The co-creation of regional futures: Facilitating action research in regional foresight

This article presents the interconnected phases of a regional-foresight process in an AR perspective within the context of a complex regional dynamic of actors with distinct local and regional political presences. The analysis is based on a Norwegian case of AR on regional foresight. The article reflects upon and develops the concept of action research (AR) as it relates to regional-foresight practices in connection with regional planning strategies (policies), according to Norway's new Planning and Building Act (PBA, 2008). Both AR and regional foresight are broad terms within a number of domains, and several contributions have sought to show how these are interlinked Ramos (2006). The focus is on how AR and action researchers both contribute to the co-creation of regional and sub-regional formulation of planning by regional-foresight processes, which are driven by decision-making regional bodies. This article contributes to the understanding of how an AR strategy of ‘strategic facilitation’ may improve the overall foresight capacity of all regional actors, both in concert and as single stakeholders. Also it furthers the understanding of how an AR approach may assist in transforming the foresight practices and the strategic decision-making into a more transparent process.     

Local social knowledge management: Community actors, institutions and multilevel governance in regional foresight exercises

A key question for policymakers at the regional and local level is how to provide the right conditions for generating the growth of more knowledge-intensive forms of economic activity within the context of dynamic innovation systems or learning regions. Regional foresight exercises may provide a useful instrument in helping chart their economic strategies. Successful regions must be able to engage in regional foresight exercises that identify and cultivate their assets, undertake collaborative processes to plan and implement change, and encourage a regional mindset that fosters growth. Communities and regions, like companies, need to innovate and adapt to remain competitive. As a result, successful regions must be able to engage in regional foresight exercises that identify and cultivate their assets, undertake collaborative processes to plan and implement change, and encourage a regional mindset that fosters growth. This paper provides an overview of these issues by reviewing the most important ideas in the recent literature on innovation systems, technological dynamism and local economic development. We regard regional foresight processes to be, at their most fundamental level, socially organized learning processes involving learning by individuals, by firms, and by institutions. One of our central concerns is to show how the actions of individuals to shape collective local visioning exercises interact with larger institutional structures to produce local outcomes.     

Transdisciplinary forward-looking agenda setting for age-friendly,human centered cities

Cities need to adapt to ageing societies because the average age of habitants is increasing rapidly alongside the global trend of urbanisation. Apparent effects on both society and individual livelihoods will continue to increase in the coming decades. Great hopes are projected on technology to support solutions for the ageing society and urban planning. Smart city strategies and the field of ambient assisted living are two concepts sharing the assumption that technology will make our lives more independent, more efficient and safer with a higher quality of life. This paper presents a case study of a participatory foresight project that investigates how transdisciplinary agenda setting through the means of including citizens, experts and stakeholders can provide orientation for long-term planning on the future of ageing in the city. Results enforce the argument that urban governance needs to address additional tasks whilst adapting to challenges arising from ageing societies and urbanisation. Alongside mere technological innovation, human factors gain importance. Future-oriented urban development strategies need to incorporate this fact and should not predominantly be drafted on the paradigm of technological progress.     

Incorporating futures research into regional knowledge creation and management

This article focuses on future-oriented knowledge within regional innovation networks. Concrete regional tools and institutional settings aiming to enhance knowledge creation and management in such networks are needed. To enable planning for the future, there is a need for regional visionary capability. Resource-based futures research may make an important contribution in reducing the insecurity that regions face in the turbulent environment. When foresight processes are not absorbed into the regional strategy making processes, ‘black holes of regional strategy making’ come into existence, and future scenarios are built without taking into consideration the path-dependency of a region.This article attempts to reduce the gap between futures research, on the one hand, and regional knowledge and innovation management, on the other hand. It highlights the concept of self-transcending knowledge—the ability to sense the presence of potential. It then introduces a new, systemic model for knowledge creation and management in regional innovation networks. Utilising methods from futures research in creating self-transcending knowledge in a regional knowledge management system is proposed as a fruitful way of enhancing regional visionary capability. The article thus advocates combining approaches and methodologies from futures research with those of knowledge management in a novel way.     

Towards better participatory processes in technology foresight: How to link participatory foresight research to the methodological machinery of qualitative research and phenomenology?

