Smart S&T and innovation agendas in a globalised era

Citation

Carabias, V., De Smedt, P. and Teichler, T. (2013), "Smart S&T and innovation agendas in a globalised era", Foresight, Vol. 15 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/fs.2013.27315aaa.001

Smart S&T and innovation agendas in a globalised era

Article Type: Guest Editorial From: foresight, Volume 15, Issue 1

Innovation is both a source of and possible key response to tackle societal challenges, if broadly conceived in technological, social, organisational and institutional terms. The scale and direction of innovation is determined by a mix of factors, many of them specific to an individual country or region, though increasingly less so as economies and societies become more globalised. In this context, the 4th International Seville Conference on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA) held in May 2011, illustrated how FTA can contribute not only to the steering of S&T and innovation systems, but also to their adjustment, adaptability and ability to shape responses to challenges and transformations (JRC-IPTS, 2011). The presentations addressed themes as varied as energy and natural resources, research and innovation policy-making, governance and horizon scanning, innovation and sustainability, nanotechnology and global challenges. All contributions had in common that they were calling for appropriate forms of FTA to support and enable both organisations and individuals to anticipate, adapt and respond proactively to grand challenges by defining respective future S&T and innovation agendas and contributing to smart specialisation.

This introduction provides an overview of selected FTA 2011 conference contributions in anticipating and shaping future S&T and innovation developments. A major theme of all the articles concerns the need to complement FTA in order to be effective. On the one hand, several articles address new methods and tools that could usefully extend existing FTA methodologies (e.g. Yokoo and Okuwada, Rhisiart, and Lin et al.). They point to new ways of enhancing the quality of FTA. On the other, authors are concerned to make sure that FTA has an impact on decision-making. They (Yokoo and Okuwada, as well as Lohr et al.) present new tools that allow FTA to have a greater impact. Especially, the instrument of strategic dialogues seems to be an effective way to follow-up on FTA in order to ensure the insights are not lost when strategic plans and programmes are designed. Similarly, yet in a different manner Rhisiart reflects critically on how concepts such as grand challenges shape the research policy and innovation systems through FTA. It seems not enough that FTA provides anticipatory intelligence and preparedness for disruptive events, but that it also create spaces for an effective dialogue between key players in different policy domains. Only then will FTA facilitate vision-building and consensus-building for engineering major processes of transformation. These transformations can be pursued at regional or national level and require a well-thought out strategy to play on the strength of that particular region or country when addressing the grand challenges.

A first example looks at the combination of FTA methods to identify directions of future S&T and innovation. In their paper, Yokoo and Okuwada analyse the 9th Science and Technology foresight exercise in Japan directed at contributing to the future society in Japan. The exercise comprised an interdisciplinary discussion and a mission-oriented, problem-solving approach to identify the direction of innovation towards the desired future as well as a discussion about the appropriate framework for its achievement. Three investigative studies complementing each other were carried out by employing FTA methods, such as a Delphi survey providing scientific and technological perspectives for global or national challenges, scenario planning revealing the social impacts of technological development and the required social conditions towards addressing these challenges, and regional workshops providing tangible examples of challenges on a regional scale as well as the socio-technological conditions involved. Strong emphasis was placed on how key technologies or emerging technologies could be integrated and adequately embedded in society to achieve societal goals and tackle social issues.

In the second article of this Special Issue, Lohr et al. argue that the mere generation of FTA results is not sufficient to influence S&T and innovation policy. It is rather necessary to support research policy-makers in their effort to translate the structured view of the future provided by FTA into the strategic planning of policy programmes. In order to secure the maximum benefit from FTA activities a carefully designed and actively driven transfer process of foresight results into research policy-making is required. Lohr et al. present such a process for stakeholders dealing with societal challenges – i.e. strategic dialogues – and illustrate it with recent examples from Germany. They come to the conclusion that strategic dialogues are an effective and efficient tool for achieving the transfer of results from FTA processes into research policy-making. By processing the FTA results into a form that is directly useful as an input for policy development, they help to create a joint vision for the future, facilitate opinion-forming and enable policy-makers to shape supporting infrastructure measures.

