Status and Prospects of Technology Foresight in Germany After Ten Years
Status and prospects of technology foresight in Germany after ten years
Dr. Kerstin Cuhls and Dr. Hariolf Grupp
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research
Breslauer Str. 48
D 76 139 Karlsruhe
Germany
tel: *49 (721) 6809-156
fax: *49 (721) 6809-176
Abstract
Foresight processes have been further developed during the past ten years, using different approaches. They are not based on the notion that the future is predictable, but that one can look into the future and try to shape the predictable paths. This contribution describes the development of the new foresight approaches in the nineties in Germany. New concepts evolved with a stronger focus on the communication about the future, the motives of policy-makers to conduct foresight and first effects of the new activities. Participation of the general public, a broader definition of "ex-pertise" and the notion of networking inside the different communities, bringing together interdisciplinary knowledge, are the major goals of the new foresight proc-esess. In this context, the German "FUTUR" is explained.
1 New Foresight Approaches
The end of the 20th century has witnessed the advent of many new foresight meth-ods and combinations thereof. Most of the experiences in organised experiments applying various foresight initiatives concerning future issues in science, technol-ogy or society were evaluated as very positive. Companies made use of the data, the media published a large number of articles, ministries reflected once more about their research priorities, and a research institution even based an evaluation on Del-phi results (Cuhls/ Blind/ Grupp 1998).
In most countries, the activities were supported by the research ministries or other public bodies. All foresight models try to implement communicative processes which integrate the different actors in the innovation systems. Most activities also attracted interest of the general public - either because of the approaching year 2000 - or because the need is felt to gain more information by looking into the fu-ture. The targets of foresight activities changed accordingly.
What is "foresight"? According to Ben Martin (1995a and b), foresight is "the systematic attempt to look into the longer-term future of science, technology, the economy and society, with the aim of identifying the areas of strategic research and the emerging of generic technologies likely to yield the greatest economic and social benefits". This definition has widened in the meantime to include not only technology foresight, but all areas of the human society.
Therefore, foresight is conducted in order to gain more information about things to come so that today's decisions are more solidly based on available expertise than before. Foresight is not equal to prognosis or prediction. Implicitly, it means taking an active role in shaping the future. A possible result may be that our expectations of today may be falsified in the future because of re-orientation. Former attempts to plan the future or to develop heuristic models of the future (in the sense of futurology) were based on the assumption that the future is pre-defined as a linear continuation of present trends (Linstone 1999, Steinmuller 1995, Flechtheim 1968, Helmer 1966). These approaches were not regarded as successful because they were too simplified. Some of them included different variables to match the complexity of the dynamics of the actual social, economic and technological developments, but this was also insufficient from the prognosis point of view. Nevertheless, some of these studies evoked a vivid discussion about the future (e.g. Meadows et. Al. 1972, Forrester 1971).
The new approaches in foresight can have many objectives (Cuhls 1998). In the context of policy-making, the most important are:
· to get a larger choice of opportunities, to set priorities and to assess impacts and chances,
· to prospect the impacts of current research and technology policy,
· to find out new demand and new possibilities as well as new ideas,
· to focus selectively on economic, technological, social and ecological areas as well as to start monitoring and detailed research in these fields,
· the definition of desirable and undesirable futures and
· starting and stimulating continuous discussion processes.
In reality, most areas of the future underlie conflicting influences, which at present cannot be assessed fully. Only some structural parts or framework conditions can be understood or partially influenced. If the knowledge in systems analysis theory is also taken into account, the mutual influences of systems and rules in which the action of mankind is embedded must also be reckoned with. An uncertainty was perceived in futures research when new experiences of the chaos theory emerged (Steinmuller 1995). The new thoughts that emerged in the nineties (starting with Irvine/ Martin 1984) did not state that the future cannot be influenced directly, but made clear that the influence on future developments is strictly limited and that the impacts can only partially be estimated. Nevertheless, the future can be "prospectively monitored". The accelerating changes that a person has to adapt to socially and psychologically make it necessary to anticipate these changes before they become reality (Helmer 1967).
During the last years, foresight studies were performed, especially in the USA, Japan, France, Italy and Germany, that deal with "critical" technologies (for an overview, see Grupp 1995 and 1999). They all followed different approaches and different quality parameters. Even the difinition of "critical" differs (Bimber/ Popper 1994). This kind of foresight study was mainly applied to set priorities. In the German case, one aim of the study on "Technology at the Beginning of the 21st Century" was also to provoke an intensive dialogue between six of the project agencies of the Federal German Ministry for education and Research.
Only a limited number of people were involved in these projects. This was criticised especially by the media and non-expert organisations, so that decision makers are now trying to initiate larger foresight programmes. Currently, the United Kingdom is one of the countries that have experiences in larger scale foresight activities. Similar approaches, but with fewer participants, can be found in South Africa (1997pp) or Hungary (1998pp). In these cases, the usefulness lies in a consensual priolity-setting and a communicative dialogue without the limits of science fields or disciplines. The only country with a longer continuous history of foresight up to now is Japan. In Japan, foresight is conducted on different levels, but there is not the one strategic approach (Cuhls 1998). Based on the experiences of the Science and Technology Agency, the first explorative attempts to apply the Delphi method here in Europe on a large scale took place in Germany. South Korea and France (and partly also Great Britain) loosely oriented themselves along these lines (Grupp 1999). These foresight projects were implemented in a more self-organised manner, e.g. by the use of foresight data for strategic planning of companies, setting priorities in research programmes or as basis data for the evaluation of the Fraunhofer Society (for an overview see Cuhls/ Grupp/ Blind 1998). A more limited approach entails less financial risk and might therefore be adequate for smaller countries.
