Title: Participatory Approaches to Foresight and Priority-setting in Innovation Networks Participatory Approaches to Foresight and Priority-setting in Innovation Networks Contributions of the Author

In innovation networks, participatory foresight activities can typically have several functions. They can be seen as a tool for supporting decisionmaking on Science and Technology (S&T) priorities, but they can also be expected to contribute to the structures of a network beyond the scope of decision making. Foresight activities are often limited by tight timeframes, budgets and they need to be synchronized with other S&T processes. In this setting there is a need for tools that reflect foresight managers‟ visions on trade-offs between objectives that are more important than others, and goals that can be achieved, given relevant constraints. This thesis develops, deploys and analyzes decision analytic methodologies for participatory foresight and priority-setting. The methodology enables foresight managers to adjust their foresight process to serve a multitude of goals and place emphasis on the objectives that are seen as most important. Foresight processes can be adjusted to meet the desired objectives by i) selecting a feasible “unit of analysis” for the analysis and discussion, ii) defining an appropriate composition of stakeholders for the different phases of the process, iii) different uses of multi-criteria decision analysis and iv) varying emphasis on internet surveys, multi-criteria decision analysis, and face-to-face workshops. This thesis consists of six articles, where the variants of the methodology are applied in different contexts. The articles include reflections from foresight activities carried out in support of innovation management in Finnish industry clusters and in international research programs. They also include case studies from public S&T policy making, supporting the identification of small niche areas as well as providing input for decisionmaking on national innovation policies.