latter being based on analogical reasoning, it cannot be logically applied under conditions of uncertainty. If, instead, we adopt an heuristic for decision‐making that acknowledges uncertainty to not only entail risk but also opportunity, strategic foresight is well‐placed to help revive development.Policy ImplicationsFirst, fragility has to be reframed to acknowledge the centrality of uncertainty, not risk, in approaching fragility. Whilst evidence from the past is important, scrutinizing past paradigms and envisioning different futures is crucial.Second, strategic foresight can help uncover fragile societies’ capacities and potential. It can help shift from analyses dominated by a concern with lacks and deficits, to analyses which seek relative strengths and opportunities. Just as strong states are not strong in every respect, fragile states may have more to offer than meets the eye.Third, debates need to be more open, less ideologically laden. Dominant thinking on fragility is rife with seemingly imperturbable underpinnings: for example, the mantra that “without peace there can be no development, and without development there can be no peace.” While such propositions contain some truth, treating them as absolute and universally applicable, limits both thinking and policy options. Strategic foresight is well placed to provide a fresh view on fragility.

The role of Foresight Initiatives in Improving the level of the Security Performance

The role of Foresight Initiatives in Improving the level of the Security Performance

Personal Reflections on U.S. Federal Foresight Initiatives in the 1970s

During the 1970s, the planning and foresight community in the United States worked very hard to incorporate the long view—foresight perspectives and practices—into governmental functions when and where ever we could, especially in that decade’s major legislative accomplishments. Following is a brief outline of initiatives I had the pleasure of working on. While most of these activities were ended over the following generation, they show what can be accomplished with visionary leadership when the time is right.

Bridging epistemologies—Identifying uniqueness of lay and expert knowledge for agenda setting

Numerous foresight studies have been commissioned to address future R&I policies in the EU, spanning a variety of methodological approaches and scales of participation. Drawing out the discrepancy in content between expert- as well as citizen-based foresight studies, this article demonstrates that significant divisions exist between the resulting products with regard to informing policy creation. The Societal Challenges as declared by the European Commission provide an organizing framework for locating unique expert and citizen research topics within the context of knowledge generation towards specific policy ends. We link differences to the epistemological centers that organize both professional foresight research and citizen-based foresight projects. While professional foresight research institutions are more detailed in their examination of specificities concerning future-relevant factors, trends, and emerging issues, distinct qualitative differences emerge within citizen-based foresight initiatives with regard to contextualizing the possible impacts of future research and innovation projects.

Mapping outcomes of four Queensland city futures initiatives

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to map the outcomes of four influential South East Queensland city visioning and foresight initiatives conducted by the cities of Maroochy, Logan, Gold Coast and Brisbane. Design/methodology/approach This paper applies causal layered analysis to map the outcomes of four city visioning and foresight initiatives. Findings It is averred in this paper that cities need to map their experiences of past futures initiatives for what worked and what has resulted today, and for recommendations of futures actions and innovations. Originality/value This paper deepens the discussion about the critical features of the four initiatives by focusing on their outcomes and alternatives they could produce to influence the futures of their cities.

Foresight and International Development

This article provides an overview of the use of foresight‑type approaches and techniques in policy-related work in international development. It draws primarily on published and grey literatures, as well as select interviews with foresight practitioners. It begins with a brief introduction to the approaches and tools used in the field of strategic foresight, and then a broad mapping of the foresight landscape as relevant to international development. It provides reflections on the evidence of use and impact of foresight initiatives, and makes suggestions around future directions for foresight in international development.

Форсайт, конкурентная разведка и бизнес-аналитика — инструменты повышения эффективности отраслевых программ

Creating industrial programmes, especially in technology, is fraught with high levels of uncertainty. These programmes target the development of products that will not be sold for several years; therefore, one of the risks is that the products will no longer be in demand due to the emergence of more advanced technologies. The paper proposes an integrated approach involving the complementary functions of foresight, intelligence and business analytics. The tools of foresight and intelligence are focused on the external environment and enable industry and researchers to, among other things, understand the direction in which markets and technologies are evolving, and profile local industries to determine which policy instruments may be effective in these industries. Signals picked up today through externally focused intelligence studies can be used to confirm conclusions from longer term foresight initiatives such as scenarios, roadmaps and scans, thereby providing the information needed to establish the long-term industrial policy that science and technology related industries require. The authors propose a dashboard for monitoring an industrial programme’s use so that any problems can be corrected early on. The dashboard relies on both information available in open sources and that accessible to a government. Combining foresight, intelligence and business analytics is believed to notonly decrease uncertainty and risk but also make it more likely that the policy is implemented by its intended audience and that industry opportunities are identified at an early stage. To illustrate how this approach works in practice, the paper discusses a hypothetical case of a state programme to develop the nutraceuticals industry in Canada.

