Final Report Summary - EFP (European foresight platform - supporting forward looking decision making)
Executive summary:
The European foresight platform (EFP)
Over the past years, a growing need for forward-looking expertise and foresight has been recognised in Europe and worldwide, as expressed in the growing number of foresight initiatives in a broad range of domains. At European policy level, this development has been reinforced by a range of new policy initiatives that require a clearer vision of the future as well as enhanced cooperation between different policy areas and policy levels. Apart from dedicated foresight initiatives, forward-looking elements have been integrated in several European Research Area (ERA) networks and technology platforms (e.g. in the form of technology roadmaps), and as diverse policy areas as agricultural policy and energy policy have embarked upon initiatives to better coordinate sectoral policy needs and research agendas, both at national and European level. With the growing importance of foresight as a policy support mechanism, both in the public and the private sector, the requirements that a European foresight network should fulfil, have changed. Apart from providing a unique central access point to foresight knowledge, there is in particular a growing need to inter-connect information on other existing networks in that area and to enhance the exchange of practices and experiences among practitioners and users and a growing need to integrate Forward looking activities (FLA), as well.
The EFP started its work around the beginning of 2010. In part, it continues some of the successful activities that were introduced by the former Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) projects 'European foresight monitoring platform' (EFMN) and FORLEARN. In this tradition, EFP comprises the following activities:
- raising awareness of foresight and other FLA as strategic policy instruments;
- providing and updating a knowledge sharing platform for practitioners and newcomers;
- profiling of foresight and related activities and experts;
- discussion forum for new activities, approaches, methods, and outcomes;
- providing support to policy makers, foresight practitioners and a wider audience interested in foresight and forward looking studies.
Project context and objectives:
It is just three years ago, in October 2009, that the European Commission provided support, under FP7, for the EFP - supporting forward looking decision making.
EFP was designed to succeed, and build upon, the pioneering efforts of the European foresight monitoring network (EFMN). The EFMN provided the first comprehensive database of foresight projects, presented in a form that allowed easy interrogation and analysis, which rapidly became the essential starting point of foresight activities around the world. The other precedent was FORLEARN, the most comprehensive web-based foresight instructional tool, which many students and practitioners drew upon in developing foresight capacity in many countries across the globe.
EFP, however, had a rather different remit to both EFMN and FORLEARN. Given the progress in the uptake and practice of foresight, this coordination and support action was not intended to initiate, organise or perform foresight exercises. Rather, the aim was to ensure systematic use and optimum benefit of foresight expertise and to identify and mobilise all relevant actors to enable EU-wide network and capacity building. Three additional objectives were to interconnect with other networks, to identify the impacts of foresight on decision-making, and to provide input to foresight processes in Europe.
From today's perspective, it is interesting and perhaps telling, to reflect on the nomenclature of our field. Foresight is the term in most common use, but for some it carries a mystical, almost medieval flavour that is inappropriate to a decision-making tool for a twenty-first century government. The acronym FTA, which emerged from IPTS, has undergone a number of changes along the way to future-oriented technology analysis. Anticipatory intelligence has a powerful ring, but is something of a mouthful. And now we have FLA - FLA, which must be about as generic as a label can get. The achievements of EFP in these three short years have been considerable. A robust model of the value of FLA for strategic policy making has been developed, and is now providing a focus for continuing refinement. A series of workshops on specific issues of major interest to EU policy makers sought to demonstrate the value of FLA. The online foresight guide has been refined, and is being used by ever-widening audiences. A major advance has been made in FLA mapping, detailing the development of a web-based tool capable of mapping foresight, forecasting, horizon scanning and impact/technology assessment studies. There are exciting prospects for the further refinement and application of this mapping approach. Over the same three years or so, there have been many significant changes in the context in which FLA operates. One major change in context has been in the nature of policy making, moving away from a relatively narrow expert-based rational model to one with a greater emphasis on engaging and enabling, through networking, participation, learning and building distributed intelligence. In our work we drew attention to the shift from government to governance, within which FLA can be regarded as a new form of 'deliberative governance'. At the same time we have to be alert not to overrate our achievements in enhancing participation, and we attempted to provide a framework for analysing the form and extent of participation via representation, formalisation of procedures and accountability for output and outcomes. The effective application of these models to transition societies appears to remain largely remote, at least at the present time. Another major change in context has been in the framing, objectives and instruments applied to research and innovation policy. We pointed to a growing focus on linking the outcomes of research and innovation to national (or societal) needs, a greater recognition of the many interconnected components of the innovation cycle, the challenge of guiding research and innovation under conditions of high uncertainty and the growing importance of agile institutional networks. This analysis leads us to identify the need for changes in governance structures, processes and culture.
Of course it may be far too soon to analyse the extent to which FLA, and the research and innovation system, have responded to, and assisted in addressing, the grand challenges. But, even at this stage, one would have to conclude that while some instruments have been developed to address grand challenges, such as ERA, European innovation partnerships and joint programming initiatives, there has been little substantial progress towards their resolution. Issues of climate change, food security, resource supply, migration, gender, and the future of democracy remain as intractable as ever. Indeed, there is scattered evidence across various media of a growing unwillingness to admit that the grand challenges are real, or that they require any concerted human intervention. In this view, FLAs are either irrelevant or subversive.
What of the progress of foresight / FTA / FLA? It could be argued that the field has entered a mature phase, with steady growth and progress on many fronts, but lacking the dramatic advances of the previous decade, in line with the general model of disciplinary institutionalisation. At this stage of disciplinary evolution, the emphasis shifts to diffusion, adoption, and refinement i.e. to the embedding of FLA as a 'common sense' good practice. But on this score, there are still major challenges. As pointed out in some of our policy workshops although plenty of foresight studies are being organised and more and probably better knowledge about the future is available, this anticipatory intelligence is hardly used in policy making, or it is used primarily to support choices made for other reasons and / or based on other knowledge.
From one perspective, it could be argued that it was ever thus. There is abundant evidence of decision-makers making intuitive judgments which they then seek to test or justify by searching for supporting evidence. An alternative, and not necessarily mutually exclusive viewpoint, is that the absorptive capacity to effectively integrate FLA findings into decision making processes is still remarkably under-developed. One simple test is to examine the curricula being used to train management and decision makers - FLA is largely notable by its absence.
In a report of this kind, it is appropriate to conclude by asking what of the future of FLA? It may be appropriate to borrow from the technology management literature the concept of the S-curve - the logistic curve of growth which is used in many fields. In its mature state, perhaps FLA is reaching the end of the current S-curve, and needs to discover a new one in order to find a new level of value and challenge. What might be the basis of a new S-curve? One candidate would have to be the use of the reach of the Internet to develop much higher levels of participation through 'crowd sourcing' mechanisms. Another, in the emerging age of cloud computing and big data mining and analysis, might expand greatly the first tentative steps in FLA mapping.
Project results:
The EFP
Over the past years, a growing need for forward-looking expertise and foresight has been recognised in Europe and worldwide, as expressed in the growing number of foresight initiatives in a broad range of domains. At European policy level, this development has been reinforced by a range of new policy initiatives that require a clearer vision of the future as well as enhanced cooperation between different policy areas and policy levels.
Apart from dedicated foresight initiatives, forward-looking elements have been integrated in several ERA-nets and technology platforms (e.g. in the form of technology roadmaps), and as diverse policy areas as agricultural policy and energy policy have embarked upon initiatives to better coordinate sectoral policy needs and research agendas, both at national and European level. With the growing importance of foresight as a policy support mechanism, both in the public and the private sector, the requirements that a European foresight network should fulfil, have changed. Apart from providing a unique central access point to foresight knowledge, there is in particular a growing need to inter-connect information on other existing networks in that area and to enhance the exchange of practices and experiences among practitioners and users and a growing need to integrate FLA, as well.
The EFP started its work around the beginning of 2010. In part, it continues some of the successful activities that were introduced by the former FP6 projects EFMN and FORLEARN. In this tradition, EFP comprises the following activities:
- raising awareness of foresight and other FLA as strategic policy instruments;
- providing and updating a knowledge sharing platform for practitioners and newcomers;
- profiling of foresight and related activities and experts;
- discussion forum for new activities, approaches, methods, and outcomes;
- providing support to policy makers, foresight practitioners and a wider audience interested in foresight and forward looking studies.
Description of work performed and main results
The task of establishing a network that operates mainly in the European Union and with global reach makes the distinction of several work packages necessary to reach the targeted audience with various strategies, invite them to engage in the EFP and at the same time provide the client in the European Commission with support for Research, technology and innovation (RTI) policy priority setting in the context of the innovation union. Aside from the project management (1), 6 additional work packages were defined and executed to achieve such goals:
WP2 - Mapping forward-looking activities
Mapping FLA builds on key results and lessons learned from the first large international effort aimed at understanding the nature of FLA practices in Europe and other world regions, including Latin America, North America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. The significant number of mapped FLA between 2004-08 (over 2 000 initiatives) is clear evidence of the rising interest in FLA. As shown in mapping foresight (Popper, 2009), this is mainly because foresight and forecasting have become more than just tools to support policy or strategy development in Science, technology, and innovation (STI). The results of previous mapping activities revealed that the scope of FLA, as practised in the early years of the twenty-first century, involves a wider range of objectives, including: analysis of the future potential of STI, promoting network building, priority setting for STI, supporting methodology and capacity building, and generating shared visions towards, for example, a strong European Research Area (ERA). In EFP we have applied a more robust mapping process to a variety of research and knowledge domains. The wide range of domains where FLA mapping has been applied extends across the natural sciences (e.g. biological sciences, chemical sciences), engineering and technology (e.g. environmental engineering, communications technologies), medical sciences (e.g. public health and health services), agricultural sciences (e.g. crop and pasture production, etc.), social sciences (e.g. policy and political science), and the humanities (e.g. language and culture).
WP2 also delivered a FLA mapping environment (FLAME) which is a multi-purpose platform aimed to monitor, analyse and position (MAP) FLA in Europe and the world. This is a unique space where both EFP Community members and unregistered visitors are able locate and share knowledge on forward-looking research and innovation initiatives, which are often associated to one or more of the following future-oriented approaches: foresight, horizon scanning, forecasting and impact assessment.
