Showing papers on "Futures studies published in 1999"

A simple guide to successful foresight

Abstract: The term “foresight” is often misunderstood and is used to indicate a variety of programmes, exercises, studies and techniques for looking at the future. There have been several national foresight programmes in recent years (including the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, and Japan), usually conducted at government level and carried out for a variety of reasons including the promotion of national R&D and industry competitiveness. Larger business organizations, particularly those with a scientific and technical base, sometimes carry out their own exercises usually as part of longer term strategy, although foresight is possible for smaller organizations too. This article provides a short and simple guide to the foresight process with the specific aim of deriving real value for organizations rather than merely conducting an interesting exercise.

Expertise in the Future Use of Generic Technologies

Abstract: In 1990s there has been a "boom" of extensive technology foresight studies based on the use of the Delphi method. This study examines critically e.g. national foresight studies made in Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and Austria. The study suggests that the epistemic paradigm of the general theory of consistency (GTC), presented in the book, can provide working epistemic foundations for futures studies and for technology foresight Delphi studies in special. Results of the national foresight exercises are examined with an epistemic utility model based on GTC. The epistemic utility is a modification of the traditional utility concept of investment theory. New conceptual tools are used for the analysis of the expertise and information policies of different expert groups in technology Delphi studies. Empirical background of discussion are three technology Delphi studies made by the author. They concerned use of computer based information services of households, new biotechnology and the material technology. Based on these studies a special interpretation of the Delphi method is provided: the Argument Delphi.

A comparison of national foresight exercises

Abstract: This paper discusses recent trends in public‐administration‐led foresight exercises from the perspective of how the choice of objectives and scope is reflected in the methods used. In countries where successive projects have been carried out, one can observe how the evolution in methods employed, aims to increase the impact and effectiveness of foresight. Organizing the discussion in terms of objectives departs from previous approaches in the literature which mostly distinguish between different foresight exercises according to the principal methodology used.

Improving Distributed Intelligence in Complex Innovations Systems

Abstract: Science and technology (S&T) are considered to be a central source, or at least a basic medium, of societal and industrial innovation, while innovation is conceived to basically feed the regeneration of our welfare. The suppliers of S&T in Europe as well as the users of their „products“, are confronted with a number of challenges today. We want to stress here that it was not the primary goal of our Advanced Science & Technology Policy Planning (ASTPP) Network to come up with proposals how the strategic character of European S&T policies could be strengthened. The ASTPP-network instead focuses on one aspect: the provision of strategic intelligence necessary to identify and develop strategic choices. The underlying hypothesis is that the existing body of experiences with technology foresight, technology assessment and S/T policy evaluation provides a basis for the development of an advanced S&T policy „planning“ approach by trying to enhance, interlink or even integrate the growing, but still dispersed experience in these three areas of intelligence. By „intelligent“ we mean that the inter-relatedness of S&T, industrial efforts, societal needs and political interventions becomes more transparent so that interactive collaboration between them will be facilitated.

Foresight and Services: Closing the Gap?

Abstract: Service sectors of the economy are increasingly recognised as being important innovators. However,few studies of innovation systems have paid due attention to services’ position in these systems. The UKS Foresight programme (originally the Technology Foresight programme) provides helpful insights into these matters. Foresight has been an ambitious attempt to establish priority areas for innovative efforts, and to build new networks between inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs and policymakers. In this programme there has been an explicit and pioneering effort to include service sectors. The article examines how far this was successful, and what it tells us about services’ role in innovation systems. There is evidence that in general services remained less aware of,and involved in, Foresight than comparable manufacturing firms. Furthermore, some service industries experienced particular difficulty in participating in the process. The implication is that even though many service firms are innovative, there ...

Understanding technology foresight: the relevance of its S&T policy context

Abstract: Recently Technology Foresight (TF) exercises promoted by governments are spreading all over Europe, however the forms that TF takes within each country is very diverse First, in order to understand the importance of the policy context, as an example, we will explain the "fate and fortune" of foresight in Spain in relation to the attempts to bring it into the science and technology (S&T) policy agenda and will analyse the institutional constraints over the development of TF The second part of this paper is related to the extent in which TF is a useful tool for policy making We will enlighten the analysis with the use of the theory of decision making, especially in the reflection on the role of the information emerging from TF as legitimation for policy makers, but more importantly on the promising use of TF for coordination within national innovation systems