In the NIC of Time? Changing Our Minds about Global Foresight

The most recent report on global foresight published by the NIC provides an opportunity to reflect on the state of the art in the increasingly competitive and crowded arena of international foresight initiatives and global scenario publications. The NIC report offers scenarios to avoid the extreme reductionism of single line forecasting. The lack of new systemic insights offered by the scenarios may, however, contribute to an implementation gap and a failure to engage, reveal, and test the deeper assumptions about the future that are pivotal in ensuing national security in a multipolar, interdependent world.

THE CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SCENARIO CONSTRUCTION IN THE POLISH FORESIGHT INITIATIVES

The aim of the article is to present the diagnosis of scenario method application in the Polish foresight initiatives. The concept of scenario method, its evolution, the state of the art of the Polish foresight studies and the critical analysis of the application of this method have been presented. From the questionnaire results the authors have identified (i) the approach used in scenario construction, (ii) the most important phases of scenario construction, (iii) the interconnection of scenario method with other methods of scenario construction, (iv) the profile of experts involved in foresight projects, (v) the profile of experts involved in scenario construction, (vi) the application of the triangulation principle in scenario construction, (vii) the application of wild cards in scenario construction and techniques to identify them, (viii) the average time of scenario construction process, (ix) the linkage of scenarios to other documents, (x) the number of scenarios elaborated upon, and (xi) the main difficulties in the process of scenario construction. To achieve article aims there have been used the following research methods: a literature review, the method of critical analysis and logical construction, survey research, the status of Polish foresight projects, interim and final report analysis. The research has been funded by the National Science Centre in Poland within a research project entitled Scenarios in future shaping and anticipation for foresight studies, project number: 4194/B/H03/2011/40.

Foresight as a Tool in Water Resource Development

The World Water Vision report launched in 2000 by the World Water Commission for the twenty-first century described four scenarios for the future of water resources; three of these were quantified. The fourth was a qualitative scenario or vision that showed how a viable change in our practices involving solution elements of the other three scenarios could lead to securing access to safe water supplies for the world population by 2025. Fourteen years later, the status of water quality and availability around the world has led experts to point to a global water crisis: the world is further from the 2025 Vision than in 2000. In this article, the co-authors – including the Vision’s co-author – identify some of the reasons why the foresight effort did not herald the expected change, and look to how current water foresight initiatives are seeking to further narrow the gap with stakeholder needs.

Мониторинг исследований будущего

Rafael Popper - Research Fellow, Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, University of Manchester, UK. E-mail: rafael.popper@manchester.ac.ukAddress: Booth Street West, Manchester, M15 6PB, UK.In recent decades Foresight and other forward-looking activities (FLA) gained ground as a tool of science, technology and innovation (STI) policy. The number of FLA studies is globally rising. To some extent, foresight is governed by context-depended issues; however there are also common features in the objectives, methodology, and recommendations made. Mapping allows codifying and analyzing a bulk of FLA experiences gained worldwide. This in turn will contribute to enhancing performance of such activities and therefore of STI policy as a whole. The paper provides rationales for Futures Studies mapping, considers related opportunities and challenges, reviews lessons learned from early mapping efforts. It focuses on the large-scale EU-funded mapping project “European Foresight Platform” (EFP). Using this project as illustration, the paper describes mapping routines, the selected indicators of mapped Foresight initiatives, including their objectives, participants, target groups, methodologies, outcomes and recommendations. It discusses the potential and the limitations of particular mapping tools as well as possible applications of gained knowledge. Basing on mapping results, policy-makers, for example, are able to identify gaps to be addressed with relevant policy tools, Mapping also allows Foresight practitioners to develop strategies for further research and shape expert networks for their implementation.

Evolution of foresight in the global historical context

PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is to dynamically outline the evolution of foresight in different generations of globalization and different countries. The intention is to characterize several main events, inventions and circumstances that have conducted the evolution of this pervasive method together with broader participation and a changing focus of foresight over time.Design/methodology/approachThe assumption is that foresight has evolved as a consequence of increasing uncertainties that bring globalization and technological progress, and that it is a specific form of very long‐term participative strategic planning. It is impossible to directly link the increasing uncertainties in the global environment and the spread of foresight. However, it is possible to compare the history of foresight in relation to the history of globalization through several main historical events, inventions and initiatives typical for both evolutions. These events were primarily selected based on The History of the World. The inventions were primarily voted as the “Invention of the Year” in different industries and the foresight initiatives were selected from the European Foresight Monitoring Network (EFMN). The study was based on an intensive literature review and comparison, and complemented by the foresight history bibliometrical statistics of the EFMN database in order to see how exactly foresight has evolved and changed over time.FindingsThe paper provides a comprehensive insight into the history of foresight based on the description of the main foresight generations and their characterization. What can be claimed based on this study is that foresight has its predecessors and conditional evolution. According to the study, the evolution of foresight is connected with the establishment of China in 1949, where the government and many specialists worked together on the long‐term S&T development strategy that had many elements of foresight. Since that time, many countries have benefited from this synergic participative long‐term planning. Foresight has been successful and has spread to more and more countries, which is obvious from the increasing rate of new initiatives every year.Research limitations/implicationsThe scope of this theme and the diversity of specialists' opinions do not allow overly excessive analyses. The main approach here is to identify the fundamental development of foresight in relation to several key historical events and the history of forecasting and globalization, and to outline several linkages. Second, there are significant differences in dating foresight as a new developing scientific discipline in many countries over time. Lastly, the opinions of experts differ too much considering the difference between foresight and forecasting.Practical implicationsThe paper includes appeals for further detailed studies/hindsight and discussion of each foresight generation mainly in relation to its real effectiveness, especially in countries like China, Japan, the USA, Germany, France and the UK, which have been applying foresight for 20 to 50 years. This is especially important in order to develop foresight as a purposeful effective scientific discipline.Originality/valueThe paper is a clear comprehensive analysis of foresight history. Its key added value lies in the comprehensive insight into three subsequent tables and figures that depict foresight in relation to the milestones of globalization and the world history.