In EFP we have further advanced the mapping for practices and at the same time introduce additional indicators supporting the mapping of players and outcomes of FLA - see first EFP mapping report: Practical guide to mapping FLA practices, players and outcomes (Popper and Teichler, 2011). There are significant advantages in mapping FLA.
The EFP mapping team used FLAME to map 50 FLA cases: forty-one (82 %) from Europe and the remaining 9 cases (18%) represent other world regions.
The mapping of FLA cases involved the assessment of their overall relevance by FP7 thematic areas. The figure below shows that although we have 20 and 16 cases specifically related to Health and Security areas, respectively; there are cases from other thematic areas that are also relevant for Health and Security. However, in the second and third EFP mapping reports we analysed sector-specific cases.
WP3 - Briefs production
Foresight Briefs have proven to be an important means for community building and policy information in the context of the former EFMN. They are highlighting new and interesting pieces of information from recent or ongoing foresight exercises. In this tradition, their production is being taken up again by the EFP. The foresight briefs are based on the findings of individual foresight exercises. Foresight Briefs also cover FLA.
They:
-provide an overview of recent or ongoing foresight activities; or
- provide selected insights into key findings from individual exercises or panels. These key findings can be of a:
(i) thematic (e.g. regarding to specific technologies, forward looking studies);
(ii) generic (i.e. regarding to key features of the research and innovation system); or
(iii) methodological nature.
- can also be of policy nature and were as such be produced in close cooperation with the policy workshops of WP5;
- in addition, overview briefs covering a special area or topic, e.g. security, can also be found on the website.
Building on the experience of the former EFMN, a Brief production system was set up, running very well, though with some time lag occasionally. The briefs were written for the most part by the growing network of correspondents. The WP leader kept control on quality and content. The WP leader coordinated all briefs and provided possible themes for the briefs, to be discussed at the management committee meetings. We know from many sources that the briefs are among the most appreciated products of EFMN and EFP. The key to success lies, among others, in the setting up of a quality control process (including professional English proof editing) that delivers reader-friendly outputs. This approach is much appreciated by the target audiences. This includes FLA practitioners just as well as newcomers. EFP got a very satisfying feedback for the Briefs and the mode of presentation. The Briefs were also a big success because they reported on ongoing and recent FLAs as an unpretentious overview without the attempt of being a sophisticated theoretical contribution to scientific knowledge generation. This context was incentive for many authors to submit a four page account in a more journalistic style for a general audience, simply to provide basic information and lessons learnt. The advantage was the short time between submission and publication, in most cases only a few weeks. Long articles in scientific journals cannot compete with this fast processing of the EFP.
A guidance document for preparation of Briefs and follow-up assessments were created at the beginning of 2011.
Follow-up briefs
Follow-up briefs discussed the question if foresight makes a difference for the innovation system in focus and whether recommendations are implemented. This analysis was made on the basis of the 160 EFMN briefs from the previous EFMN project. After a few years have passed, some foresights were revisited and approached from an impact perspective. The foresight processes covered in those briefs have been completed some time ago and were considered adequate for recapitulation of result assessment. Information for the follow-up was mainly taken from interviews (personal, phone, written) with organisers, clients and / or participants and additional published or unpublished documents.
The follow-up briefs are four pages long and structured according to four major categories:
- background and context;
- foresight process;
- output and impacts;
- outcome and evaluation.
Authors of the Follow-up briefs are mainly EFP partners as well as correspondents who are acknowledged foresight experts.
Tags
All Briefs online have been tagged including the Briefs produced for EFMN as well as the Briefs produced for EFP. The major tagging categories are:
- FP7 topics;
- geography;
- time horizon;
- year of production.
In addition to all these efforts, all tags appear in a tag cloud on the right side of the Website for the Briefs. The tagging key words are displayed on the homepage of the website. The size of the key words reflects the prominence and frequency of the particular word as they appear in the Briefs (see screenshot below). This was and still is a constant process, responding directly to the content of each new Brief. During the course of the project several calls for briefs were launched but drafts that came in independently from the call were also processed on a constant basis. The tagging is not the only Web 2.0 feature in this context. As a reference between WP2 and WP4 the good practice features of FLAs are linked to corresponding Briefs.
We updated the community regularly on new Briefs by sending out Newsletters and twitter news which were also received as emails by the members of the EFP network.
At the moment, there are 255 Briefs available on the website and an additional 14 in the pipeline of drafts. These will be completed only after the end of the project but the WP leader takes care that these will fulfil the high quality standards of the previous ones and that they will be completely uploaded until six weeks after the project end.
WP4 - Good practice manual
This WP has an important integrative function within EFP. It aims at providing and disseminating actual foresight information and support to policy-makers and practitioners. The following tasks were undertaken:
- Task 4.1 - EFP framework and methodology for the support of policy.
- Task 4.2 - Dissemination of case-study based foresight to practitioners and policy-makers.
The way the tasks were developed is described in detail in D4.1 to D4.4.
- D4.1 First version of the manual how to use the EFP in policy support (month 6).
- D4.2 Online section on foresight dissemination to beginners, practitioners and policy makers.
- D4.3 Second version of the manual framework on how to use the EFP in policy support.
- D4.4 Reports on the developed framework for foresight support to different policy fields.
These tasks comprised the further development of an online foresight guide and its integration in the EFP platform, the development of a dissemination strategy, as well as two versions of a manual for policy support (an intermediate and a final one). The foresight guide is a follow-up of the FOR-LEARN online guide, previously developed at IPTS. It highlights the key six functions of foresight and FLAs, which permeate the whole EFP experience, which are:
- informing policy;
- embedding participation;
-supporting policy definition;
- facilitating policy implementation;
- reconfiguring the policy system;
- symbolic function.
The guide has reorganised and updated the material from FOR-LEARN making use of different EFP products. The briefs and the inputs from the workshop have served to shape and inform the guide, providing theoretical and practical examples and enabling the guide to have a new tripartite shape. Indeed the guide is organised as to target three different audiences: policy makers, practitioners and beginners. For the latter, WP4 has edited videos from the FTA 2008 event, included video presentations on a set of foresight topics and created self-assessment tests.
The manuals for policy support explain clearly how the different inputs of EFP are combined together into a coherent instrument for policy makers. It explains how the Foresight Guide, the briefing repertoire and the mapping exercise feed into each other whilst constituting the knowledge base to support EFP workshops.
By reflecting on such integration process, the manuals highlight that, to ensure that FLA have a strong policy impact, two simultaneous processes need to be in place. On the one hand, foresight and FLA processes and outcomes need to be designed to fit the existing policy structures; on the other, one needs to ensure that the policy body to which the FLA is addressed has the absorptive capacity to integrate FLA knowledge and outputs into the decision making process. However, whilst FLAs need to fit and accommodate pre-existing policy structures, it is also true that they are only relevant if they have some innovative potential and if they dare to put into question precisely those structures. In other words, there is a tension inherent in FLAs and practitioners have a fine balance to strike. This means that FLA practitioners must have a clear understanding of the target policy-beneficiary, planning and implementing their exercise accordingly.
Finally, within WP4 also some related anticipatory initiatives have been identified, the use of which can strengthen the supporting function of EFP in a complementary way. Key initiatives include EFFLA, STOA, ETAG, the EST-Frame project and the PACITA project.
WP5 - Policy workshops
This policy workshops organised in this work package intended to provide support to European, national and regional level policy makers and decision makers in preparing strategic responses to the major challenges Europe is facing and to ensure that results of foresight and FLA are better understood and used by policy makers. These policy workshops addressed several grand challenges, chosen in close collaboration with the project officer from the European Commission. The policy workshops could have various objectives:
- informative dissemination of relevant recent foresight studies among an audience, and in particular among important stakeholders;
- exchange views and insights between policymakers and multidisciplinary participants, such as different experts, but also with e.g. business / Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) representatives from one or different branches;
- exploratory on new emerging topics with a long term focus (and their impact on e.g. new legislation);
- participatory involvement of policy makers in the execution of (a part of) a foresight exercise or trajectory, e.g. scenario building;
- providing input for agenda setting by assessment of relevant issues (and policy alternatives);
- validation of (draft) results of a foresight exercise with relevant stakeholders and/or peer reviews, actively seeking feedback;
- (preparation of) decision making preparing a choice of different (policy)alternatives and impact assessment;
- crisis and problem solving by assessment of policy alternatives: how to solve problem X?
Depending on the objectives, an appropriate workshop format was chosen. For each workshop a background paper was prepared, including an overview of the state of play on the topic of the workshop, an overview of insights from existing FLAs on the topic, issues and questions for discussion etc. The results of the workshop discussions have been included in workshop papers and short summaries and policy briefs. These results have been widely distributed among stakeholders, policy makers, FLA scholars and other interested parties. The activities in this work package started with preparing a Standard Annotated workshop format and discussion document (EFP D5.1) as well as the 'Manual on quick and smart data collection and analysis' (EFP D5.2) These two document were intended to facilitate a quick and smart organisation of the workshop and the analysis of specific workshop issues. They contain the basics for developing and designing an EFP workshop for foresight practitioners and policy makers. On Monday, 31st January 2011 the first EFP European policy workshop took place in Brussels, focusing on 'Active and healthy ageing - a long-term view' in support of the pilot European innovation partnership in the field of active and healthy ageing. Approximately 20 participants attended the workshop, representing policy makers and policy advisors, European Commission representatives, scientific experts and industry representatives. The workshop approach has been designed to incorporate structured elements and thematic focus as well as the possibility to foster creativity and new ideas by the participants. The goal of the workshop has been to come up with policy proposals for better dealing with the challenge of making active and healthy ageing a reality related to the pilot European innovation partnership on active and healthy ageing. The objective has been to look at the issue from different perspectives accounting for research, science and technology, innovation options as well as socio-economic and ethical topics. The workshop participants, among them medical and health experts, industry representatives, researchers and consultants have been working in groups focusing on the following topics: (i) users, products and service design, (ii) Research on ageing as such, (iii) work and (iv) health care delivery.
