Introduction to Foresight by Ozcan Saritas

Introduction to Foresight

“Designing scientifically possible, economically feasible and socially desirable futures”

Ozcan Saritas [email protected]

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Printing, gunpowder and the compass have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world... (Francis Bacon, 1620).

Improvements in machinery go hand in hand with the division of labor, and very pretty machines ... facilitate and quicken production... (Adam Smith, 1776).

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the means of production! (Karl Marx, 1848).

Knowledge is the chief engine of progress in the economy (Alfred Marshall, 1897).

The entrepreneur and his search for new combinations is the driving force in all economic development... (Joseph Schumpeter, 1911).

Science and basic research are incredibly powerful sources of future economic and societal development... (Vannevar Bush, 1945).

Some ‘drivers of change’

early Foresight…

• The existence of human on the earth surface: The act of

anticipation as an unavoidable human characteristic

• 16th to 18th centuries: To improve decision making and public debate

and to anticipate long-term trends and long-term implications of short-

term decisions. Wide scope & wide array of issues due to increasing

complexity of societies

• 19th century: The future of capitalist economies by classical political

economists. Following the industrial revolution: Fragmentation of social

studies - more focused and short term orientation of social sciences

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Foresight from the past Jean-Marc Côté's Visions of the Year 2000 (1899)

http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/category/1890s

Foresight – ’50s & ’60s

• ‘50s & ‘60s: The principles of trend extrapolation and social indicators,

and the methods of expert analysis (e.g. Delphi & cross-impact). First

computer simulations become well-known

• The efforts were called as forecasting – the activities concerned with

the probabilistic assessment of what is likely to happen in the

future

• Applications in military and large corporations

• The main focus areas were science and engineering

• Carried out with a participation of a limited group of experts and

futurologists


United States

• 1950s - Early technology forecasting - development of main techniques

• 1960s - Large forecasting exercises by DOD, US Navy, Field surveys (astronomy, life sciences)

– Very costly programmes

– Within a closed group – BOGSAT

– Limited participation


*The first woman in space was

Russian Valentina Tereshkova in 1963. Exploring Space (1958)


Foresight – ’70s

• the 1970s

– Change in the understanding of forecasting due to the 1973 oil-shock

– “Limits to Growth” (Meadows et al., 1972): simple trend analysis was not enough to understand the complexity of the world, thus

– forecasting tended to be less deterministic

• The future is continued as not the extension of the past

• The underlying assumptions changed that discontinuities occurred


Japan (National S&T Forecast)

• STA 30-year forecasts - to provide 'holistic' overview. Incorporate economic & social needs as well as S&T advances. Forecasts normative as well as predictive

Shell (Corporate Foresight)

• In the 1960s a pioneering team of economists, engineers and scientists had started work on Shell’s first scenarios on how the future might unfold and the impact this could have on the company. By 1973 they had shared these early scenarios with Shell’s management, daring them to think the unthinkable: What if the world faced an oil crisis?

Letter to the future (1976)

To the people of the year 2076,

In a hundred years I think the

world will be overpopulated and

people will have to live in

apartments to accommodate

for this. Everything will be able

to be recycled and what little

that can't will be shot out into

space.


• Multiple futures – Foresight: to express a wider frame to consider alternative futures and to

create actions to get to the desired goal – La prospective: the multiplicity of the future

PRODUCT/

CODIFIED

OUTPUT

PROCESS/

NETWORK, TACIT

OUTCOMES

Mixed


• France: Experiments with Foresight (e.g. National Colloquium on Research & Technology)

• Sweden, Canada, Australia: Initiatives by government ministries, research funding agencies and industry - mixed experiences

• UK, Germany: Little or no foresight

• US

– Late 1980s - upsurge of interest in foresight due to concerns about competitiveness. Foresight exercises to identify lists of 'Critical Technologies' (such as by DOD, Dep't of Commerce, industrial associations)

• Netherlands

– Ministry of Economic Affairs - Foresight exercises Ministry of Education and Science - Foresight Steering Committee (+ Ministry of Agriculture - Foresight programme in 1990s)

Shopping in the future (1981)

A store of the future is more like a warehouse than a shop of

today. The robots serve people who call up the store on their

home computers. This robot is showing a bunch of bananas to a

video camera, which transmits a picture of the fruit to a customer.

