32: Embedding Foresight in next-generation transformative innovation policies (Matthias Weber, Dana Wasserbacher, Attila Havas, Kerstin Cuhls, Philine Warnke, Totti Könnölä, Kirsi Hyytinen, Elvira Uyarra)
Foresight has attracted growing attention in recent years to inform public policies with regard to emerging and potentially disruptive developments, in particular in R&I policies but increasingly also in other policy domains. This is not a big surprise in uncertain times and illustrates the benefits of foresight as a tool to inform highly ambitious political agendas. In the R&I policy context, these agendas are geared towards addressing societal challenges by way of transformative and mission-oriented R&I policies, but they can also be observed in other policy domains pursuing broader transformative policy agendas – from Twin Transitions and Green Deals to New Industrial Policy and Smart Specialisation or even the One Health visions. These agendas pose demanding challenges in terms of both policy coordination and alignment of policy strategies with those of other key actors and stakeholders’ ambitions. They also call for more agility of public sector organisations, in terms of responding and adjusting policy mixes to new insights into emerging developments. Finally, to be effective, the implementation of foresight activities necessitates futures literacy on the side of users of foresight results; thus calling for a trusted and effective foresight community of practice. The purpose of this track is to bring together recent experiences with foresight in these reframed policy contexts. Questions to be addressed include:
- How successful has foresight been in exploring guiding visions of ‘better future worlds’ and providing spaces for negotiating them socially?
- How has foresight contributed to shared orientations, coordinated strategies, and aligned implementation across policy domains and levels, as needed for transformative policy strategies?
- What role have foresight activities played in terms of enabling effective and coherent transformative strategies of both government policy and a broadened range of relevant actors and stakeholders?
- In what regards have foresight activities been effective in creating anticipatory spaces in and across public sector organisations, to build anticipatory culture, capacities, processes, and structures?
- What new areas for policy action have been detected that need more attention now or in the long run?
- Through which channels have insights from foresight trickled down from policy strategy of to operational levels of policy implementation in government agencies, funding bodies, and public research organisations?
- How does the use of foresight differ across policy domains? For what purposes is it used (exploratory, normative, future-proofing)?
- What novel approaches and tools are used to embed foresight on transformative challenges effectively in policymaking (e.g., new forms of participation, modelling, AI)? How do these novel methods and tools affect foresight practices?
- Which factors and conditions facilitate the uptake of foresight knowledge in policy-making processes? Which barriers exist to embedding and institutionalising foresight in policymaking?
- Given longer-term transformative agendas, is the potential of foresight to inform adaptive policy approaches used, and how is it related to evaluation activities?
- What new methods have been developed to trace and assess impacts of foresight in line with next-generation innovation policy approaches, and what experiences have been made?
Keywords: foresight, transformative innovation policy, governance, methods, embedding