The first national policy workshop entitled 'Technology and Services in the wake of demographic change' was complementary to the topic of 'Active and healthy aging', discussed in Brussels during the first European policy workshop. It was held in cooperation with the Institute for social research and social economy (ISO), Saarbrücken. The workshop took place 30 March in Berlin. The audience was comprised of scientists and practitioners from more than 80 research projects whose major focus is to develop new technologies and services supporting the elderly and other physically impaired people to live independently and safe in their own homes. This research cluster is thematically related to the ambient assisted living initiative of the European Commission and funded by the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research. The policy workshop took an interactive approach for identifying future challenges the German society is confronted with related to demographic change and identified challenges for future research dealing with these topics.
The EFP policy workshop 'Screening of Urban Foresight activities with a time horizon of 30+ years - What can we learn for the joint programming initiative urban Europe 2050+' addressed this question in the context of recent FLA. The EFP European policy workshop aimed to provide support to the Joint Programming Initiative - Urban Europe (JPI-UE) in the preparation of FLA which play a major role for providing substantial new insights into urban requirements and developments, developing urban scenarios and contributing to a long-term research agenda. Urban Europe therefore will start with foresight activities already in its pilot phase with a focus on a long-term time horizon of 2050+. The in-depth analysis covered foresights and other FLA for urban regions addressing topics that are relevant for long term urban development (e.g. transport, energy, climate change, water supply and management, migration, social stratification). The workshop led to the elaboration of three foresight topics within the JPI:
Conditions and requirements for radical urban innovations and pioneer cities.
- Urban megatrends and innovation drivers.
- Understanding the role of cities as part of (international) city-networks.
- European networks of cities; and Adaptability of cities and the requirement to manage uncertainties.
- Adaptive urban regions. Complementary to the European workshop on 'Urban Europe', a multi-national workshop was organised by the JPI in cooperation with EFP in November 2011. Participants came from the JPI and participating countries (Austria, France, Finland, Netherlands and Germany) both from ministries and from research organisations. The foresight topics identified in the European policy workshop were further developed using inputs from experts.
On the 26 October 2011 the European workshop on 'Policy options for surprising and emerging futures in Europe' was organised in Brussels. This workshop focused on those issues and surprises that could shape ERA. Specifically, the workshop objectives were to:
- discuss and prioritise the most important emerging issues and surprises for Europe;
- identify policy requirements and research questions to address these emerging issues and surprises;
- discuss in more detail how the European and national approaches for early warning could operate and collaborate and how national and European governments can manage emerging issues.
The workshop discussed the notion of weak signals and wild cards and introduced EU Blue Sky research on surprising and emerging issues. In four working groups participants prioritised and selected the wild cards and weak signals from these projects, assessed the potential implications and relevance for policy, explored policy requirements and options and discussed experiences with early warning systems and risk assessment methods. The workshop was attended by 35 participants, representing foresight practitioners, STI policy experts and policy-makers. Experts from the security/defence risk assessment domain were also present.
The EFP consortium prepared some short proposals and topics for a new European workshop to be organised in the first half of 2012. The initial idea was to organise a new workshop on critical raw materials. National policy makers in the Netherlands were willing to support a national policy workshop focusing on this theme as well. In consultation with the project officer it was decided, however, to prepare the next European policy workshop focusing on the theme of Smart Mobility, as this would better fit the interests of the EC. On 12 June, an European policy workshop on the future of smart mobility took place in Brussels. With great support from Claus Seibt from Austriatech EFP prepared this workshop, entitled 'Smart Mobility 2050: Human centred vision and long-term Horizon'. The workshop focused on discussing the implications and policy needs of four different future visions on smart mobility. Two of these visions were considered as rather feasible and incremental, while two other visions were considered as more radical and revolutionary. The participants discussed these visions extensively in terms of feasibility, needs, implications, policy options, risks. The workshop was attended by 25 representatives from industry, research organisations, Non-governmental organisation (NGOs), European Commission, national governments.
A national workshop Urban Freight 2050: a systemic vision to urban freight logistics futures took place 17th of December in Vienna. Together with Austriatech, EFP organised a national policy workshop on the future of smart urban logistics. Results from the European policy workshop were used as input and this national workshop focused on the future of logistics in an urban setting. The workshop was attended by 20 participants from Austrian companies, research organisations, NGOs and governmental organisations.
A final European policy workshop 'Future of cultural heritage - Impact of external developments' took place on 18 December in Brussels. EFP developed a programme that focused on identifying and assessing future trends and developments that may impact cultural heritage. These trends and developments were discussed according to the STEEP approach (social, technological, economic, ecologic and political trends). Foresight in cultural heritage is almost absent and this EFP workshop offered a first step in developing foresight activities in this sector. The workshop was attended by 15 people, all from different domains in cultural heritage. The programme was developed in collaboration with UNESCO and a representative from UNESCO also gave an inspiring presentation. The project officer as well as his EC colleagues working in the domain of cultural heritage were very satisfied with this workshop as the results came just in time for Horizon 2020 activities in this domain.
WP6 - Website
The website was and is the infrastructure centre piece of EFP and improving constantly. Features available at to this date are:
- welcome page containing an overview of recent news, events, updates to the website, active discussions and new briefs;
- repository of foresight briefs with search and filter functions;
- forum as a community building feature and as administrative communication platform;
- news section with automatic generated news from internet sources;
- event calendar with foresight-related events;
- e-mail server setup for platform communication and newsletter;
- newsletter management system;
- extended support for the ForLearn foresight guide integration;
- hall of fame list of community sites;
- featuring academic education site on FLA and related programmes worldwide;
- and many smaller features and issues.
On the EFP platform we used extended usage statistics to optimise the structure of the platform. As a short benchmark a selection of usage statistics is presented in the following: We had over the last years from 2011 to beginning of 2013 a total of 250 000 real user, unique visits and 770 000 page views, with an increasing usage trend over the last years, as the following graphic shows.
In detail:
1. In the last 3 months, we had 32 000 unique visits on www.foresight-platform.eu with 107 000 hits. 22 000 are from spiders and 10 000 are from real users, from all over the world. Each user visits 3.3 pages on average. The registered users visit 6.7 pages on average, which means that registered users usually stay longer on the website.
2. There were more visits originating from external links (1 700) than from a search engine (650). This means that external referrers are more important, for now, than search engines, for users to find the EFP website, which is typical for expert communities.
3. Top statistics
(a) Most of the pages that are viewed are in the sections containing the briefs, community and the forum. It appears that most of the users visit the site because of the briefs, but also to visit the forum and the sites about community information.
(b) One of the top referrers is rahs.gov.sg the Singapore Foresight information web, from the government.hyperion.ie with an information site about foresight, utu.fi University of Turku and linkedin. linkedin as a top referrer means, that a number of users came from the EFP LinkedIn group to the EFP website. Here it becomes visible that the EFP activities on LinkedIn have a payback.
In the user statistics we can see that each EFP event (e.g. a workshop or conference) caused a veritable increase in page views before the event and an increase in registrations on the platform after the event. Thus the events have a strong effect on community building, which is consistent with the place that events have on the welcome page of the website.
Potential impact:
WP7 - Community building describes best the potential impact and the main dissemination activities and exploitation results. This WP was dedicated to the reach and dissemination of the EFP. Several strategies were successfully related to this WP in order to first enlarge and consolidate the FLA community second to reach specific parts of it by targeting EFP activities and products.
The EFP community consisting of FLA practitioners, researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders has been growing steadily. This is also the case for the contacts with networks that operate in the context of FLA. Participants of the EFP workshops have been included into the network, as well.
A selected number of internationally operating FLA organisations was identified as part of this work package. These organisations are online on the EFP website. This serves for better guidance and orientation to the visitors and the FLA community which the major players in this field are, where they are located and what they are doing.
Several consortium members have participated in national and international events to represent the EFP. For example, Matthias Weber, AIT, participated in the March 3 meeting of Blue Sky projects in Brussels, hosted by Domenico Rosetti. Matthias Weber gave a presentation on 'Dealing with societal challenges - Requirements for FLAs'. During the FTA conference at Seville in May 2011, the EFP was presented at its own booth and several consortium members referred to EFP in their presentations. Information material was provided as well. Susanne Giesecke presented the EFP in Poland at the final conference of the project 'Advanced industrial and ecological technologies for the sustainable development of Poland' in 2011 and at several other national and international occasions were the FLA and other interested communities met. Matthias Weber also became a member of the EFFLA Group, connecting EFP outcomes to high level EU policy making.
Participation at these events ensured the representation of EFP as we presented the work of the EFP in plenum lectures or discussions and introduced a new audience to our network. For this we used PowerPoint presentations and distributed the dissemination material available. Through these activities we were able to attract new members who would not only use the EFP for their own FLA related work but who also carried the spirit of the EFP into their home organisations and informed their colleagues and partners about our work. The contacts we were able make at these occasions helped us also to recruit new authors for briefs and participants or even speakers for one of our workshops or conferences. Moreover, we were able to reach a high impact not only in the FLA community but also in related communities as we committed our activities to connect FLA practitioners not only to the EFP but also to each other and to related sectors and communities. For many people we encountered during these three years, it was novel to hear that such a large FLA network existed already and that they could use it as a resource for their own work and studies. Even if some of these events were not financed by EFP resources we were always able to introduce the EFP and get the audience interested in our work.
Set up a network of foresight networks
Intensive correspondence was started to identify regional and international networks throughout the world committed to foresight studies and FLA. Contacts with networks in Canada, China, Australia, Southeast Asia (Thailand, Singapore) and South America (esp. Brazil), Russia, and Poland could be established. Some of the representatives took part in the kick-off event. Social network tools such as 'LinkedIn' are integrated in the website of EFP and communication exchange is possible via these channels also. Through the new contacts, EFP got new briefs from members of other FLA networks and from countries or organisations that were not represented at the EFP so far. The network also expanded through the workshops and conferences were we tried to place topics that would attract not only FLA clientele but members from other communities as well and outside the academic world of Foresight. Often we could attract new authors for briefs or professionals who would connect us to potential authors.