Technological progress does not happen in a social vacuum. Shaping of tomorrow is not possible without qualitative analyses. Therefore, the social and psychological dimensions of reality form an important part of technology foresight. Qualitative research will be needed to understand superficial and deep structures of social realities. So called push and pull factors are always linked to social behaviour. People's relationship to the use of technologies and the utilization of technologies is a complex and not a one-dimensional or monological issue. Monological methodological approaches can be harmful and confusing in the field of participatory foresight. We can conclude that the cycles of deductive and inductive logic are needed in science and in participatory foresight studies. Experts of the FTA community must have a higher level of methodological know-how in this research field and they should use qualitative methods in multi-faceted (external and internal) ways in foresight studies. Still the qualitative parts of many studies are quite monological and these studies can be quite problematic, even confusing. More critical methodological approaches should be taken into serious consideration. As a methodological approach, the principle of triangulation should be used more in the fields of participatory foresight studies and technology foresight.The key focus of this article in the use of qualitative and phenomenological approaches in the fields of FTA and foresight. The aim of this theoretically oriented discussion is to promote the professional use of qualitative methods in foresight and FTA studies. The strength of qualitative analyses is linked to deeper understanding of social change and social patterns and structures. Actually people create and constitute the markets, networks, and crowds where technologies are applied and used.Internal systemic understanding of social realities is an important part of foresight activities, especially in participatory foresight studies. Internal and external analyses can be seen as complementary approaches, like qualitative and quantitative approaches. The use of qualitative methods is a conventional part of the research process in participatory foresight projects. A typical problem may be that the use of methods is not planned carefully enough and people are unaware of the underlying key assumptions of applied methods. Experimenting with phenomenology is not a simple task in foresight research. Therefore, the views and informative platforms expressed and presented in this article may be useful for foresight practitioners.     

National foresight in science and technology strategy development

The paper is concerned with the national foresight exercises in Thailand to devise the key science and technology (S&T) strategies. The Thai government, through the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), has used the foresight processes to influence policy making and create national foresight programmes. The foresight exercise, covering the period from 2000 to 2020, aims to examine the potential of the Thai industry and investigate a set of development policies necessary to make the Thai industry successful by the year 2020. Three rounds of strategic conferences comprising 2677 people were set up to create a vision for the future of the industry. The results of the foresight process provide a comprehensive overview of the trends of the Thai industry. The study contributes towards the formulation of feasible technological and industrial policies, which would enhance the country's ability to improve the competitive position for tomorrow.     

The reflective futures practitioner: Balancing salience,credibility and legitimacy in generating foresight knowledge with stakeholders

This paper explores how foresight researchers involved in environmental, nature and planning issues attempt to balance salience, credibility and legitimacy while generating knowledge in interaction with policy-makers and other social actors. Engaging stakeholders in foresight processes can increase the robustness of foresight knowledge, broaden the spectrum of issues addressed, and create ‘ownership’ of the process. While in foresight practices stakeholder participation becomes more and more popular to resort to as enabling factor for generating salient, legitimate and credible foresight knowledge, participation can also compromise these qualities. We analysed two foresight projects conducted at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, one that developed future visions for Dutch nature policy and another that focused on future pathways for Dutch urban sustainable development policy. We illustrate that the dynamics of the research setting – changes in the socio-political context and the internal dynamics of the participatory efforts – complicated the balancing process. We conclude that one of the main challenges for futures practitioners is, therefore, to work within the dynamics of the research setting, and to position themselves strategically in this setting; by acting as ‘reflective futures practitioners’.     

An actor-specific guideline for quality assurance in transdisciplinary research

Transdisciplinarity has a long tradition – both in terms of academic discourse and research practice. The proliferation of transdisciplinary research (TDR) has, however, only progressed moderately up until now. The main reason for this is the lack of a generally accepted quality standard for TDR. In addition to meeting the quality standards of excellence of ‘normal science’, TDR is supposed to respond to a variety of societal demands. Establishing a quality standard that incorporates these requirements would only be possible in the long-term as it calls for far reaching changes on both an institutional level as well as that of science as a whole. Building up a practice of quality assurance in TDR today lays the necessary foundation to bring about such changes. The aim of this paper is to present a ready-to-use quality guideline which we intend will contribute to that foundation. The guideline is customized to such TDR that aims to bring specific knowledge to bear on policy issues relating to sustainable development. The guideline addresses three groups of actors: researchers, program mangers or donors and policymakers. It shows these actors what they can do specifically to assure the quality of the transdisciplinary research process.     

Corporate foresight in emerging markets: Action research at a multinational company in Turkey

The corporate foresight—future studies in business—is gaining importance globally. However, research to date has largely focused on the multinational companies (MNC) and yet revealed little about the implementation of corporate foresight in the regional subsidiaries of MNCs in emerging markets. An action research in the regional subsidiary of an MNC in Turkey was carried out to address this gap. Seven major findings/challenges were recorded during the action research: (1) changing mental models about the future, (2) controlled two-tier structure, (3) customisation of methodologies, (4) thorough examination of information sources, (5) external participation, (6) changing the primary dimension of the company and (7) sharing with other regional subsidiaries and corporate headquarters. These findings were categorised under a new framework—Knowledge-People-System-Organisation (KPSO) framework for managing the corporate foresight process at MNCs in emerging markets. The balanced distribution of the findings in this new framework shows that it could be used for further theory development in the area of corporate foresight and implemented in further corporate foresight exercises.     

