introduction to foresight by ozcan saritas
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This presentation gives an introduction to Futures thinking and Foresight with the evolution of the practice and future prospects. Foresight is commonly used by national governments, international organisations and corporations to design long term futures and to formulate innovative strategies and actions.TRANSCRIPT
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
Foresight – ’50s & ’60s
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
Foresight – ’50s & ’60s
*The first woman in space was
Russian Valentina Tereshkova in 1963. Exploring Space (1958)
http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/category/1950s
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
Foresight – ’70s
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.
Foresight – ’80s
• 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
Foresight – ’80s
• 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.
http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/category/1980s
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)
http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/category/1990s
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
25
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