A Systemic Approach to Knowledge Society Foresight

The paper presents issues related to a systemic approach for the development of foresight studies. Necessary steps are identified and most common methods are analyses, with their weakness and straits. The authors make a point in underlining that foresight is not about methods, but about management of change. Four metastrategies of change are described. Change as an organizational process has been studied within a framework of change management, including three types of strategies: Information-driven strategies, Values-driven strategies, and Power-driven strategies. Later, Relationship-driven strategies were added (Miles, 2002). Each of these meta-strategies approaches the planning and implementation of change from different philosophical assumptions. In the end, the design of a Romanian project for the development of a National Foresight Exercise in S&T is presented. People, organizations, companies and countries need to plan for the future. Families make budget plans. Business and industry employ technology intelligence gathering tools and mathematical modeling to inform their strategic planning. Governments develop plans for local, regional, and national level plans. Most strategic planning exercises focus on relatively short terms, as they are usually tied to production requirements or budget cycles. In particular, government planning is linked to annual budget cycles and policies that reflect the span of a government’s term in office. The term “Foresight” is used to describe a type of planning exercise that takes no less than 10 years, going beyond the business planning horizon. Technology Foresight looks at existing and future science and technology to identify emerging change factors, and the types of scientific research and technological development likely to yield the greatest economic, environmental and social benefits [1]. The best Foresight planning is socio-economic, drawing on expertise and representation from across the scientific, academic, public sector, private sector and consumer communities. Foresight does not claim to predict the future. Instead it seeks to identify plausible prospects for change through a structured examination of what could emerge from foreseeable developments related to R&D and how these might affect the society. Foresight provides planners and decision-makers with a process and a product to help identify potential links between present day policies and actions and future outcomes. Its value lies in the attempt to capture broadly based thinking on a long-range time horizon. It can help policy-makers and planners make earlier identification of possible threats and opportunities by illustrating how barely recognizable trends (“weak signals”) can have important consequences in the future. Governments and organizations with the ability to recognize the link between these “weak signals” and potential threats or opportunities can make better R&D choices, develop contingency plans, and become more effective in their decision-making. For a formal definition of technology foresight, one might consider Martin and Irvine (1989): foresight is a tool or set of tools used “to survey as systematically as possible what chances for development and what options for action are open at present, and then follow up analytically to determine to what alternative future outcomes the developments would lead” [2]. This definition refers to a product oriented type of foresight and does not capture the dimension of human involvement in the design and implementation. So, we’d much rather go with Harper’s definition that foresight is “a systematic, participatory, future intelligence-gathering and medium-to-long-term vision-building process” [3]. As Loveridge puts it, foresight is „a marriage of intuition, science, anticipation of value/norm shifts that cause changes in personal expectations and a sensitivity to developing trends in society, [...] Foresight activity falls into the fuzzy region that fills the ground where the six themes: Social Technology Economics Ecology Politics and Values/Norms intersect as shown in the Venn diagram below, [a.n. figure no. 1] Foresight then is highly interactive, influencing and being influenced by the interrelationships in the STEEPVset” [4]. Fig. no. 1 Venn diagram Source: Loveridge D., Foresight Strategies of foresight Foresight is about change. Change as an organizational process has been studied within a framework of change management, including three types of strategies: Information-driven strategies, Values-driven strategies, and Power-driven strategies. Later, Relationship-driven strategies were added [5]. Each of these meta-strategies approaches the planning and implementation of change from different philosophical assumptions. These relates to the understanding and control of foresight impacts within the STEEPV analytical frame [6]. Information-driven strategies rely on the principle that people are rational and willing to change. The implementation of the strategy works like this: the result of a foresight study is put forward by the management group, who justifies the change by pointing out the relation between the foresight rationale and the chosen methods. Also, the level of participation needs to be underlined. The belief is that decision-makers, strategy planners, and the public will understand the need for change. Even though the whole approach is focused on data, a variety of communication strategies are used to move things forward. Values-driven strategies are based on the assumption that change is based on people’s perception on what is good and bad. Change is motivated when individuals identify some level of dissatisfaction with the current situation due to fundamental value clash. The task of the foresight practitioner is not to find the right information for strategic decision support, but to find relations between values of the individuals and values of the environment. Thus the search preferable futures becomes as important as the result itself and the involvement of as many members of the system is the underlying principle. The primary assumption is that intelligence is social rather than rational. Change extends beyond the development of common understanding at a rational level, to include personal meanings and values of the members. Power-driven strategies emphasize the negative outcomes should change not be implemented. Both the process and the product of foresight are understood in the context of the international system, therefore they depend on the understanding of the inter-action with other international entities. The two primary sub-strategies in this approach include the use of legitimate power to promote change and the use of economic incentives as a strategy to motivate support for change initiatives. Although this type of strategies appear to be negative, they are mostly combined with strategies of the first two types with effective results. But we should also notice that this is a rather risky approach to foresight, for many things can go wrong: the society might not be ready for the foresight process, the implementing organization might not be prepared fully, political decision makers ordering the foresight exercise might lose their job. Relationship-driven strategies seem to be related to a distributed model of foresight exercise. A distributed model of foresight is embedded at multiple levels within the innovation system. Its main drivers are selforganizing and bottom-up, while multi-level governance provides starting points. The assumption for relation-driven strategies is that once change is accepted in one point of the innovation system, foresight exercises are more likely in related areas. Systemic thinking of foresight Foresight requires the willingness to constantly examine long-range options, to consider alternative possible futures and confront them with our established paradigms, and to define objectives within the framework of a vision which describes the future we most want to create. So, the emphasis is here on the idea of alternative futures: the idea that “the future” cannot be predicted, but alternative futures may be imagined, explored, and assessed. But, in order to define a set of alternative futures, one must first determine trends of change and emerging issues we can observe now. So, foresight begins with identifying possible changes in societal, individual, technological, economic, environmental, political, and regulatory systems. Changes in the macro environment will affect the internal environment and any decisions or actions with regard to a critical issue.