Application of a vision in the Lake District of Salzburg

Understanding the complexity of landscapes is an essential prerequisite to propose strategies for landscape development in the mid future, to predict long-term effects of landscape change, and assess future demands on landscape resources. In order to be able to direct today's landscapes to a possible future state (German: Leitbild), landscape planning must include socio-cultural, economic and political considerations in addition to ecological aspects of the landscape. In response to this challenge, this paper unifies the Leitbild concept with a spatial explicit planning procedure and introduces a case study application for describing and classifying landscape visions based on a transdisciplinary, holistic concept.The general assessment system of planning a vision is adapted to the natural, cultural, political and economic conditions of the given case study area in the Federal States Upper Austria and Salzburg (Austria). The assessment system includes exercises that identify the assets of the planning procedure and encourage stakeholders, scientist and local people to collaborate in planning and implementation processes. This paper provides an overview of planning procedures from the Leitbild perspective, outlines problems encountered in the case study, and compares them to the findings of other scholars.     

Prompting transdisciplinary research: Promising futures for using the performance metaphor in research

Transdisciplinary research is increasingly recognised as important for investigating and addressing ‘wicked’ problems such as climate change, food insecurity and poverty, but is far from commonplace. There are structural impediments to transdisciplinarity such as university structures, publication requirements and funding preferences that perpetuate disciplinary differences and researchers often lack transdisciplinary experience and expertise. In this paper we present a heuristic that aims to encourage researchers to think about their current research as performance and then imagine different performances, with the view to encouraging reflection and creativity about the transdisciplinary potential and dilemmas. The heuristic is inspired by the metaphor of performance that Erving Goffman uses to understand everyday, face-to-face interactions. The heuristic includes scaffolding for imagining research as performance through a transdisciplinary lens, a suggested process for using the tool, and examples based on the every day research projects. The paper describes the application of the heuristic in a graduate masterclass, reflecting on whether it does indeed ‘prompt’ transdisciplinary research. Limitations and lessons learned for further refinement of the heuristic are also included. The authors conclude that the heuristic has a range of uses including for self-reflection, and as a practical learning tool that can also be used at the start of integrative research projects.     

Evaluating a Long-Term Livable Communities Strategy in the U.S.

What are the requirements for successful, long-term, livable community strategies in the US? In early 2007, the Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) was commissioned to offer a forward-looking review of the Livable Communities strategy of AARP, originally, the American Association of Retired Persons (with 37 million members, AARP is the largest non-profit organization in the US) [1]. This article summarizes the process and results of that project. It constitutes a case study in the evaluation of a large organization's plans from a strategic foresight perspective. Findings from this investigation suggest that many large-scale trends in the U.S., including urban sprawl, rising energy costs, climate change, and fiscal challenges are likely to work against efforts to make communities more livable. On the basis of these findings, IAF recommended that the association take a broad approach to livability, developing strategies that counter these negative trends while also improving the lives of older people. AARP is one of the best suited organizations to make such a long-term commitment.     

Developing urban and regional foresight: exploring capacities and identifying needs in the North West

Recent changes in the context for English governance are creating new opportunities for futures thinking at urban and regional level. Drawing on a study of key stakeholders concerned with urban and regional development, this paper presents an analysis of current approaches to future thinking amongst policy-makers in England’s North West region. The study offered an opportunity to explore attitudes to foresight and existing capacities amongst public, private and voluntary organisations, to find out best practices in different sectors, and to investigate potential gaps, constraints and needs in terms of futures thinking. The paper describes the main results from the North West study and concludes by exploring ways of enhancing the capacity for territorial foresight at urban and regional levels.     

Corporate foresight and innovation management: A portfolio-approach in evaluating organizational development

The transition from a traditional industry-driven economy to a knowledge-based economy requires new concepts and methods for companies to sustain competitive advantage. Here, academia has identified corporate foresight and innovation as key success factors. While, content-wise, the contribution of futures research methods to the innovation process has already been researched, this study strives to explore the status quo of organizational development stages of both concepts. To do so, we developed a portfolio-approach, the so-called ‘Future-Fitness-Portfolio’, which enables companies to qualitatively compare amongst others and identify organizational improvement potential. In addition, we conducted expert interviews to explore future organizational development trends in corporate foresight and innovation management. As our research revealed, five strategic clusters can be identified within the portfolio. Consequently, we propose specific strategies for each individual cluster. We conclude that there will be two main organizational development trends for corporate foresight and innovation management in the future: in traditional industries with conventional business models and long product-life-cycles, companies will follow a different development path than companies in dynamic industries with innovative business models and short product-life-cycles.     