Dissemination activities were multifold, for example for the briefs and the newsletter as well as for the invitation to the EFP events and the distribution of the conference and workshop results. All documents were and are available online and the community members were regularly updated about the new and where to find the documents by the newsletter and/or twitter or live during the workshops and conferences.
Education sites
To further extend the network activities of EFP a thorough search for educational sites and institutions in the field of forward-looking activities has been conducted during the summer months. An exhaustive list of organisations could be found, from which the ones regarded most interesting for the EFP community have been chosen to be presented on the EFP website.
The screenshot below presents a first draft of the according web section.
New design for EFP corporate identity
To acknowledge the fact that EFP sets out on the basis of two successful predecessor projects, EFMN and FOR-LEARN, the EFP Management Committee decided that the old EFMN fish logo should still be recognisable but altered in a way that it is visible for the Foresight and FLA community that there are alterations and that EFP is a new project. This is why AIT as the work package leader for WP hired a designer to adjust the logo according to the new requirements. The colour of the fish now is not blue anymore but green to acknowledge the colour of the FOR-LEARN logo. Besides the project does not only stand for foresight activities but also for a wider notion of FLA. The fish is now enclosed in a grey block to give it some kind of frame.
Twitter Account
TNO is administering the EFP Twitter account http://twitter.com/EFPproject(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie) and posting mostly information about foresight-related activities (e.g. conferences, workshops, publications), statistics and science-technology news. People being followed are mostly foresight-related experts and organisations, well-known and good quality newspapers, EU and UN institutions and colleagues.
LinkedIn group
TNO is administering the EFP LinkedIn group. This discussion group has seen steadily increasing activity, and currently has over 600 members, consisting for a large part of senior personnel in research, consulting and education roles.
The LinkedIn group is used to announce news items, new events, calls for proposals and papers, and to start discussions about new issues in FLA practices.
EFP kick- off conference in June 2010
The 2-day kick-off conference of the EFPhas been held on 14-15 June 2010 at the Vienna French Cultural Institute in Austria. With over 80 attendees and about 20 presenters the event has been a huge success by bringing together international professional foresight communities, representatives from the European Commission and policy as well as the EFP consortium and the interested general public.
Final EFP event September 2012
On 27th-28th of September 2012, EFP organised the EFP Final Event FLA Governing Grand Challenges. This Final Event was kindly hosted by the Institut Français Vienne in Vienna. EFP prepared the programme in cooperation with Réseau Prosper. The Final Event addressed the role of FLA for governing transitions and grand challenges, the differences and similarities between European FLA perspectives and perspectives from other regions in the world, the development of FLA as an academic discipline, and the role of FLA as mediator between science, society and policy making. A special keynote speech was given by Marie-Anne Delahaut discussing the question whether there is a feminist view on the future. The programme included over 20 speakers and in the afternoon of the second day, a young researchers session was organised as well. The Final Event was attended by more than 80 participants from over 25 countries. During the event two new publications were distributed: 'EFP brief collection on the occasion of the EFP final conference' and the EFP final conference publication 'The role of forward-looking activities for the governance of grand challenges'.
Young researchers session
The young researcher's session on forward-looking activities (FLAs) was part of the EFP final conference and succeeded at bringing together PhD students and master students from the field of future studies, FLAs and foresight. The objective of this session was to discuss insights, approaches, concepts and methods that students use in their research and to further extend the participants' knowledge on FLAs. Contributions with a focus on the European context and/or on grand societal challenges (i.e. aging society, climate change, etc.) and on new, innovative approaches were especially welcomed.
Research work on all FLA related subjects was welcomed also. Presentations could be given in traditional (papers or posters) as well as in innovative forms, including creative software like Petcha Kutcha and Prezi. The organisers received inspiring and future oriented abstracts for posters and presentations that were discussed in two parallel sessions on the second day of the final event. The presenters were students and young researchers from various parts of the world.
The programme was facilitated and commentated by senior expert researchers such as Ruben Nelson, Foresight Canada, Peter Bishop, University of Houston, Ron Johnston, ACIIC Australian Centre for Innovation, Sydney, Australia, Peter Biegelbauer, AIT, Philine Warnke, FhG-ISI, Karlsruhe, Germany, and Fabiana Scapolo, Joint Research Centers of European Commission. The chairs represented established FLA organisations and universities around the world. Their combined were able to contribute to exciting presentations and fruitful discussions.
Publications for the Final Event
The EFP final event entitled 'The role of forward-looking activities for the governance of Grand Challenges was accompanied by two publications of the EFP team and community members, discussing the topic of Grand Challenges and their governance through FLAs from different perspectives. The first publication was entitled: Insights from the EFP Grand Challenges Discussed in Selected EFP Briefs. Collection on the occasion of the EFP final event.
It set out one of the topics dominating the European discussion on FLA in the last three years, which has been the notion of 'Grand challenges'. The 'Grand challenge' concept has been developed and refined by a range of individuals in specific organisational contexts over the past decades, becoming a more prominent term recently especially at European Commission level. In Europe, the prevailing definition is that 'Grand challenges' need to be dealt with on a multilateral or global level, since the factors behind these challenges and their consequences are transnational and cross-border in nature, sometimes even of global scale. Accordingly, institutional coordination and collective action are required, in order to efficiently cope with these challenges. From an EU perspective, 'Grand challenges' occur in many areas and call for a new policy approach or even a change in governance.
The selection of Briefs in this publication was supposed to shed light on some of these areas under discussion. We did not attempt to give a complete picture. However, we hoped that the readers would catch a glimpse on crucial issues and would be inspired to do further reading and research in this direction. The 20 briefs presented are a selection of more than 220 available at the date of the volume publication on the EFP website and they address some of the Grand Challenges most poignantly.
The second publication entitled 'The role of forward-looking activities for the governance of 'Grand challenges' is a collection of research papers written for the purpose of discussing the EFPs contributions with regard to the topic of the conference. For example, as the chapter by van der Giessen and Marinelli shows, the aim of EFP was 'to ensure systematic use and optimum benefit of foresight expertise and to identify and mobilise all relevant actors to enable EU-wide network and capacity building'. Three additional objectives were to interconnect with other networks, to identify the impacts of foresight on decision-making, and to provide input to foresight processes in Europe. Over the three years of the EFP project, there have been many significant changes in the context in which FLA operates. One major change in context has been in the nature of policy-making, moving away from a relatively narrow expert-based rational model to one with a greater emphasis on engaging and enabling, through networking, participation, learning and building distributed intelligence. Both Giesecke and Cagnin draw attention to the shift from government to governance, within which FLA can be regarded as a new form of 'deliberative governance'. But Giesecke warns not to overrate our achievements in enhancing participation, and provides a framework for analysing the form and extent of participation via representation, formalisation of procedures and accountability for output and outcomes. The effective application of these models to transition societies appears to remain largely remote, at least at the present time.
Another major change in context has been in the framing, objectives and instruments applied to research and innovation policy. Weber points to a growing focus on linking the outcomes of research and innovation to national (or societal) needs, a greater recognition of the many inter-connected components of the innovation cycle, the challenge of guiding research and innovation under conditions of high uncertainty and the growing importance of agile institutional networks. This analysis leads him to identify the need for changes in governance structures, processes and culture. A 'strategic turn' emerging from the first of these changes has been the growing emphasis on 'Grand challenges' as guiding rationales for research and innovation policy. Cagnin explores the contribution FLA could make to orienting Innovation processes more effectively towards addressing 'Grand challenges'. He analyses innovation system functions, such as knowledge development and diffusion, to identify a range of changes which may be necessary to cater for addressing grand challenges, and the roles that FLA could play in facilitating these changes.
One of the agreed 'Grand challenges' is sustainability. Carabias et al. have found that many future-oriented issues are well reflected in sustainability indicator systems. However, there is considerable potential to enhance their effectiveness by combining sustainability monitoring with FLA to develop more anticipatory approaches to orienting societal change towards sustainable development. Of course it may be far too soon to analyse the extent to which FLA, and the research and innovation system, have responded to, and assisted in addressing, the 'Grand challenges'. But, even at this stage, one would have to conclude that while some instruments have been developed to address Grand Challenges, such as ERA, there has been little substantial progress towards their resolution. Issues of climate change, food security, resource supply and migration re-main as intractable as ever.
EFP network map of FLA
The map provides an overview of the network built within the EFP project. It lists those partners of EFP which also represent a network or similar activity. On the front page a world map is displayed with the locations of the partners, on the back page, more contact details are given. The map was a give-away to all participants at the EFP final even in September 2012 and is also available as a PDF on the project website.
An EFP brochure
The EFP consortium designed and published a project brochure in 2010 to inform a wide audience about the network building programme supported by the European Commission and its aims at building a global network bringing together different communities and individual professionals to share their knowledge about foresight, forecasting and other future studies methods. The brochure cover the relevant information on EFP, including that started its work at the beginning of 2010, continuing some of the successful activities that were introduced by the former FP6 projects EFMN and FORLEARN. It guides the reader through the following project activities:
- raising awareness of foresight and other FLA as strategic policy instruments;
- providing and updating a knowledge sharing platform for practitioners and newcomers;
- profiling of foresight and related activities and experts;
- offering a discussion forum for new activities, approaches, methods, and outcomes;
- providing support to policy makers, foresight practitioners and a wider audience interested in foresight and forward looking studies.
The brochure is available in a printed version directly at AIT and as a PDF on the project website.
Newsletter
The first EFP newsletters were sent out electronically to more than 1 700 foresight and FLA affiliates based on the EFMN and FOR-LEARN distribution list. The newsletters were well received and informed the community on the new project, the most recent publications, the briefs publication online, and upcoming EFP events. After a few issues we preferred sending out news more regularly as tweeds over twitter and by email because we could reach more 'followers' and community members this way with more up to date news and in a technically easier and more modern mode.