It places the purchases in a box which is then delivered to the

customer's home.


Foresight - ’90s

• Foresight for S&T policy making by government, industry and

other organisations

• The key elements of Foresight in the 1990s:

– S&T is central focus

– Systematic process

– Longer timeframe than in existing S&T planning

– S&T in relation to economic and social developments

• “Foresight is the process involved in systematically attempting to

look into the longer term future of science, technology, the

economy, and society with the aim of identifying areas of

strategic research and the emerging new technologies likely to

yield the greatest economic and social benefits” (Martin, 1995).

Foresight - ’90s

Germany

• ISI and BMFT Projektträeger

• 30-Year Delphi surveys of S&T - collaboration with Japan

• Other foresight exercises (regional, industrial etc.)

• Futur initiative – involvement of full range of stakeholders

France

• Ministry of Industry - identification of 'key technologies'

• Ministry for HE & Research - Delphi survey

• Other lower-level foresight e.g. at regional level

UK

• 1994-95 - National Technology Foresight Programme - identified 27 generic S&T priorities + 18 infrastructure priorities Process benefits substantial - addressed areas of UK weakness

• 1999-2000 - Second Foresight Programme

• 2002-date – new form of Foresight focusing on specific areas

Carnucopia (1993)

According to the company

Empruve, this futuristic

multimedia device from 1993,

"will become as much an

integral part of our lives as the

telephone, the television, the

typewriter and the book." The

photo and its caption (below)

were found in the

book Understanding

Hypermedia (Predicted price:

$4,000 and $5,000)


Foresight – 2000s

• Change in the S&T dominated appearance with increasing

concerns on social aspects due to:

– The increasing importance of innovation (both

technological and organisational)

– The development of service economies.

Considerable portions of economic activity, employment

and output have started taking place in service sectors

of the economy

– Other developments including globalisation, changes

in demographic structures and in cultural practices, and

environmental affairs

– Recognition of the close relationship between S&T

and society

Foresight

• “the application of

– ‘systematic’,

– ‘participatory’,

– ‘future-intelligence-

gathering and medium-to-

long-term vision building

process’ to

– ‘informing present-day

decisions and mobilising

joint actions’”

Foresight – 2000s

The evolution of Foresight is ongoing...

• Foresight is distributed and embedded at multiple levels due to the distributed nature of the innovation system. In a distributed system, knowledge acquisition is much more about the ability (e.g. of a firm) to scan and draw upon outside sources of technology and to manage partnerships.

• The efforts are not centrally managed or controlled. This type of activity does not refer to any single exercise (where the whole landscape was covered in one single exercise) but rather to a landscape marked by a rich variety of distributed exercises focused upon the visionary needs of particular organisations, communities, spaces.

• S&T is still a major area of activity of most programmes.

National Foresight – 2000s

Lack of funding

for STI

System linkages

failures

Short-term

thinking

Brain

drain

Low industrial

STI intensity

Disconnection of

STI from socio-

economic problems

Implementation

failures

Little

interdisciplinarity

Disconnection of

science from

innovation

Weak STI planning

capabilities

Links STI to wider issues

signalling its relevance

Transparent structured process

providing legitimate priorities

Participative bringing

in new perspectives

Builds consensus increasing

likelihood of implementation

Discursive enabling

strategic conversations Forward-looking building

future-proofing and agility

Creative and disturbing

encouraging innovation

Regional Foresight – 2000s

• Variable rationales. But some arguments for Regional Foresight include:

– Growing importance of regional identities and regions as social and economic units

– Regions often lack the inclusive and forward-looking institutions to cope with the profound changes they face

– Break-down barriers, articulate long-term visions, and explicate their present-day implications

Corporate Foresight – 2000s

Some of the rationales for Corporate Foresight

Anticipatory intelligence, i.e. providing background information and an early warning of recent developments

Direction setting, i.e. establishing broad guidelines for the corporate strategy

Determining priorities, i.e. identifying the most desirable lines of R&D as a direct input into specific (funding) decisions

Strategy formulation, i.e. participating in the formulation and implementation of strategic decisions

Innovation catalysing, i.e. stimulating and supporting innovation processes between the different partners

Supra-national Foresight – 2000s

Supra-national (Regional) initiatives in the sense of Foresight initiatives taken by a group of countries which together form a region. Rationales:

European Foresight Monitoring Network (EFMN) Foresight exercises per region

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European Foresight Monitoring Network (EFMN, 2008)

Map

pin

g o

f Fo

resi

ght

acti

viti

es

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EFMN (2008)

Sponsors & target audiences of Foresight

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EFMN (2008)

Objectives of Foresight

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EFMN (2008)

Sectors focused

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Foresight methods used

29 EFMN (2008)

Foresight outputs

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EFMN (2008)

Foresight – 2010s?