基于区域、双边与部门层面的国际生产共享问题研究-以中国参与CAFTA制造业垂直专业化分工为例

基于区域、双边与部门层面,以中国参与CAFTA制造业垂直专业化分工为例,考量生产共享程度、结构与动态变化.结果发现:中国与东盟制造业生产共享水平尚处低位,但呈快速增长态势;技术密集型产业生产共享水平显著较高且前景较好;中国在CAFTA制造业生产共享体系中的获益水平增长较快,但剔除了贸易规模扩张效应的获益效率呈现下滑趋势.     

Quality of data, information and knowledge in regional foresight processes

A central subcategory of futures research is technology foresight. There is a concern that today's technology foresight processes do not serve technology-political decision-making and strategy processes of companies well enough. The regional level needs to be emphasized, too, and the inclusion of a wide variety of actors and organizations. There is a danger that results of foresight processes are not absorbed into regional strategy-making processes, leading to a “black hole of interpretation and implementation of foresight knowledge”. Particularly knowledge, but also data and information are crucial concepts in foresight processes. An important issue is how to transform foresight information into future-oriented innovation knowledge. Concrete tools and institutional settings to enhance data, information and knowledge quality in foresight processes and strategy work are needed. This article investigates limitations of established foresight processes and planning approaches, limitations in practical utilization of results of foresight processes, and quality of data, information and knowledge as concrete tools and as a systematic response to limitations. The article is partly based on empirical results from a technology foresight survey undertaken in Finland in 2005. The research responds to societal and academic interest by combining the fields of (i) futures research and (ii) data, information and knowledge quality. Future-oriented considerations are not routine tasks, which makes it especially challenging and important to ensure that these processes benefit from data, information and knowledge of good quality.     

Planning for sustainable development: Strategic alignment in Peruvian regions and cities

This paper explores the application of the Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) to the formulation of strategies for sustainable development in regions and cities. SAM was created during the 90s in order to bridge the gap in terms of objectives, competences and culture between business and IT professionals. The present study applies SAM to align economic development and environmental sustainability and identifies concepts such as industrial ecosystems, sustainable lifestyles, eco-business, and environmental services as integrative strategies. Previous to this research, alignment has been studied in terms of public participation process, policy innovation and adoption of best practices. This paper proposes a new framework to represent alignment in a way that multiple strategies and pathways can be recognized, favoring dialogue and coordination. Likewise, a strategic analysis of Peruvian Environmental Action Plan 2010-2021 is presented.     

The social shaping approach to technology foresight

The social shaping of technology (SST) approach has been developed as a response and extension to the ideas of techno-economic rationality and linear conceptions of technology development and its consequences. The SST approach seems especially promising in areas of technology where visions are manifold, societal interests conflicting, and applications and markets are non-existing or still under construction. The emerging high technology areas and several areas of more sustainable development like organic food production and renewable energy are examples of this kind, where techno-economic networks are unstable or under construction and social and environmental potentials and risks difficult, if not impossible to assess. The paper explores the potential of a social shaping of technology approach to technology foresight within such technology areas and presents the methodological aspects herein: structure versus contingency, actor-network approach, laboratory programmes, techno-economic networks, actor worlds, development arenas. Experiences based on a recent Danish green technology foresight project concerned with environmental risks and opportunities related to nano-, bio- and ICT-technologies and foresight activities in relation to food are used as empirical references.     

Opportunities and challenges of the ecosystem approach

Humanity will continue to struggle with solving its existential problems in the future if command-and-control continues as the predominant approach to environmental and natural resources management. Recognizing the ecosystem perspective, complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory and transdisciplinary collaboration as conceptual opportunities to developing innovative and socially robust solutions is an important step in the right direction. However, because ecosystems are constantly evolving, human co-development has to account for inherent ecological uncertainty. Thus, sustainability depends on a continuous reevaluation of objectives, continuous knowledge generation, stakeholder involvement and a deeper understanding of evolving social and ecological dynamics. These requirements of continuity are hardly met by current approaches consisting of consecutive transdisciplinary projects focused on solving the most urgent problems of mismanagement at hand. Therefore, in this paper we argue for an organizational setup when pursuing an ecosystem approach and outline essential characteristics, inherent opportunities and fundamental challenges. Promising benefits of this approach include tested yet proactive interventions, public credibility, resource efficiency, long-term relationship building, community participation and ultimately sustainable development. Thereby, sustainability is aspired to and supported by a shared vision, organizational co-evolution, an organizational culture promoting innovation and an external autonomy to self-organize.