Many foresight methods have already been developed to look into the future. They range from extrapolations via computer simulations to communicative procedures like future conferences, scenarios or the Delphi methods. Among the classical repertoire of methods, a method mix seems most promising. Not only quantitative but also qualitative methods with a strong communicative effect are regarded as useful and are becoming more and more "fashionable".
One of the major methodologies to structure a foresight discussion is the Delphi approach - as already mentioned above. "Delphi" as a method was initially developed by the RAND Corporation (Santa Monica, California) (Gordon and Helmer, 1964). The basic idea of a Delphi survey is to interview experts on a set of topics (in the case that will be presented here, dealing with major discoveries, technical innovations or large diffusion of technologies). The set of topics can be generated by the experts themselves or elsewhere. The aim is not only to collect the rough opinions of experts on certain future-oriented topics, but also to get each expert to react to the general opinion of his peers1. A set of questions is associated with each topics, such as the estimated degree of importance, the expected time of realization, the type of constraints, the need for international co-operation, etc. the procedure consists of a minimum of two stages. The results of the first phase (or round) are fed back to the experts during the second round, in order to provide them with an opportunity to change their original opinion or, on the contrary, to stick to it and explain why. In designing the inquiry this way, Olaf Helmar and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation intended to avoid uncontrolled psychological interference among the experts.
The method became popular when applied to a large-scale national technology forecast in the 1960s in the U.S.A. (Helmer, 1983; Gordon and Halmer, 1964). But if we observe the general use of the method until the present day, it can be seen that the diffusion of Delphi procedures world-wide has been largely concentrated in the area of strategic management of big firms and organisations. To illustrate the point: when Delphi questionnaires of the national inquiry were sent to experts from firms, public research organisations and administration in Germany, the firms' experts were revealed to be the least surprised and least critical about the procedure (but this dose not imply that they answered more readily, for strategic reasons). In the U.S.A., where the method was created, in more recent time we only know of smaller-scale studies were applied at firm or institute level after the first large public experience of the sixties.
Foresight, therefore, as a process may start with one method (e.g. the Delphi method): experts and persons from different disciplines or backgrounds are contacted and asked to think about the future. They also have to write down their thoughts and not only take this knowledge with them but diffuse it and provoke actions. The assumption is that synergy effects can occur, which means that the knowledge of several persons contains at least as much information as the knowledge of the single persons in sum and that this mutual knowledge exchange is fruitful. Group discussions can be especially helpful, because endorsing a group decision by yourself is more influential than just being convinced by another person.
Therefore, a mixture of methods like co-nomination (Nedeva et al. 1996), inter views, available address data bases, trade fair lists, publications, conference or workshop participation in different fields are necessary, as well as the mobilisation of people who are just interested (teachers, students, technology transfer personnel, etc.). it is especially necessary to involve the "non-experts" who are interested and motivated in bringing in their - often different - thoughts, especially about the application of the sophisticated ideas experts often have. Therefore, they must be placed in the position or situation to be or act as an expert, but also to make use of the tacit, implicit or hidden knowledge (Polanyi 1985) of people in general.
But who should be involved depends on the aim of the foresight activity. If it is a special field, mainly specialists are involved as "experts", as other stakeholders would not understand the matter sufficiently. If the foresight approach is broader, the general or interested public can also be involved. They might be able to judge the application of a development just as well as the experts although it is difficult for them to understand e.g. technical specifications.
The new foresight concept are designed rather as a facilitating factor for communication about the future than "finding out the truth about the future" - as concepts in the past often tried to do. Therefore, the definition of expertise is getting much broader. A major target is to involve enough persons, to make them communicate, find out if there is consensus or not, and create a certain commitment for activities.
The new German foresight activity is process-oriented. It takes into account the international experiences in the past ten years and makes use of a mix of methodologies. The process is called "FUTUR" (the Latin word for future), was started in 1999 and is planned to become a more integrated process that no longer separates the different foresight dimensions. Until now, in all countries, the studies centred mainly on scientific-technological questions and influenced the discussion in the other areas. Themes and topics in FUTUR shall therefore be broader and include dimensions like education, ethics, social questions, employment and education policy or resource allocation.
Differences in the various foresight approaches result also from the sponsorship and institution operating the studies or processes. In most cases, the research and technology ministry sponsors foresight activities within the framework of a "programme" and it only pays external institutions for selective additional studies. Ministries have more power and therefore better access to the different stakeholders in the innovation system. Therefore, the centrality in the organisation of a foresight process seems to be an advantage. But it can also be a disadvantage because of a lack of capacity and experience in the organisation of such large projects. But often "more neutrality" is asked for.