Emerging Practices in Foresight and Their Use in STI Policy

Foresight, a major methodological tool in the STI policy toolbox, has recently featured new directions in methodological development, becoming influenced by progress in information and communication technologies and online tools. However, no overview of these directions has been available so far. Based on a literature review, an interactive workshop, and an international expert survey as well as expert interviews, the research presented here attempts to shed light onto some of the relevant issues by providing a structured overview of recent changes in order to further the debate on the future directions of methodological development in foresight. The paper outlines four clusters of emerging approaches in foresight:Integrated qualitative and quantitative approaches, IT-based and automated foresight, experiential foresight including new forms of communication and interaction such as visualization and gaming, and open and crowd-sourced approaches. The benefits and challenges of the approaches known so far are categorized and summarized, and areas of potential use for each of the clusters in STI contexts are identified.