List of websites: http://www.foresight-platform.eu/(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie)
The European foresight platform (EFP)
Over the past years, a growing need for forward-looking expertise and foresight has been recognised in Europe and worldwide, as expressed in the growing number of foresight initiatives in a broad range of domains. At European policy level, this development has been reinforced by a range of new policy initiatives that require a clearer vision of the future as well as enhanced cooperation between different policy areas and policy levels. Apart from dedicated foresight initiatives, forward-looking elements have been integrated in several European Research Area (ERA) networks and technology platforms (e.g. in the form of technology roadmaps), and as diverse policy areas as agricultural policy and energy policy have embarked upon initiatives to better coordinate sectoral policy needs and research agendas, both at national and European level. With the growing importance of foresight as a policy support mechanism, both in the public and the private sector, the requirements that a European foresight network should fulfil, have changed. Apart from providing a unique central access point to foresight knowledge, there is in particular a growing need to inter-connect information on other existing networks in that area and to enhance the exchange of practices and experiences among practitioners and users and a growing need to integrate Forward looking activities (FLA), as well.
The EFP started its work around the beginning of 2010. In part, it continues some of the successful activities that were introduced by the former Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) projects 'European foresight monitoring platform' (EFMN) and FORLEARN. In this tradition, EFP comprises the following activities:
- raising awareness of foresight and other FLA as strategic policy instruments;
- providing and updating a knowledge sharing platform for practitioners and newcomers;
- profiling of foresight and related activities and experts;
- discussion forum for new activities, approaches, methods, and outcomes;
- providing support to policy makers, foresight practitioners and a wider audience interested in foresight and forward looking studies.
Project context and objectives:
It is just three years ago, in October 2009, that the European Commission provided support, under FP7, for the EFP - supporting forward looking decision making.
EFP was designed to succeed, and build upon, the pioneering efforts of the European foresight monitoring network (EFMN). The EFMN provided the first comprehensive database of foresight projects, presented in a form that allowed easy interrogation and analysis, which rapidly became the essential starting point of foresight activities around the world. The other precedent was FORLEARN, the most comprehensive web-based foresight instructional tool, which many students and practitioners drew upon in developing foresight capacity in many countries across the globe.
EFP, however, had a rather different remit to both EFMN and FORLEARN. Given the progress in the uptake and practice of foresight, this coordination and support action was not intended to initiate, organise or perform foresight exercises. Rather, the aim was to ensure systematic use and optimum benefit of foresight expertise and to identify and mobilise all relevant actors to enable EU-wide network and capacity building. Three additional objectives were to interconnect with other networks, to identify the impacts of foresight on decision-making, and to provide input to foresight processes in Europe.
From today's perspective, it is interesting and perhaps telling, to reflect on the nomenclature of our field. Foresight is the term in most common use, but for some it carries a mystical, almost medieval flavour that is inappropriate to a decision-making tool for a twenty-first century government. The acronym FTA, which emerged from IPTS, has undergone a number of changes along the way to future-oriented technology analysis. Anticipatory intelligence has a powerful ring, but is something of a mouthful. And now we have FLA - FLA, which must be about as generic as a label can get. The achievements of EFP in these three short years have been considerable. A robust model of the value of FLA for strategic policy making has been developed, and is now providing a focus for continuing refinement. A series of workshops on specific issues of major interest to EU policy makers sought to demonstrate the value of FLA. The online foresight guide has been refined, and is being used by ever-widening audiences. A major advance has been made in FLA mapping, detailing the development of a web-based tool capable of mapping foresight, forecasting, horizon scanning and impact/technology assessment studies. There are exciting prospects for the further refinement and application of this mapping approach. Over the same three years or so, there have been many significant changes in the context in which FLA operates. One major change in context has been in the nature of policy making, moving away from a relatively narrow expert-based rational model to one with a greater emphasis on engaging and enabling, through networking, participation, learning and building distributed intelligence. In our work we drew attention to the shift from government to governance, within which FLA can be regarded as a new form of 'deliberative governance'. At the same time we have to be alert not to overrate our achievements in enhancing participation, and we attempted to provide a framework for analysing the form and extent of participation via representation, formalisation of procedures and accountability for output and outcomes. The effective application of these models to transition societies appears to remain largely remote, at least at the present time. Another major change in context has been in the framing, objectives and instruments applied to research and innovation policy. We pointed to a growing focus on linking the outcomes of research and innovation to national (or societal) needs, a greater recognition of the many interconnected components of the innovation cycle, the challenge of guiding research and innovation under conditions of high uncertainty and the growing importance of agile institutional networks. This analysis leads us to identify the need for changes in governance structures, processes and culture.
Of course it may be far too soon to analyse the extent to which FLA, and the research and innovation system, have responded to, and assisted in addressing, the grand challenges. But, even at this stage, one would have to conclude that while some instruments have been developed to address grand challenges, such as ERA, European innovation partnerships and joint programming initiatives, there has been little substantial progress towards their resolution. Issues of climate change, food security, resource supply, migration, gender, and the future of democracy remain as intractable as ever. Indeed, there is scattered evidence across various media of a growing unwillingness to admit that the grand challenges are real, or that they require any concerted human intervention. In this view, FLAs are either irrelevant or subversive.
What of the progress of foresight / FTA / FLA? It could be argued that the field has entered a mature phase, with steady growth and progress on many fronts, but lacking the dramatic advances of the previous decade, in line with the general model of disciplinary institutionalisation. At this stage of disciplinary evolution, the emphasis shifts to diffusion, adoption, and refinement i.e. to the embedding of FLA as a 'common sense' good practice. But on this score, there are still major challenges. As pointed out in some of our policy workshops although plenty of foresight studies are being organised and more and probably better knowledge about the future is available, this anticipatory intelligence is hardly used in policy making, or it is used primarily to support choices made for other reasons and / or based on other knowledge.
From one perspective, it could be argued that it was ever thus. There is abundant evidence of decision-makers making intuitive judgments which they then seek to test or justify by searching for supporting evidence. An alternative, and not necessarily mutually exclusive viewpoint, is that the absorptive capacity to effectively integrate FLA findings into decision making processes is still remarkably under-developed. One simple test is to examine the curricula being used to train management and decision makers - FLA is largely notable by its absence.
In a report of this kind, it is appropriate to conclude by asking what of the future of FLA? It may be appropriate to borrow from the technology management literature the concept of the S-curve - the logistic curve of growth which is used in many fields. In its mature state, perhaps FLA is reaching the end of the current S-curve, and needs to discover a new one in order to find a new level of value and challenge. What might be the basis of a new S-curve? One candidate would have to be the use of the reach of the Internet to develop much higher levels of participation through 'crowd sourcing' mechanisms. Another, in the emerging age of cloud computing and big data mining and analysis, might expand greatly the first tentative steps in FLA mapping.
Project results:
The EFP
Over the past years, a growing need for forward-looking expertise and foresight has been recognised in Europe and worldwide, as expressed in the growing number of foresight initiatives in a broad range of domains. At European policy level, this development has been reinforced by a range of new policy initiatives that require a clearer vision of the future as well as enhanced cooperation between different policy areas and policy levels.
Apart from dedicated foresight initiatives, forward-looking elements have been integrated in several ERA-nets and technology platforms (e.g. in the form of technology roadmaps), and as diverse policy areas as agricultural policy and energy policy have embarked upon initiatives to better coordinate sectoral policy needs and research agendas, both at national and European level. With the growing importance of foresight as a policy support mechanism, both in the public and the private sector, the requirements that a European foresight network should fulfil, have changed. Apart from providing a unique central access point to foresight knowledge, there is in particular a growing need to inter-connect information on other existing networks in that area and to enhance the exchange of practices and experiences among practitioners and users and a growing need to integrate FLA, as well.
The EFP started its work around the beginning of 2010. In part, it continues some of the successful activities that were introduced by the former FP6 projects EFMN and FORLEARN. In this tradition, EFP comprises the following activities:
- raising awareness of foresight and other FLA as strategic policy instruments;
- providing and updating a knowledge sharing platform for practitioners and newcomers;
- profiling of foresight and related activities and experts;
- discussion forum for new activities, approaches, methods, and outcomes;
- providing support to policy makers, foresight practitioners and a wider audience interested in foresight and forward looking studies.
Description of work performed and main results
The task of establishing a network that operates mainly in the European Union and with global reach makes the distinction of several work packages necessary to reach the targeted audience with various strategies, invite them to engage in the EFP and at the same time provide the client in the European Commission with support for Research, technology and innovation (RTI) policy priority setting in the context of the innovation union. Aside from the project management (1), 6 additional work packages were defined and executed to achieve such goals:
WP2 - Mapping forward-looking activities
Mapping FLA builds on key results and lessons learned from the first large international effort aimed at understanding the nature of FLA practices in Europe and other world regions, including Latin America, North America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. The significant number of mapped FLA between 2004-08 (over 2 000 initiatives) is clear evidence of the rising interest in FLA. As shown in mapping foresight (Popper, 2009), this is mainly because foresight and forecasting have become more than just tools to support policy or strategy development in Science, technology, and innovation (STI). The results of previous mapping activities revealed that the scope of FLA, as practised in the early years of the twenty-first century, involves a wider range of objectives, including: analysis of the future potential of STI, promoting network building, priority setting for STI, supporting methodology and capacity building, and generating shared visions towards, for example, a strong European Research Area (ERA). In EFP we have applied a more robust mapping process to a variety of research and knowledge domains. The wide range of domains where FLA mapping has been applied extends across the natural sciences (e.g. biological sciences, chemical sciences), engineering and technology (e.g. environmental engineering, communications technologies), medical sciences (e.g. public health and health services), agricultural sciences (e.g. crop and pasture production, etc.), social sciences (e.g. policy and political science), and the humanities (e.g. language and culture).
WP2 also delivered a FLA mapping environment (FLAME) which is a multi-purpose platform aimed to monitor, analyse and position (MAP) FLA in Europe and the world. This is a unique space where both EFP Community members and unregistered visitors are able locate and share knowledge on forward-looking research and innovation initiatives, which are often associated to one or more of the following future-oriented approaches: foresight, horizon scanning, forecasting and impact assessment.