• New global context and new drivers of change

– Increased financial, trade and investment flows

– Rapid and accelerating technological progress;

ICTs, biotechnology, fuel cells, nanotechnologies

– New international regulations and standards on

trade, quality, labor, environment, intellectual

property rights

– New systems to design, produce, distribute, and

manage products and services

– Global value chains and production networks

Technological advancements

“Techno-school” • Teaching how to learn

• Avatar teachers,

assistants

• Virtual reality supported

classes

• Learning by doing

• Assessment of the

“whole life experience”

without exams

• Career guidance based

on data analysis

“3-D shop” • Create, scan, print technology

• 3-D metal and plastic printing

• Distributed, just-in-time and clean production

• Minimum storage and logistics

• Energy efficient, clean working and living environment

“Eco-farm” • High technology

“precision farming”

• Remotely operated GPS-enabled vehicles / equipments

• Plant and soil sensors

• Automated watering and fertilizing

• Enhanced food with increased productivity and increased nutrition

• Consumer oriented transparent production

• Foresight and creative uncertainty management

• Real time information collection and decision-making technologies

• Enhanced machines and human

• Pro-Technology vs. Anti-Technology movements

• Socio-technological studies

• Digital arts and creativity

“Future-office”

“Personal healthcare” practice

• Personal Health Systems (medicine, electronics & ICTs)

• Wearable technologies

• Real time monitoring systems with body sensors

• Automated prescription systems

• Healthy people, low health expenditures

Science &

Ecology

Technology

& Economics

Socioeconomics

Politics & Values

What is

possible?

What is

desirable?

What is

feasible?

Systemic Foresight

Foresight and systems

V

E

P E

T

S

Foresight

STEEPV

Social system

Technological system

Economic system

Ecological system

Political system

Values

Contexts of Foresight

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Key questions to be answered

What kind of developments will occur?

Which ones of them could be beneficial and which ones

harmful?

How soon may these developments occur?

What might be the first signs that these developments are

happening?

Where and how might the leading indications of impeding

change be seen?

Who is in a position anywhere to observe these indications?

What is worth to minimise the extent of surprise introduced by

these indications?

Who needs to know about these impending changes?

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Foresight vs. Forecasting

What kind of developments will occur?

Which ones of them could be beneficial and which ones

harmful?

How soon may these developments occur?

What might be the first signs that these developments are

happening?

Where and how might the leading indications of impeding

change be seen?

Who is in a position anywhere to observe these indications?

What is worth to minimise the extent of surprise introduced by

these indications?

Who needs to know about these impending changes?

Intelligence

– Creates shared understanding and mutual appreciation of issues at hand

Imagination

– The input from scanning is synthesised into conceptual models of the situations involved in the real world

Integration

– Analyses the alternative models of the future and ‘prioritises’ them, through intensive negotiations among system actors and stakeholders, to create an agreed model of the future

Interpretation

– Translates future visions into long-, medium-, and short-term actions for a successful change programme

Intervention

– Creates plans to inform present day decisions for immediate change to provide structural and behavioural transformations

Impact

– Assesses the results and impacts of Foresight exercise, learns from experience and provides input for next round

Interaction

Intelligence

Imagination

Integration

Interpretation

Intervention

Impact

Systemic Foresight methodology

Ref: Saritas, O. (2013). Systemic Foresight Methodology,

Foresight and Science, Technology and Innovation Policies:

Best Practices, D. Meissner, L. Gokhberg, and A. Sokolov and

eds. Springer Verlag, Berlin, pp. 83-117.

Systemic Foresight Methodology

Commonly used Methods

(Saritas, 2013)

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Foresight journal

Editor: Ozcan Saritas

www.emeraldinsight.com/fs.htm

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/fs.htm

[email protected]

Introduction to Foresight by Ozcan Saritas

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