Mapping expectations for system transformations: Lessons from Sustainability Foresight in German utility sectors

Expectations held by different actor groups are of key importance for the shaping of socio-technical transformation processes. Foresight activities may be interpreted as a means to elicit, aggregate, modulate and contextualize expectations held by different actors. The paper proposes a conceptual framework that allows assessing and reflecting expectations in foresight initiatives that focus on sustainable sector transformations. For this purpose it draws on the recent literature on socio-technical system transformations and social expectation dynamics. The application of the framework is illustrated by experiences gained with the Sustainability Foresight method developed for the case of sustainable utility sector futures in Germany. The process was conceived as a series of participative scenario and strategy workshops involving about 120 stakeholders from the provision, use and governance of utility services.

A Latvian experience addressing issues of the foresight innovation

The paper considers a constructive approach to building foresight capabilities at national level (foresight initiatives in Latvia during 2003?2007) for incremental involvement of various stakeholders in activities dealing with European/international foresight projects and exercises. New ways of designing conceptual frameworks and transdisciplinary integration have been explored, discovering opportunities to join efforts of foresight and Knowledge Management (KM) within processes of foresight projects. Possibilities to add new elements to foresight methodologies are discussed in connection with issues of raising citizens' understanding of the EU Lisbon strategy and post-Lisbon policies. Entrepreneurship coupled with organisational and personal KM might leverage effectiveness of foresight research and activities at national level and support international collaboration in this area. New foresight initiatives that provide advice and facilitate knowledge transfer for policies and innovation ought to be adaptable to the uniqueness of local and national environments.

Technology Transfer and Innovation Initiatives in Strategic Management

This paper taps the strategic management discipline to inform our understanding of technology transfer and innovation (TTI) initiatives. With special focus on the UK Foresight programme it considers the impacts that the resource-based and core competence approaches to strategy can have on understanding the nature and effectiveness of TTI initiatives. It is argued that the alternative perspective generated from viewing Foresight and other TTI initiatives through the lens of strategic management can have benefits for the initiatives themselves, for industry practitioners and for our understanding of strategic management.

Materials in the making

Materials and materials technologies are recognized to be key underpinning and critically enabling areas of R&D. Most industrial sectors and fields of technology application depend upon them. Materials research can provide new solutions capable of optimizing the application of current technologies, minimizing their negative side effects and reducing production costs. However, the long development time and slow return on materials research investments make industry reluctant to take on the associated risks. This alone suggests that policy initiatives to sustain long‐term research efforts are necessary. This article considers the policy findings of national foresight initiatives in the area of materials and material technologies.

Tech forecasting an empirical perspective

Introduction In inviting these perspectives, Hal Linstone wrote that technology forecasting (TF) seems to have peaked around 1970 with a decline in methodological advance thereafter. That stimulated me to conduct a bibliometric analysis of TF activity over the past dozen years. Results support Hal’s contention, but also point toward “next wave” possibilities. Before digging into the data, it is worth considering what is different today from the earlier “heydey” periods for TF. In the 1950s and 1960s, TF was driven by military competition with the Soviet Union. TF was initiated primarily as a tool to help anticipate military technology needs and to help plan and prioritize R&D and systems development. Many of these technologies had long development times (for example, anti-ballistic missile program, new fighter planes). Today, military technology development has been supplanted by commercial technological competition as the primary motivator for TF. Competitive technological intelligence—a remarkable growth area of the 1990s—conjures images of companies, more than intelligence agencies, most actively trying to find out “who’s doing what.” This interest in tracking and forecasting others’ technology development has been heightened by tendencies to constrain corporate R&D to more immediate and more applied targets. In addition, both industry and government (even in the United States) evidence interest in trying to plan, prioritize, and evaluate their R&D programs, placing a premium on information about relative prospects and performance metrics. National technology foresight initiatives and industry or product technology road maps are important emerging forms of TF [30]. The defining characteristic of today’s technology is that we are in the Information Age. While cases could be made for various emerging technologies (for example, advanced materials, biotech) as flowering, it is clearly IT—information technology—that defines our era. That poses a challenge for TF in that typical IT life cycles are much shorter than military systems technology life cycles of 40 years ago. In addition to targeting rather different technological targets these days, TF draws on different resources. The availability of electronic information in several forms pro-