In EFP we have further advanced the mapping for practices and at the same time introduce additional indicators supporting the mapping of players and outcomes of FLA - see first EFP mapping report: Practical guide to mapping FLA practices, players and outcomes (Popper and Teichler, 2011). There are significant advantages in mapping FLA.
The EFP mapping team used FLAME to map 50 FLA cases: forty-one (82 %) from Europe and the remaining 9 cases (18%) represent other world regions.
The mapping of FLA cases involved the assessment of their overall relevance by FP7 thematic areas. The figure below shows that although we have 20 and 16 cases specifically related to Health and Security areas, respectively; there are cases from other thematic areas that are also relevant for Health and Security. However, in the second and third EFP mapping reports we analysed sector-specific cases.
WP3 - Briefs production
Foresight Briefs have proven to be an important means for community building and policy information in the context of the former EFMN. They are highlighting new and interesting pieces of information from recent or ongoing foresight exercises. In this tradition, their production is being taken up again by the EFP. The foresight briefs are based on the findings of individual foresight exercises. Foresight Briefs also cover FLA.
They:
-provide an overview of recent or ongoing foresight activities; or
- provide selected insights into key findings from individual exercises or panels. These key findings can be of a:
(i) thematic (e.g. regarding to specific technologies, forward looking studies);
(ii) generic (i.e. regarding to key features of the research and innovation system); or
(iii) methodological nature.
- can also be of policy nature and were as such be produced in close cooperation with the policy workshops of WP5;
- in addition, overview briefs covering a special area or topic, e.g. security, can also be found on the website.
Building on the experience of the former EFMN, a Brief production system was set up, running very well, though with some time lag occasionally. The briefs were written for the most part by the growing network of correspondents. The WP leader kept control on quality and content. The WP leader coordinated all briefs and provided possible themes for the briefs, to be discussed at the management committee meetings. We know from many sources that the briefs are among the most appreciated products of EFMN and EFP. The key to success lies, among others, in the setting up of a quality control process (including professional English proof editing) that delivers reader-friendly outputs. This approach is much appreciated by the target audiences. This includes FLA practitioners just as well as newcomers. EFP got a very satisfying feedback for the Briefs and the mode of presentation. The Briefs were also a big success because they reported on ongoing and recent FLAs as an unpretentious overview without the attempt of being a sophisticated theoretical contribution to scientific knowledge generation. This context was incentive for many authors to submit a four page account in a more journalistic style for a general audience, simply to provide basic information and lessons learnt. The advantage was the short time between submission and publication, in most cases only a few weeks. Long articles in scientific journals cannot compete with this fast processing of the EFP.
A guidance document for preparation of Briefs and follow-up assessments were created at the beginning of 2011.
Follow-up briefs
Follow-up briefs discussed the question if foresight makes a difference for the innovation system in focus and whether recommendations are implemented. This analysis was made on the basis of the 160 EFMN briefs from the previous EFMN project. After a few years have passed, some foresights were revisited and approached from an impact perspective. The foresight processes covered in those briefs have been completed some time ago and were considered adequate for recapitulation of result assessment. Information for the follow-up was mainly taken from interviews (personal, phone, written) with organisers, clients and / or participants and additional published or unpublished documents.
The follow-up briefs are four pages long and structured according to four major categories:
- background and context;
- foresight process;
- output and impacts;
- outcome and evaluation.
Authors of the Follow-up briefs are mainly EFP partners as well as correspondents who are acknowledged foresight experts.
Tags
All Briefs online have been tagged including the Briefs produced for EFMN as well as the Briefs produced for EFP. The major tagging categories are:
- FP7 topics;
- geography;
- time horizon;
- year of production.
In addition to all these efforts, all tags appear in a tag cloud on the right side of the Website for the Briefs. The tagging key words are displayed on the homepage of the website. The size of the key words reflects the prominence and frequency of the particular word as they appear in the Briefs (see screenshot below). This was and still is a constant process, responding directly to the content of each new Brief. During the course of the project several calls for briefs were launched but drafts that came in independently from the call were also processed on a constant basis. The tagging is not the only Web 2.0 feature in this context. As a reference between WP2 and WP4 the good practice features of FLAs are linked to corresponding Briefs.
We updated the community regularly on new Briefs by sending out Newsletters and twitter news which were also received as emails by the members of the EFP network.
At the moment, there are 255 Briefs available on the website and an additional 14 in the pipeline of drafts. These will be completed only after the end of the project but the WP leader takes care that these will fulfil the high quality standards of the previous ones and that they will be completely uploaded until six weeks after the project end.
WP4 - Good practice manual
This WP has an important integrative function within EFP. It aims at providing and disseminating actual foresight information and support to policy-makers and practitioners. The following tasks were undertaken:
- Task 4.1 - EFP framework and methodology for the support of policy.
- Task 4.2 - Dissemination of case-study based foresight to practitioners and policy-makers.
The way the tasks were developed is described in detail in D4.1 to D4.4.
- D4.1 First version of the manual how to use the EFP in policy support (month 6).
- D4.2 Online section on foresight dissemination to beginners, practitioners and policy makers.
- D4.3 Second version of the manual framework on how to use the EFP in policy support.
- D4.4 Reports on the developed framework for foresight support to different policy fields.
These tasks comprised the further development of an online foresight guide and its integration in the EFP platform, the development of a dissemination strategy, as well as two versions of a manual for policy support (an intermediate and a final one). The foresight guide is a follow-up of the FOR-LEARN online guide, previously developed at IPTS. It highlights the key six functions of foresight and FLAs, which permeate the whole EFP experience, which are:
- informing policy;
- embedding participation;
-supporting policy definition;
- facilitating policy implementation;
- reconfiguring the policy system;
- symbolic function.
The guide has reorganised and updated the material from FOR-LEARN making use of different EFP products. The briefs and the inputs from the workshop have served to shape and inform the guide, providing theoretical and practical examples and enabling the guide to have a new tripartite shape. Indeed the guide is organised as to target three different audiences: policy makers, practitioners and beginners. For the latter, WP4 has edited videos from the FTA 2008 event, included video presentations on a set of foresight topics and created self-assessment tests.
The manuals for policy support explain clearly how the different inputs of EFP are combined together into a coherent instrument for policy makers. It explains how the Foresight Guide, the briefing repertoire and the mapping exercise feed into each other whilst constituting the knowledge base to support EFP workshops.
By reflecting on such integration process, the manuals highlight that, to ensure that FLA have a strong policy impact, two simultaneous processes need to be in place. On the one hand, foresight and FLA processes and outcomes need to be designed to fit the existing policy structures; on the other, one needs to ensure that the policy body to which the FLA is addressed has the absorptive capacity to integrate FLA knowledge and outputs into the decision making process. However, whilst FLAs need to fit and accommodate pre-existing policy structures, it is also true that they are only relevant if they have some innovative potential and if they dare to put into question precisely those structures. In other words, there is a tension inherent in FLAs and practitioners have a fine balance to strike. This means that FLA practitioners must have a clear understanding of the target policy-beneficiary, planning and implementing their exercise accordingly.
Finally, within WP4 also some related anticipatory initiatives have been identified, the use of which can strengthen the supporting function of EFP in a complementary way. Key initiatives include EFFLA, STOA, ETAG, the EST-Frame project and the PACITA project.
WP5 - Policy workshops
This policy workshops organised in this work package intended to provide support to European, national and regional level policy makers and decision makers in preparing strategic responses to the major challenges Europe is facing and to ensure that results of foresight and FLA are better understood and used by policy makers. These policy workshops addressed several grand challenges, chosen in close collaboration with the project officer from the European Commission. The policy workshops could have various objectives:
- informative dissemination of relevant recent foresight studies among an audience, and in particular among important stakeholders;
- exchange views and insights between policymakers and multidisciplinary participants, such as different experts, but also with e.g. business / Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) representatives from one or different branches;
- exploratory on new emerging topics with a long term focus (and their impact on e.g. new legislation);
- participatory involvement of policy makers in the execution of (a part of) a foresight exercise or trajectory, e.g. scenario building;
- providing input for agenda setting by assessment of relevant issues (and policy alternatives);
- validation of (draft) results of a foresight exercise with relevant stakeholders and/or peer reviews, actively seeking feedback;
- (preparation of) decision making preparing a choice of different (policy)alternatives and impact assessment;
- crisis and problem solving by assessment of policy alternatives: how to solve problem X?
Depending on the objectives, an appropriate workshop format was chosen. For each workshop a background paper was prepared, including an overview of the state of play on the topic of the workshop, an overview of insights from existing FLAs on the topic, issues and questions for discussion etc. The results of the workshop discussions have been included in workshop papers and short summaries and policy briefs. These results have been widely distributed among stakeholders, policy makers, FLA scholars and other interested parties. The activities in this work package started with preparing a Standard Annotated workshop format and discussion document (EFP D5.1) as well as the 'Manual on quick and smart data collection and analysis' (EFP D5.2) These two document were intended to facilitate a quick and smart organisation of the workshop and the analysis of specific workshop issues. They contain the basics for developing and designing an EFP workshop for foresight practitioners and policy makers. On Monday, 31st January 2011 the first EFP European policy workshop took place in Brussels, focusing on 'Active and healthy ageing - a long-term view' in support of the pilot European innovation partnership in the field of active and healthy ageing. Approximately 20 participants attended the workshop, representing policy makers and policy advisors, European Commission representatives, scientific experts and industry representatives. The workshop approach has been designed to incorporate structured elements and thematic focus as well as the possibility to foster creativity and new ideas by the participants. The goal of the workshop has been to come up with policy proposals for better dealing with the challenge of making active and healthy ageing a reality related to the pilot European innovation partnership on active and healthy ageing. The objective has been to look at the issue from different perspectives accounting for research, science and technology, innovation options as well as socio-economic and ethical topics. The workshop participants, among them medical and health experts, industry representatives, researchers and consultants have been working in groups focusing on the following topics: (i) users, products and service design, (ii) Research on ageing as such, (iii) work and (iv) health care delivery.
