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.

Foresight as a Governance Concept at the Interface between Global Challenges and Regional Innovation Potentials

Abstract: In recent years, new regionally based strategy-building processes emerged at the interface between public policy and the social coordination of collective action. Foresight as a governance process to stimulate regional innovation and strengthen the regional economic system against global competition became a popular concept. Based on the experiences of a strategy-building process in the Italian autonomous province of Trento, it is the objective of this paper to sketch recent theoretical and political developments regarding multi-actor and multi-level governance and policy concepts at the regional level.

Foresight Methods in Pedagogical Design of University Learning Environment

Abstract: Currently, informational-educational environment has become one of the constitutive tendencies in the development of modern education and correlates with IT development in all spheres of human life. The availability of multiple possibilities for using information and communication technologies in education brings about variability in university learning environment design. The authors propose the use of foresight methodology to optimize educational content and structure didactic potential of learning environment. The mechanism of pedagogical design using foresight methodology is based on accommodation of subjective views of stakeholders in the education system, creation of a common vision of the informational and educational environment which involves objective prognostic information and the trends and tendencies in regional education development. The knowledge gained from foresight methodology made it possible to design informational and educational, or learning, environment at the university that is able to ensure the learning process meeting the expectations of all stakeholders as close as it is possible and affect the employment rate of the university graduates.

Human centred science and technology—transdisciplinary foresight and co-creation as tools for active needs-based innovation governance

Abstract: Current governance structures are increasingly showing inability to address complex issues such as the Grand Challenges. Dealing with these highly interrelated, cross cutting, extensive and potentially open ended issues requires research, development and innovation to be oriented towards societal needs and demands. Here, developing and applying sustainable long term strategies for socio-technical change on the basis of socially robust knowledge seems inevitable and using the tools of anticipatory governance—forward looking and participation—is essential in order to govern innovation actively and responsibly. Yet, expert-based forward looking has its limits, especially when considering long term perspectives, and may fail to include all necessary opinions. Thus, stakeholder engagement has become a norm over the last decades, but including laypeople into forward looking science, technology and innovation (STI) governance is underexplored. Here, strategy and policy programme development may be well suited to function as early entry point for public needs and values into the innovation process. This paper will briefly review the theoretical basis for transdisciplinary forward looking and provide first insights into an ongoing highly deliberative and reflexive foresight and co-creation process engaging science, society and policy makers, CIMULACT—Citizen and Multi-Actor Consultation on Horizon2020. We will especially focus on the role of technology within a collective visioning exercise that allowed for shared explorations of desirable futures, thereby collecting tacit knowledge as well as social needs and values. Integrating these with stakeholders’ and experts’ knowledge serves for co-creating socially robust knowledge for orienting policy and strategy programming towards needs based science, technology and innovation.