Foresight

Since the 1990s, research organisations and research funding agencies have been developing a method known as foresighting to a tool for more effective science and technology policy-making. It is used for identifying future scenarios, making choices of orientation, defining priorities and developing new approaches and strategies. Born out of the amalgamation of the scanning of futures, strategic planning and policy analysis, foresighting paves the way to developing better targeted procedures for preparation and decision-making, especially in situations that involve many different types of agents.

Internationally, foresighting has advanced with great rapidity since the beginning of the 2000s. Major national foresight projects have been conducted in Japan, China, Germany, the UK, France, Finland (FinnSight 2015) and Sweden. In Europe, the European Commission and the European Science Foundation (Forward Looks) have made important contributions in this field. Foresighting is actively used by several scientific research councils. It has also been adopted by major European research organisations, such as CNRS in France and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Germany.