The first national policy workshop entitled 'Technology and Services in the wake of demographic change' was complementary to the topic of 'Active and healthy aging', discussed in Brussels during the first European policy workshop. It was held in cooperation with the Institute for social research and social economy (ISO), Saarbrücken. The workshop took place 30 March in Berlin. The audience was comprised of scientists and practitioners from more than 80 research projects whose major focus is to develop new technologies and services supporting the elderly and other physically impaired people to live independently and safe in their own homes. This research cluster is thematically related to the ambient assisted living initiative of the European Commission and funded by the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research. The policy workshop took an interactive approach for identifying future challenges the German society is confronted with related to demographic change and identified challenges for future research dealing with these topics.
The EFP policy workshop 'Screening of Urban Foresight activities with a time horizon of 30+ years - What can we learn for the joint programming initiative urban Europe 2050+' addressed this question in the context of recent FLA. The EFP European policy workshop aimed to provide support to the Joint Programming Initiative - Urban Europe (JPI-UE) in the preparation of FLA which play a major role for providing substantial new insights into urban requirements and developments, developing urban scenarios and contributing to a long-term research agenda. Urban Europe therefore will start with foresight activities already in its pilot phase with a focus on a long-term time horizon of 2050+. The in-depth analysis covered foresights and other FLA for urban regions addressing topics that are relevant for long term urban development (e.g. transport, energy, climate change, water supply and management, migration, social stratification). The workshop led to the elaboration of three foresight topics within the JPI:
Conditions and requirements for radical urban innovations and pioneer cities.
- Urban megatrends and innovation drivers.
- Understanding the role of cities as part of (international) city-networks.
- European networks of cities; and Adaptability of cities and the requirement to manage uncertainties.
- Adaptive urban regions. Complementary to the European workshop on 'Urban Europe', a multi-national workshop was organised by the JPI in cooperation with EFP in November 2011. Participants came from the JPI and participating countries (Austria, France, Finland, Netherlands and Germany) both from ministries and from research organisations. The foresight topics identified in the European policy workshop were further developed using inputs from experts.
On the 26 October 2011 the European workshop on 'Policy options for surprising and emerging futures in Europe' was organised in Brussels. This workshop focused on those issues and surprises that could shape ERA. Specifically, the workshop objectives were to:
- discuss and prioritise the most important emerging issues and surprises for Europe;
- identify policy requirements and research questions to address these emerging issues and surprises;
- discuss in more detail how the European and national approaches for early warning could operate and collaborate and how national and European governments can manage emerging issues.
The workshop discussed the notion of weak signals and wild cards and introduced EU Blue Sky research on surprising and emerging issues. In four working groups participants prioritised and selected the wild cards and weak signals from these projects, assessed the potential implications and relevance for policy, explored policy requirements and options and discussed experiences with early warning systems and risk assessment methods. The workshop was attended by 35 participants, representing foresight practitioners, STI policy experts and policy-makers. Experts from the security/defence risk assessment domain were also present.
The EFP consortium prepared some short proposals and topics for a new European workshop to be organised in the first half of 2012. The initial idea was to organise a new workshop on critical raw materials. National policy makers in the Netherlands were willing to support a national policy workshop focusing on this theme as well. In consultation with the project officer it was decided, however, to prepare the next European policy workshop focusing on the theme of Smart Mobility, as this would better fit the interests of the EC. On 12 June, an European policy workshop on the future of smart mobility took place in Brussels. With great support from Claus Seibt from Austriatech EFP prepared this workshop, entitled 'Smart Mobility 2050: Human centred vision and long-term Horizon'. The workshop focused on discussing the implications and policy needs of four different future visions on smart mobility. Two of these visions were considered as rather feasible and incremental, while two other visions were considered as more radical and revolutionary. The participants discussed these visions extensively in terms of feasibility, needs, implications, policy options, risks. The workshop was attended by 25 representatives from industry, research organisations, Non-governmental organisation (NGOs), European Commission, national governments.
A national workshop Urban Freight 2050: a systemic vision to urban freight logistics futures took place 17th of December in Vienna. Together with Austriatech, EFP organised a national policy workshop on the future of smart urban logistics. Results from the European policy workshop were used as input and this national workshop focused on the future of logistics in an urban setting. The workshop was attended by 20 participants from Austrian companies, research organisations, NGOs and governmental organisations.
A final European policy workshop 'Future of cultural heritage - Impact of external developments' took place on 18 December in Brussels. EFP developed a programme that focused on identifying and assessing future trends and developments that may impact cultural heritage. These trends and developments were discussed according to the STEEP approach (social, technological, economic, ecologic and political trends). Foresight in cultural heritage is almost absent and this EFP workshop offered a first step in developing foresight activities in this sector. The workshop was attended by 15 people, all from different domains in cultural heritage. The programme was developed in collaboration with UNESCO and a representative from UNESCO also gave an inspiring presentation. The project officer as well as his EC colleagues working in the domain of cultural heritage were very satisfied with this workshop as the results came just in time for Horizon 2020 activities in this domain.
WP6 - Website
The website was and is the infrastructure centre piece of EFP and improving constantly. Features available at to this date are:
- welcome page containing an overview of recent news, events, updates to the website, active discussions and new briefs;
- repository of foresight briefs with search and filter functions;
- forum as a community building feature and as administrative communication platform;
- news section with automatic generated news from internet sources;
- event calendar with foresight-related events;
- e-mail server setup for platform communication and newsletter;
- newsletter management system;
- extended support for the ForLearn foresight guide integration;
- hall of fame list of community sites;
- featuring academic education site on FLA and related programmes worldwide;
- and many smaller features and issues.
On the EFP platform we used extended usage statistics to optimise the structure of the platform. As a short benchmark a selection of usage statistics is presented in the following: We had over the last years from 2011 to beginning of 2013 a total of 250 000 real user, unique visits and 770 000 page views, with an increasing usage trend over the last years, as the following graphic shows.
In detail:
1. In the last 3 months, we had 32 000 unique visits on www.foresight-platform.eu with 107 000 hits. 22 000 are from spiders and 10 000 are from real users, from all over the world. Each user visits 3.3 pages on average. The registered users visit 6.7 pages on average, which means that registered users usually stay longer on the website.
2. There were more visits originating from external links (1 700) than from a search engine (650). This means that external referrers are more important, for now, than search engines, for users to find the EFP website, which is typical for expert communities.
3. Top statistics
(a) Most of the pages that are viewed are in the sections containing the briefs, community and the forum. It appears that most of the users visit the site because of the briefs, but also to visit the forum and the sites about community information.
(b) One of the top referrers is rahs.gov.sg the Singapore Foresight information web, from the government.hyperion.ie with an information site about foresight, utu.fi University of Turku and linkedin. linkedin as a top referrer means, that a number of users came from the EFP LinkedIn group to the EFP website. Here it becomes visible that the EFP activities on LinkedIn have a payback.
In the user statistics we can see that each EFP event (e.g. a workshop or conference) caused a veritable increase in page views before the event and an increase in registrations on the platform after the event. Thus the events have a strong effect on community building, which is consistent with the place that events have on the welcome page of the website.
Potential impact:
WP7 - Community building describes best the potential impact and the main dissemination activities and exploitation results. This WP was dedicated to the reach and dissemination of the EFP. Several strategies were successfully related to this WP in order to first enlarge and consolidate the FLA community second to reach specific parts of it by targeting EFP activities and products.
The EFP community consisting of FLA practitioners, researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders has been growing steadily. This is also the case for the contacts with networks that operate in the context of FLA. Participants of the EFP workshops have been included into the network, as well.
A selected number of internationally operating FLA organisations was identified as part of this work package. These organisations are online on the EFP website. This serves for better guidance and orientation to the visitors and the FLA community which the major players in this field are, where they are located and what they are doing.
Several consortium members have participated in national and international events to represent the EFP. For example, Matthias Weber, AIT, participated in the March 3 meeting of Blue Sky projects in Brussels, hosted by Domenico Rosetti. Matthias Weber gave a presentation on 'Dealing with societal challenges - Requirements for FLAs'. During the FTA conference at Seville in May 2011, the EFP was presented at its own booth and several consortium members referred to EFP in their presentations. Information material was provided as well. Susanne Giesecke presented the EFP in Poland at the final conference of the project 'Advanced industrial and ecological technologies for the sustainable development of Poland' in 2011 and at several other national and international occasions were the FLA and other interested communities met. Matthias Weber also became a member of the EFFLA Group, connecting EFP outcomes to high level EU policy making.
Participation at these events ensured the representation of EFP as we presented the work of the EFP in plenum lectures or discussions and introduced a new audience to our network. For this we used PowerPoint presentations and distributed the dissemination material available. Through these activities we were able to attract new members who would not only use the EFP for their own FLA related work but who also carried the spirit of the EFP into their home organisations and informed their colleagues and partners about our work. The contacts we were able make at these occasions helped us also to recruit new authors for briefs and participants or even speakers for one of our workshops or conferences. Moreover, we were able to reach a high impact not only in the FLA community but also in related communities as we committed our activities to connect FLA practitioners not only to the EFP but also to each other and to related sectors and communities. For many people we encountered during these three years, it was novel to hear that such a large FLA network existed already and that they could use it as a resource for their own work and studies. Even if some of these events were not financed by EFP resources we were always able to introduce the EFP and get the audience interested in our work.
Set up a network of foresight networks
Intensive correspondence was started to identify regional and international networks throughout the world committed to foresight studies and FLA. Contacts with networks in Canada, China, Australia, Southeast Asia (Thailand, Singapore) and South America (esp. Brazil), Russia, and Poland could be established. Some of the representatives took part in the kick-off event. Social network tools such as 'LinkedIn' are integrated in the website of EFP and communication exchange is possible via these channels also. Through the new contacts, EFP got new briefs from members of other FLA networks and from countries or organisations that were not represented at the EFP so far. The network also expanded through the workshops and conferences were we tried to place topics that would attract not only FLA clientele but members from other communities as well and outside the academic world of Foresight. Often we could attract new authors for briefs or professionals who would connect us to potential authors.
