What is Foresight : Why Foresight?

Together with the development of science and technology (S&T) policies after the Second World War, activities to anticipate change have progressively emerged in industrial countries. The increasing rate of progress in S&T makes it more difficult to predict market trends.

Interrelationships between science, technology and society are becoming more complex. Therefore, thinking, debating and shaping the future is even more essential today to invest successfully in science and technology, and to make the industrial and societal choices that turn these investments into innovation and quality of life in the long run.

As these investments have become very costly, policy makers in the public and private domain depend on more reliable systems to detect relevant signals early, and to evaluate the risks and opportunities of S&T developments comprehensively.

One of the acknowledged merits of the Foresight / Technology Assessment methodologies developed in the last decade is to mobilise broad sets of stakeholders to give collective thought on priorities, and thus to prompt a societal debate.

This is why governments and other actors have adopted Foresight methods or created Foresight institutes to give strategic directions for policy making.

Methods may have a national, regional, or sectoral focus; they may be based on scientific panels, the Delphi method, scenario development, surveys, targeted working groups, scientific seminars, etc. Various less explicit processes have also been developed, to build strategic capabilities and to inform research and innovation policies ("embedded Foresight").

See also: Definition