Showing papers on "Futures studies published in 2004"

Imaging the Future of Science Education: The Case for Making Futures Studies Explicit in Student Learning.

Abstract: (2004). Imaging the Future of Science Education: the Case for Making Futures Studies Explicit in Student Learning. Studies in Science Education: Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 139-177.

Complexity and emergent behaviour in ICT systems

Abstract: complex systems, emergent behaviour, ICT, DTI, foresight Information and Communication Technology (ICT) practitioners are now readily able to create systems of such interconnected complexity that predicting the effects that small changes (such as minor component failures) will have on overall system performance may become very difficult or perhaps impossible. The notion that system-level behaviour "emerges" from parallel nonlinear interaction of multiple components in ways that are difficult or impossible to predict is explored in this document with reference to the UK's ICT investments and assets. We conclude that while it is true that there are currently limits to our ability to understand the ICT systems that we are capable of creating, nevertheless there are ways forward, including new ways of structuring and approaching software engineering, and teaching IT. This 25,000word report is a briefing document commissioned by the Foresight Programme within the Office of Science and Technology of the UK Government's Department of Trade and Industry. Its findings are independent of government and do not constitute UK Government policy.

Responsiveness in foresight management: reflections from the Finnish food and drink industry

Abstract: Based on experiences from participatory foresight exercises and a recent foresight study for the Finnish food and drink industries, we elaborate three overarching objectives for foresight activities, i.e. * improved systems understanding * enhanced networking * strengthened innovation activities. We also argue that foresight is an inherently creative (and hence uncertain) activity where success depends on how adequately combinations of analytical and communicative methods are adopted in relation to possibly evolving foresight objectives. Specifically, we postulate that responsiveness to shifting stakeholder interests and expectations may be required in the definition and pursuit of foresight objectives; this, in turn, has implications for decision-making structures and methodological choices. Some of these implications are highlighted by describing a foresight study for the Finnish food and drink industries.

Teaching for tomorrow: how can futures studies contribute to peace education?

Abstract: There are a number of cross‐curricular educational fields today that have as their focus the need to create a better world. These range from peace education and global education to education for sustainability and futures education. This paper is concerned with the first and last of these fields, and in particular the contribution that futures studies can make to the work of peace educators. Firstly, it considers the origins, principles and practice of futures studies, and secondly the application of its key ideas in futures education. Thirdly, it explores the particular importance of envisioning within this tradition and attention is drawn to ways in which the insights from futures studies can be used to underpin various notions of positive peace.

Introduction: Organizations and the Future, From Forecasting to Foresight

Abstract: Deliberation is irrational in the degree in which an end is so fixed, a passion or interest so absorbing, that the foresight of consequences is warped to include only what furthers execution of its predetermined bias. Deliberation is rational in the degree in which forethought flexibly remakes old aims and habits, institutes perception and love of new ends and acts. The dominance of retrospect in sensemaking is a major reason why students of sensemaking find forecasting, contingency planning, strategic planning, and other magical probes into the future wasteful and misleading if they are decoupled from reflective action and history. Several leading social theorists have pointed out that one of the most significant features of modernity is its attitude to time in general and the future in particular. As Giddens (1990, 1991) has repeatedly argued, whereas for pre-modern societies the future is something that just happens, with individuals exercising only a limited influence over it, for modern societies the future is something to be carefully thought about, influenced and, ideally, planned. Nowhere is this modern tendency better manifested than in the field of strategy. Companies are advised to plan meticulously ahead and several techniques have been on offer to that effect. However, research has shown the limits of the planning-cum-design approach to strategy (Mintzberg, 1994; Mintzberg et al., 1998), as well as the inherent limits to the ability of organizations to forecast, especially discontinuities and radically new famously remarked that, for radically new innovation to occur at all, the future must be unknowable, for otherwise an innovation would, in principle, be already known and would have occurred in the present and not in the future. As MacIntyre (1985, p. 93) observed, commenting approvingly on Popper's claim: TSOUKAS/Managing the Future Final Proof 22.3.2004 5:43pm page 1 any invention, any discovery, which consists essentially in the elaboration of a radically new concept cannot be predicted, for a necessary part of the prediction is the present elaboration of the very concept whose discovery or invention was to take place only in the future. The notion of the prediction of radical conceptual innovation is itself conceptually incoherent. If we are to take the idea of the future seriously, we must accept that the future is inherently open-ended – it will always surprise us (Rorty, 1989). While such an agnostic attitude towards the future points out the limits of a purely cognitive attitude to it (namely, …

Using Technology Foresight To Create Business Value

Abstract: Whether a one-time activity or an ongoing process, TF permits the identification and characterization, in business terms, of major new technology opportunities for the enterprise. OVERVIEW: Developing an R&D strategy and identifying new technology-based opportunities is a critical activity today. From incremental maintenance of core technologies to long-term threats and opportunities such as nanotechnology, a business needs to understand and manage more technology options than ever before. Technology Foresight is a perspective and process that can sort the options, identify new technology opportunities, and develop coherence between short- and longer-term R&D. The process leverages the insights of the company's technical personnel to identify current technology strengths and, with outside information, develop foresight from the interaction of industry and technology trends. These, in turn, yield enhancement and extension of the company's technology "Power Zone" and new technology-based business opportunities. For companies in markets and industries where technologies play a critical role in business success, a fundamental and critical question underlies all business activity: how to manage technologies, present and emerging, from both inside and outside the company, to enhance competitive position and drive sustainable profitable growth? In some cases, this question is clear and present, while in many other cases, the question is latent and not being asked by the leadership. Ultimately, the answers to this question involve both business and R&D strategy. But these strategic issues need to be based on an understanding, explicit or implicit, of the current state of the company's technology and the expectations of future technology developments, both from within and outside the company. This understanding, perspective and outlook on the future can be called Technology Foresight (TF). Major issues driving the criticality of this question are: * Commoditization of markets, products and most technologies. * More "perfect" global markets. * Capital availability in worlds 2 and 3. * Global technology equilibrium (catalyzed by the Internet). * Increasing pace of scientific discovery. * Large, coherent technology initiatives, such as nano-technology and biotechnology. * Relentless productivity increase from information technology. From our experience in developing and implementing Technology Foresight activities in several large technology-intensive companies, we have developed a process and approaches to implementation within the companies' management and technical groups. Before explaining these, however, Technology Foresight needs a careful definition. The term is non-standard and has several different meanings in different contexts. Synthesizing from several sources: Technology Foresight (TF) can be a one-time activity or an ongoing process within the company. It can be done at the single business, group, whole company, or even the industry level. It is the background for forecasting, strategic planning, R&D strategy, and decision-making when linked to the business. Most important, it enables the identification and characterization, in business terms, of major new technology opportunities for the enterprise. Compared to other functions in the business, such as finance, marketing, manufacturing, etc., the future development of technologies is somewhat more predictable and virtually all of the needed information is in the public domain. The expectations and possible outcomes of the process are: Insight for R&D prioritization and strategy.-This is a key problem for most R&D departments. There are always too many paths to take and jobs to do within resource limits. Input for the strategic planning process.-The results of the foresight process provide a business view of technology developments and opportunities that can be integrated into the strategic plan, rather than tacked on as the "contribution" from R&D. …

Neo-Liberalism, Knowledge and Inclusiveness

Abstract: Over the past decade, 'knowledge' has become a key policy buzz- word. This is particularly evident in policy material on education, science and research, where references to the importance of building the 'new' knowledge society and economy abound. This article discusses two examples of these new knowledge discourses at work in the New Zealand context. The first is the Foresight Project, a futures-oriented policy initiative developed under a National Government in the late 1990s. The second is the Labour-led Tertiary Education Strategy, which sets out priorities for post-compulsory education and training from 2002 to 2007. The author argues that these initiatives blend narrative, techno-scientific and neo-liberal forms of knowledge, with the latter ultimately dominating the other two. He supports the attempt to take the future seriously in policy development but maintains that these initiatives foster an illusory notion of inclusiveness and consider only a narrow range of social and economic alternatives. Among the few features that might be said to be universal in governments of the Western world is a love affair with the 'new'. Exaggerated claims of newness abound in policy statements, political speeches and party manifestos. Government initiatives in the educational domain are especially prone to this tendency, as ministers strive to become more innovative, change oriented and forward-looking than their predecessors. This is as true of conservative politicians as it is of those belonging to progressive parties. Appeals for a return to 'the basics', or to 'standards', or 'quality' are often dressed up in a language deemed appropriate for the times. Thus, a minister might call on the one hand for economic liberalisation, while on the other supporting a renewed emphasis on 'the three Rs' in the primary school and, say, traditional approaches to the teaching of history in the secondary school. Regardless of political affiliation, keeping up with what the rest of the world is doing is seen by most as vital. In the New Zealand context, this desire has often found expression in utterances

Ethical Challenges to Citizens of ‘The Automatic Age’: Norbert Wiener on the Information Society

Abstract: This article discusses the foresight of philosopher/mathematician Norbert Wiener who, in the 1940s, founded Information Ethics as a research discipline. Wiener envisioned the coming of an “automatic age” in which information technology would have profound social and ethical impacts upon the world. He predicted, for example, machines that will learn, reason and play games; “automatic factories” that will replace assembly‐line workers and middle managers with computerized devices; workers who will perform their jobs over great distances with the aid of new communication technologies; and people who will gain remarkable powers by adding computerized “prostheses” to their bodies. To analyze the ethical implications of such developments, Wiener presented some principles of justice and employed a powerful practical method of ethical analysis.

Foresight in a multi-level governance structure: policy integration and communication

Abstract: Foresight is widely interpreted as the process of fostering scientific research to support technological innovation and hence regional and national competitiveness. Policy integration, across administrative levels, is seen as crucial to achieving these goals. Our analysis looks at policies and their integration in the contexts of science, Foresight and governance at regional, national, European and global levels and we draw some conclusions relevant to their implementation, particularly at the regional level. We use Scotland as an illustrative example, where the recent devolution settlement has, at least in some areas, allowed greater freedom of action. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Learning the steps of the dance of change: improving change capabilities by integrating futures studies and positive organisational scholarship

Abstract: As the pendulum swings back towards growth in business, organisational change is again on the top of the corporate agenda. Change management in recent years has not had a very successful record, and organisations must improve their change capabilities – they must better learn the dance of change. The success of change initiatives more than ever depends on the people in organisations. This article presents a people‐oriented approach to change by integrating the latest developments in “inside‐out” positive organisational scholarship with “outside‐in” thinking of future issues. The methodology facilitates better organisational learning as well as boosting people's commitment to change, and is a practical, simple and effective way of structuring and facilitating large‐scale, complex organisational change initiatives.

Defining alternative national-scale socio-economic and technological futures up to 2100: SRES scenarios for the case of Finland

Abstract: The basic ideas of scenario planning are to provide analyses of potential future trends and the preparations for the changes brought about by those future trends. Thus the FINSKEN project has developed new integrated scenarios that analyse the potential changes in environmental and socio-economic factors for Finland in the 21st century. This article provides long-run socio-economic scenarios for Finland as a contribution to the FINSKEN project. Its aim is to present and analyse future scenarios of Finland's population and economic development, as well as to apply relevant technological and social foresight studies approaches. In this article, four tailored storylines and worlds of future development are presented for Finland. These are related to the scenarios of the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The storylines are based on expert interviews and material from official and expert documents. In addition, the authors operationalise the four storylines for the Finnish economy using the International Futures (IFs) for Terra world model. Furthermore, empirical results and model runs concerning the economic and social long-run transition paths of the Finnish economy are presented.

From Narrative to Number: A Role for Quantitative Models in Scenario Analysis

Abstract: There is growing concern that the predictive mathematical models conventionally used in policy analysis are too limiting to serve as tools in futures studies, because they cannot reproduce the sudden changes seen in real societies. The field of complex systems has successfully produced similar changes in simplified model systems, but has been less successful in practical futures work. Some recent scenario exercises (such as the IPCC scenarios, UNEP’s GEO-3 scenarios, the work of the Global Scenario Group and the European VISIONS project) have addressed this issue by combining wide-ranging narratives with quantitative models, demonstrating that a synthesis between qualitative and quantitative approaches is possible. However, there is no consensus on an appropriate methodology. In this paper it is argued that there are essentially two analytical challenges that scenario models must address in order to achieve the goal of more robust planning in the face of both gradual and sudden change. One is to represent complexity, while the other is to represent what might be called “complicatedness.” Complex behavior arises from the interrelatedness of different components of a system, while “complicatedness” as used here means that there are a lot of factors to keep in mind—constraints, actors, resources, etc. It will further be argued that complexity is best dealt with in narratives, and complicatedness is best dealt with using computers. The characteristics of appropriate computer models will be presented, and extant exemplars of appropriate models described.

Cyber trust and crime prevention: a synthesis of the state-of-the-art science reviews

Abstract: This report provides a synthesis of theoretical and empirical work in the sciences and social sciences that indicates the drivers, opportunities, threats, and barriers to the future evolution of cyberspace and the feasibility of crime prevention measures. It is based on 10 state-of-the-art science reviews commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Technology Foresight Project. Each of the papers highlights the current state of knowledge in selected areas as well as gaps in the evidence base needed to address issues of cyber trust and crime prevention in the future.

Values, objectivity, and the good society

Abstract: Futures studies is a new field of inquiry involving systematic and explicit thinking about alternative futures. Wendell Bell's two-volume work Foundations of Futures Studies is widely acknowledged as the fundamental work on the subject. In Volume 2, Bell goes beyond possible and probable futures to the study of preferable futures. He shows that concern with ethics, morality, and human values follows directly from the futurist purposes of discovering or inventing, examining, and proposing desirable futures. He examines moral judgments as an inescapable aspect of all decision-making and conscious action, even in the everyday lives of ordinary people. Now available in paperback with a new preface from the author, Volume 2 of Foundations of Futures Studies moves beyond cultural relativism to critical evaluation. Bell compares depictions of the good society by utopian writers, describes objective methods of moral judgment, assesses religion and law as sources of what is morally right, documents the existence of universal human values, and shows that if human beings are to thrive in the global society of the future, some human values must be changed.

Stumbling along or grave new world? Towards Europe's information society

Abstract: What does the future hold for Europe's ICT sector and how will the information society develop? This article provides a snapshot of the state of Europe's ICT sector and progress towards the information society. The article then considers the major trends and drivers of change shaping the information society and, based on published foresight studies, explores two possible scenarios for the future. Finally, the implications for Europe's policies towards ICT and the information society are discussed.