Dissemination activities were multifold, for example for the briefs and the newsletter as well as for the invitation to the EFP events and the distribution of the conference and workshop results. All documents were and are available online and the community members were regularly updated about the new and where to find the documents by the newsletter and/or twitter or live during the workshops and conferences.
Education sites
To further extend the network activities of EFP a thorough search for educational sites and institutions in the field of forward-looking activities has been conducted during the summer months. An exhaustive list of organisations could be found, from which the ones regarded most interesting for the EFP community have been chosen to be presented on the EFP website.
The screenshot below presents a first draft of the according web section.
New design for EFP corporate identity
To acknowledge the fact that EFP sets out on the basis of two successful predecessor projects, EFMN and FOR-LEARN, the EFP Management Committee decided that the old EFMN fish logo should still be recognisable but altered in a way that it is visible for the Foresight and FLA community that there are alterations and that EFP is a new project. This is why AIT as the work package leader for WP hired a designer to adjust the logo according to the new requirements. The colour of the fish now is not blue anymore but green to acknowledge the colour of the FOR-LEARN logo. Besides the project does not only stand for foresight activities but also for a wider notion of FLA. The fish is now enclosed in a grey block to give it some kind of frame.
Twitter Account
TNO is administering the EFP Twitter account http://twitter.com/EFPproject(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie) and posting mostly information about foresight-related activities (e.g. conferences, workshops, publications), statistics and science-technology news. People being followed are mostly foresight-related experts and organisations, well-known and good quality newspapers, EU and UN institutions and colleagues.
LinkedIn group
TNO is administering the EFP LinkedIn group. This discussion group has seen steadily increasing activity, and currently has over 600 members, consisting for a large part of senior personnel in research, consulting and education roles.
The LinkedIn group is used to announce news items, new events, calls for proposals and papers, and to start discussions about new issues in FLA practices.
EFP kick- off conference in June 2010
The 2-day kick-off conference of the EFPhas been held on 14-15 June 2010 at the Vienna French Cultural Institute in Austria. With over 80 attendees and about 20 presenters the event has been a huge success by bringing together international professional foresight communities, representatives from the European Commission and policy as well as the EFP consortium and the interested general public.
Final EFP event September 2012
On 27th-28th of September 2012, EFP organised the EFP Final Event FLA Governing Grand Challenges. This Final Event was kindly hosted by the Institut Français Vienne in Vienna. EFP prepared the programme in cooperation with Réseau Prosper. The Final Event addressed the role of FLA for governing transitions and grand challenges, the differences and similarities between European FLA perspectives and perspectives from other regions in the world, the development of FLA as an academic discipline, and the role of FLA as mediator between science, society and policy making. A special keynote speech was given by Marie-Anne Delahaut discussing the question whether there is a feminist view on the future. The programme included over 20 speakers and in the afternoon of the second day, a young researchers session was organised as well. The Final Event was attended by more than 80 participants from over 25 countries. During the event two new publications were distributed: 'EFP brief collection on the occasion of the EFP final conference' and the EFP final conference publication 'The role of forward-looking activities for the governance of grand challenges'.
Young researchers session
The young researcher's session on forward-looking activities (FLAs) was part of the EFP final conference and succeeded at bringing together PhD students and master students from the field of future studies, FLAs and foresight. The objective of this session was to discuss insights, approaches, concepts and methods that students use in their research and to further extend the participants' knowledge on FLAs. Contributions with a focus on the European context and/or on grand societal challenges (i.e. aging society, climate change, etc.) and on new, innovative approaches were especially welcomed.
Research work on all FLA related subjects was welcomed also. Presentations could be given in traditional (papers or posters) as well as in innovative forms, including creative software like Petcha Kutcha and Prezi. The organisers received inspiring and future oriented abstracts for posters and presentations that were discussed in two parallel sessions on the second day of the final event. The presenters were students and young researchers from various parts of the world.
The programme was facilitated and commentated by senior expert researchers such as Ruben Nelson, Foresight Canada, Peter Bishop, University of Houston, Ron Johnston, ACIIC Australian Centre for Innovation, Sydney, Australia, Peter Biegelbauer, AIT, Philine Warnke, FhG-ISI, Karlsruhe, Germany, and Fabiana Scapolo, Joint Research Centers of European Commission. The chairs represented established FLA organisations and universities around the world. Their combined were able to contribute to exciting presentations and fruitful discussions.
Publications for the Final Event
The EFP final event entitled 'The role of forward-looking activities for the governance of Grand Challenges was accompanied by two publications of the EFP team and community members, discussing the topic of Grand Challenges and their governance through FLAs from different perspectives. The first publication was entitled: Insights from the EFP Grand Challenges Discussed in Selected EFP Briefs. Collection on the occasion of the EFP final event.
It set out one of the topics dominating the European discussion on FLA in the last three years, which has been the notion of 'Grand challenges'. The 'Grand challenge' concept has been developed and refined by a range of individuals in specific organisational contexts over the past decades, becoming a more prominent term recently especially at European Commission level. In Europe, the prevailing definition is that 'Grand challenges' need to be dealt with on a multilateral or global level, since the factors behind these challenges and their consequences are transnational and cross-border in nature, sometimes even of global scale. Accordingly, institutional coordination and collective action are required, in order to efficiently cope with these challenges. From an EU perspective, 'Grand challenges' occur in many areas and call for a new policy approach or even a change in governance.
The selection of Briefs in this publication was supposed to shed light on some of these areas under discussion. We did not attempt to give a complete picture. However, we hoped that the readers would catch a glimpse on crucial issues and would be inspired to do further reading and research in this direction. The 20 briefs presented are a selection of more than 220 available at the date of the volume publication on the EFP website and they address some of the Grand Challenges most poignantly.
The second publication entitled 'The role of forward-looking activities for the governance of 'Grand challenges' is a collection of research papers written for the purpose of discussing the EFPs contributions with regard to the topic of the conference. For example, as the chapter by van der Giessen and Marinelli shows, the aim of EFP was 'to ensure systematic use and optimum benefit of foresight expertise and to identify and mobilise all relevant actors to enable EU-wide network and capacity building'. Three additional objectives were to interconnect with other networks, to identify the impacts of foresight on decision-making, and to provide input to foresight processes in Europe. Over the three years of the EFP project, there have been many significant changes in the context in which FLA operates. One major change in context has been in the nature of policy-making, moving away from a relatively narrow expert-based rational model to one with a greater emphasis on engaging and enabling, through networking, participation, learning and building distributed intelligence. Both Giesecke and Cagnin draw attention to the shift from government to governance, within which FLA can be regarded as a new form of 'deliberative governance'. But Giesecke warns not to overrate our achievements in enhancing participation, and provides a framework for analysing the form and extent of participation via representation, formalisation of procedures and accountability for output and outcomes. The effective application of these models to transition societies appears to remain largely remote, at least at the present time.
Another major change in context has been in the framing, objectives and instruments applied to research and innovation policy. Weber points to a growing focus on linking the outcomes of research and innovation to national (or societal) needs, a greater recognition of the many inter-connected components of the innovation cycle, the challenge of guiding research and innovation under conditions of high uncertainty and the growing importance of agile institutional networks. This analysis leads him to identify the need for changes in governance structures, processes and culture. A 'strategic turn' emerging from the first of these changes has been the growing emphasis on 'Grand challenges' as guiding rationales for research and innovation policy. Cagnin explores the contribution FLA could make to orienting Innovation processes more effectively towards addressing 'Grand challenges'. He analyses innovation system functions, such as knowledge development and diffusion, to identify a range of changes which may be necessary to cater for addressing grand challenges, and the roles that FLA could play in facilitating these changes.
One of the agreed 'Grand challenges' is sustainability. Carabias et al. have found that many future-oriented issues are well reflected in sustainability indicator systems. However, there is considerable potential to enhance their effectiveness by combining sustainability monitoring with FLA to develop more anticipatory approaches to orienting societal change towards sustainable development. Of course it may be far too soon to analyse the extent to which FLA, and the research and innovation system, have responded to, and assisted in addressing, the 'Grand challenges'. But, even at this stage, one would have to conclude that while some instruments have been developed to address Grand Challenges, such as ERA, there has been little substantial progress towards their resolution. Issues of climate change, food security, resource supply and migration re-main as intractable as ever.
EFP network map of FLA
The map provides an overview of the network built within the EFP project. It lists those partners of EFP which also represent a network or similar activity. On the front page a world map is displayed with the locations of the partners, on the back page, more contact details are given. The map was a give-away to all participants at the EFP final even in September 2012 and is also available as a PDF on the project website.
An EFP brochure
The EFP consortium designed and published a project brochure in 2010 to inform a wide audience about the network building programme supported by the European Commission and its aims at building a global network bringing together different communities and individual professionals to share their knowledge about foresight, forecasting and other future studies methods. The brochure cover the relevant information on EFP, including that started its work at the beginning of 2010, continuing some of the successful activities that were introduced by the former FP6 projects EFMN and FORLEARN. It guides the reader through the following project activities:
- raising awareness of foresight and other FLA as strategic policy instruments;
- providing and updating a knowledge sharing platform for practitioners and newcomers;
- profiling of foresight and related activities and experts;
- offering a discussion forum for new activities, approaches, methods, and outcomes;
- providing support to policy makers, foresight practitioners and a wider audience interested in foresight and forward looking studies.
The brochure is available in a printed version directly at AIT and as a PDF on the project website.
Newsletter
The first EFP newsletters were sent out electronically to more than 1 700 foresight and FLA affiliates based on the EFMN and FOR-LEARN distribution list. The newsletters were well received and informed the community on the new project, the most recent publications, the briefs publication online, and upcoming EFP events. After a few issues we preferred sending out news more regularly as tweeds over twitter and by email because we could reach more 'followers' and community members this way with more up to date news and in a technically easier and more modern mode.
List of websites: http://www.foresight-platform.eu/(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie)