Topic
Futures studies
About: Futures studies is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2996 publications have been published within this topic receiving 49505 citations. The topic is also known as: futurology & futurism.
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TL;DR: In this paper, a technological foresight study was performed on genetically modified (GM) crop technology in the Danish context, and the study concluded with a stakeholder workshop that revealed three key issues that might provide helpful starting points for a more free-flowing and open-minded debate about the future of GM crops.
26 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors show the weakness of traditional economic theory and what improvements in terms of description and foresight could be obtained applying chaos theory to the study of economic phenomena.
Abstract: The crisis that was being shaken the world economy should push economists to wonder about the approach used to analyse economic phenomena. The motivations that have generated it, describing a whole of interdependencies, interacttions, are clear and convincing. But a question remains: if the situation is so clear a posterior why economists have not been able to foresee it? What is happening to economic science if it is not able to recognize an economic crisis before it “steps on it“? How is it possible that the economic science was caught off guard yet again? Besides, what is the implication for the status of economics as a science if it is not able to successfully deal with real economic problems? The aim of the paper is to show the weakness of traditional economic theory and what improvements in terms of description and foresight could be obtained applying chaos theory to the study of economic phenomena.
26 citations
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25 Oct 2010
TL;DR: The paper outlines a set of proposed visionary scenarios on how governance and policy modelling could develop by 2030, and four internally-consistent views of what the European Information Society might be by 2030 have been designed.
Abstract: The paper outlines a set of proposed visionary scenarios on how governance and policy modelling could develop by 2030. These scenarios have been designed through a foresight exercise conducted by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) as part of the CROSSROAD Project, a support action of the European Commission 7th Framework Programme. After presenting the conceptual framework and methodological approach followed, the main results of the trends analysis conducted as part of the project are discussed. This entails the presentation of societal trends and a deeper analysis of policy and research trends that are considered central for understanding and mapping ICT research for prospective governance and policy modelling.Based on the framework proposed, four internally-consistent views of what the European Information Society might be by 2030 have been designed. The resulting scenarios and the consequent implications for citizens, businesses and public services are then presented. The timeframe in which certain (or all) the elements of the visions will occur are influenced by the technological and societal 'speed of change'. However, considering the unprecedented growth and speed of take up experienced in several research areas under investigation, it is argued that the world we will be living in by 2030 will be radically different from the world we are living in today. Finally, the key areas of expected change and the research challenges identified for building a Digital Europe twenty years from now are presented.
26 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, a critique of the minimal, or fleeting, present and some possibilities for extending what might be meant by the present is explored, and the authors suggest that considerable utility may be derived from a more careful and considered use of particular timeframes, and that questions of sustainability, the rights of future generations and the disciplined study of futures can be resolved without a number of innovations based on long-term thinking.
26 citations
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TL;DR: A conceptual analysis of the anticipatory and adaptive approaches that are crucial for the responsible design and sustainable transition of vaccinomics to public health practice concludes that uncertainty is not an accident of the scientific method, but its very substance.
Abstract: Vaccinomics is the convergence of vaccinology and population-based omics sciences. The success of knowledge-based innovations such as vaccinomics is not only contingent on access to new biotechnologies. It also requires new ways of governance of science, knowledge production, and management. This article presents a conceptual analysis of the anticipatory and adaptive approaches that are crucial for the responsible design and sustainable transition of vaccinomics to public health practice. Anticipatory governance is a new approach to manage the uncertainties embedded on an innovation trajectory with participatory foresight, in order to devise governance instruments for collective "steering" of science and technology. As a contrast to hitherto narrowly framed "downstream impact assessments" for emerging technologies, anticipatory governance adopts a broader and interventionist approach that recognizes the social construction of technology design and innovation. It includes in its process explicit mechanisms to understand the factors upstream to the innovation trajectory such as deliberation and cocultivation of the aims, motives, funding, design, and direction of science and technology, both by experts and publics. This upstream shift from a consumer "product uptake" focus to "participatory technology design" on the innovation trajectory is an appropriately radical and necessary departure in the field of technology assessment, especially given that considerable public funds are dedicated to innovations. Recent examples of demands by research funding agencies to anticipate the broad impacts of proposed research--at a very upstream stage at the time of research funding application--suggest that anticipatory governance with foresight may be one way how postgenomics scientific practice might transform in the future toward responsible innovation. Moreover, the present context of knowledge production in vaccinomics is such that policy making for vaccines of the 21st century is occurring in the face of uncertainties where the "facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent and where no single one of these dimensions can be managed in isolation from the rest." This article concludes, however, that uncertainty is not an accident of the scientific method, but its very substance. Anticipatory governance with participatory foresight offers a mechanism to respond to such inherent sociotechnical uncertainties in the emerging field of vaccinomics by making the coproduction of scientific knowledge by technology and the social systems explicit. Ultimately, this serves to integrate scientific and social knowledge thereby steering innovations to coproduce results and outputs that are socially robust and context sensitive.
26 citations