Prospecting the Future

Abstract: Creating the paradigms for the next millennium isn't something you can just order up! It's a process-it can take days or months or years! -Garry Trudeau (1997) What are the long-run prospects for international relations? The essays in this volume address that question based on broad conceptions of its extended past and its present, and limits on our foresight. They emphasize fundamental features of polarity, governance, prevailing identities, the role of state and nonstate actors, and aggregation and disaggregation as they bear on security and political-economy prospects for the relatively long run. They more or less take explicit positions on the future concentration and dispersion of power, wealth, and legitimacy and of their opposites-weakness, poverty, and regimes lacking in consent. The contributors have the intellectual conviction, some might say arrogance or innocence, to provide us with conjectures (de Jouvenal 1967), visions of possible futures and the paths to them, intended to open up thinking about the future rather than to close it off. They do not by and large offer forecasts of states of affairs and their time of occurrence in the customarily specific terms of the world of international affairs practice. That self-restraint does not in itself deprive their views of practical relevance. The acts and words of international affairs practitioners do not comprehensively and continuously monopolize relevance to social consequences. Policy salons have not earned a special claim to realism in its common-language sense. As Max Weber observed, "Very frequently, the

Improving Distributed Intelligence in Complex Innovation Systems

Abstract: Science and technology (S&T) are considered to be a central source, or at least a basic medium, of societal and industrial innovation, while innovation is conceived to basically feed the regeneration of our welfare. The suppliers of S&T in Europe as well as the users of their „products“, are confronted with a number of challenges today. We want to stress here that it was not the primary goal of our Advanced Science & Technology Policy Planning (ASTPP) Network to come up with proposals how the strategic character of European S&T policies could be strengthened. The ASTPP-network instead focuses on one aspect: the provision of strategic intelligence necessary to identify and develop strategic choices. The underlying hypothesis is that the existing body of experiences with technology foresight, technology assessment and S/T policy evaluation provides a basis for the development of an advanced S&T policy „planning“ approach by trying to enhance, interlink or even integrate the growing, but still dispersed experience in these three areas of intelligence. By „intelligent“ we mean that the inter-relatedness of S&T, industrial efforts, societal needs and political interventions becomes more transparent so that interactive collaboration between them will be facilitated.

Have we the foresight for sustainable development

Abstract: Sustainable development – meeting the needs of people alive today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs – will be one of the key forces guiding public policy development in the years ahead. Success depends upon continued social and technological innovation, to bring more people into a more integrated market place while reducing environmental impact and social inequity. However, while much work has been done on technology foresight, the link between the options that technology creates and the way people use these options to achieve particular objectives remains poorly understood. This article describes three scenarios for sustainable development to examine how public and corporate policies can encourage the development and deployment of cleaner, more productive technologies capable of supporting sustainable development. Critical parameters distinguishing the scenarios include uncertainty about the time available to deal with the challenge, and the system of governance that can best respond. It is proposed that a transparent, market led approach is the most likely to foster all round innovation. Consequently, the most effective policies will be those that increase public trust in technology and ensure informed consumer choice and open discussion of risks and rewards, within a context of shared standards and a market oriented regulatory framework.

Identifying New Business Opportunities

Abstract: OVERVIEW:In times of rapid market, business and technological change, large science-based companies must create their own futures by developing profitable new growth as soon as a market appears viable. Visualization of these new business possibilities, however, depends on foresight. This requires the company to develop processes for continually applying market and technical knowledge in a constant search for opportunities that intersect with its capabilities. DuPont's recent experiences in developing new business ventures have made extensive use of this approach. The key ingredient has been the use of multidisciplined, multi-experience-based new business venture teams.

The German Foresight Study '98 on the global development of science and technology

Abstract: Summary form only given. The German foresight study on the global development of science and technology was published in 1998 by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) on behalf of the Federal German Ministry for Education, Research, Science and Technology (BMBF). The study makes use of the Delphi method with a time horizon of 30 years, and is conducted in cooperation with the Japanese National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP). Delphi is pragmatically defined as communication process among experts in two or more so called rounds; starting from the second round, the experts receive a feedback on the results of previous rounds. Thus, it can be examined if there is consensus-or not. The anonymity of using a questionnaire allows the experts to change their minds or stick to their opinions without losing face. In most cases, this procedure causes a consensus finding process between the first and the following rounds. The German Delphi process is organized similarly to the Japanese, which has the longest experience with this method. According to the Delphi procedure, the experts were asked to assess future developments in science and technology. The topics were formulated as visionary statements, and the experts had to estimate the time of realization, the importance for the economy, the environment, society, the enlargement of human knowledge, and for work and employment. They were also asked to assess which country has the highest R&D level, which are the future problems, and what measures have to be taken.

Strategic Thinking on the Front Lines

Abstract: If large, centrally managed corporations are a thing of the past in many industries, so too are large, centrally managed strategy departments. Or are they? We decided to find out. Decentralization sometimes means the creation of separate business units within a corporation. In other cases, it assumes more fundamental forms, as suggested by the rising number of carve-outs, spin-offs, and letter stocks.(*) Often, too, decentralization involves efforts to enable each individual unit of the decentralized company to make its own strategic decisions, instead of confining them to the senior executive level of the corporate center [ILLUSTRATION FOR EXHIBIT 1 OMITTED]. The idea is to help these units focus on value creation opportunities much more narrow than those that would interest typical centralized strategy departments. The objective is an admirable one, for a strong broad-based strategic-thinking capability can help these units make dynamic decisions about where and how they should direct their attention in a fast-moving marketplace. Yet replicating this powerful weapon broadly across a company presents quite a challenge. For one thing, such efforts demand a good deal of time from a company's most talented people, who will have to make a long-term commitment, since quick results are not likely. And a significant shift in corporate culture is often required, especially if a company did little work on strategy in the past or has a long heritage of centralized decision making communicated downward to business units. These difficulties mean that attempts to build a strategic-thinking capability at the level of individual business units are not always justified. In some cases, the work required more than outweighs the potential rewards; in others, a company is just not equipped for the task. Senior executives should therefore ask themselves two questions: how much will their companies benefit from a broad-based strategic-thinking capability, and does the reward exceed the commitment, resources, and patience required to build it? Is the effort worthwhile? We examined 15 large companies in 12 industries. All of these companies had explicitly considered making a commitment to the development of broad-based strategic-thinking capabilities. We concluded that their value depended on two things: the importance of insight and foresight in an industry and the extent to which companies were "atomized" - that is, diversified and decentralized. Insight and foresight To innovate continually and to develop superior business approaches routinely, a company must have insight and foresight. They are most valuable in specific kinds of industries. Industries facing great uncertainty are one example. Deregulation, cyclical changes in the economy, globalization, and other forces are transforming corporations in such industries as high technology, telecommunications, electric power, and chemicals. A strong strategic-thinking capability can help individual business units identify ways to develop confident forecasts of the future and to reduce the uncertainty of business decisions, for in many cases only a part of that uncertainty is truly irreducible; the rest reflects a failure to investigate issues thoroughly. Other industries that require insight and foresight put a premium on innovation. To identify and launch successful new products and services, management in many industries - including software, biotechnology, investment management, and fashion - must thoroughly understand the real drivers of value for their customers. Insight and foresight are important as well for industries whose success depends on their managers' ability to understand key implications of very complex relationships. Examples include commodity traders, insurance underwriters, and people who make complex marketing and pricing decisions. Finally, insight and foresight are valuable in those industries where it is hard or impossible to develop and sustain structural advantages (a patent on a successful drug early in its life cycle, for example) or advantages based on execution. …

The research on future images and visions: Need for a strategic alliance between futures studies and social sciences

Abstract: (1999). The research on future images and visions: Need for a strategic alliance between futures studies and social sciences. International Review of Sociology: Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 333-347.

Tales of transition: Futures studies and sociological explanation

Abstract: (1999). Tales of transition: Futures studies and sociological explanation. International Review of Sociology: Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 373-385.

The ECT angle

Abstract: This paper examines future trends in the environment and clean technologies (ECT) sector. Seven national technology foresight studies have been reviewed with the purpose of (i) screening the main issues linked to environmental and clean technologies (ii) highlighting major developments that are likely to play a crucial role for future paths towards sustainability.

Future perspectives on ICTs

Abstract: Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have featured strongly in all the recent national foresight studies. This paper documents some of the common trends that emerge from a comparison of these different studies and attempts to draw some strategic conclusions. The first section charts their relative importance. The main trends identified in the national foresight studies are then discussed by main technological areas in turn: software, components and peripherals, advanced telecommunications and telematics applications. Finally, the third part of the paper, strong interactions that ICTs have with other technological disciplines is considered, especially in relation to new materials, nanostructures and bioinformatics.