The article by Rhisiart presents some recent experience of how national research and innovation systems use FTA methods to construct responses, for example new investment priorities, to emerging global challenges and opportunities. It relates the case of foresight or FTA used for research and innovation policy agenda-setting, conducted in Ireland. Rhisiart describes a methodological approach that identifies research implications of global drivers and trends combining analysis of global changes with a participatory process involving national stakeholders. The exercise was designed to assess the implications of global changes for research and innovation policies. A relatively novel aspect that evolved during the course of the exercise was the focus on translating future-oriented knowledge (from drivers and trends) into grand challenges for the national research and innovation system. In this context, Rhisiart reflects upon the means by which grand challenges are constructed or interpreted. He investigates how research and innovation systems respond to grand challenges and how the re-conceiving or re-framing of questions impacts the research and innovation system. FTA initiatives play an important role in this process by challenging the research and innovation communities to consider the impacts of changes in conditions, resources and other factors over different time horizons.

The aim of the paper presented by Shashnov and Sokolova was to analyse three individual FTA projects referring to the natural resources sector in Russia, their interconnection and impact on policy-making. The three FTA studies used different methodologies, among others Delphi survey, expert interviews, workshops, and analytical research. After explaining the projects’ interconnections, each of the studies is characterised according to a set of criteria, including their aims, structures, methodologies and results. Finally, the impact of these studies on policy-making is evaluated. Shashnov and Sokolova conclude that implementation of these three interrelated studies allows for the identification of S&T and innovation priorities which had a strong connection with policy decision-making. Therefore, they argue that a broad, national Delphi survey for the identification of S&T priorities should be complemented by an identification of key long-term demand for natural resources and the need to adapt and reshape the management system. This would imply a step further from just informing the design of policies.

Lin et al. in their paper address a structured analysis method for future technology trajectory and interaction. They do so by mapping and associating the future technology themes in FTA reports with a state-of-the art technology classification system. The objective of the paper is to develop an integrative analytic method that allows systematically clustering, analysing and visualizing the path for technology development and transformation. Delphi topics collected from strategic foresight reports in Japan, South Korea and China related with sustainable energy were used as sources for future technology themes analysis. A standard mapping taxonomy based on the international patent classification system was subsequently used to map out the technology concept described in future technology themes. The links between different technologies was identified through a causal effect analysis during the mapping. The results were cross compared among selected countries and visualized in an aggregated chart. By providing a consistent classification framework, this research might help to solve the practical difficulties faced during the secondary analysis of FTA studies in foresight preparatory studies. It would allow comparing and aggregating future technology options from different countries or regions. Moreover, this classification framework can provide a link with current technology performance indicators such as patent productivity or quality and help in identifying the gaps between the probable future changes in S&T and the current capability.

To sum up, the articles in this special issue demonstrate the usefulness of FTA for defining future S&T and innovation agendas. FTA can play a number of important roles in orienting S&T and innovation systems so that these can better address global challenges. In this context the important question arises, to what extent could FTA contribute to the new innovation paradigm of “smart specialisation”? Specialisation is a driving force that enables the exploitation of economies of scale and differentiation for the creation of economic value. Smart specialisation is a policy framework combining industrial, innovation as well as educational policies in order to promote new growth opportunities based on innovation and knowledge (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2012). The smart specialisation approach aims to support innovation-led economic growth strategies at different levels of policy-making. It is based on the identification of the strongest or of potentially strong domains for entrepreneurship and growth through a careful analysis of the existing capabilities, assets, competences, and competitive advantages in a region or country. A brief analysis of the selected articles does reveal promising activities, such as the combination of national and regional workshops to stimulate entrepreneurial discovery (Yokoo and Okuwada) and the use of patent data for a more accurate selection of “high-potential” domains for entrepreneurship and growth (Lin et al.). However the activities in the case studies are fragmented. We belief FTA can play a crucial role in fostering the development of smart specialisation strategies. They will be required to generate robust S&T and innovation agendas in a globalised era.

Acknowledgements

The views expressed are purely those of the authors and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission.

Vicente CarabiasBased at ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Institute of Sustainable Development, Switzerland, and previously EU* DG JRC-IPTS, Seville, Spain.

Peter De SmedtBased at SVR Research Centre, Brussels, Belgium.

Thomas TeichlerBased at the Technopolis Group, Frankfurt, Germany.