Institute of Innovation Research Introduction to Technology Foresight

Institute of Innovation Research Introduction to Technology Foresight: The Role of Foresight in Strategic Thinking and Policy Formulation Ian Miles PREST/MIo. IR University of Manchester MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

Overview • The discovery of the future • Technology futures and science policy • Innovation research and futures studies • Technology Foresight Programmes FS F IS MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan Scientific Revolution Industrial Revolution Current Technological revolutions/ S&T Revolution / Knowledge. Based Economy

Elsewhere proto. FS Holbein proto. FS proto. IS From UTOPIA (1516) to the NEW ATLANTIS (1627): S&T as constitutive MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan of a new world

Transforming the World Through Scientific Revolutions • Assumed complementarity of technological progress and social betterment • From More to more…. Satisfying needs and expanding desires • Scientific elite as critical agents • Progress displaced through space rather than time • (odd bits of forecasting, eg Petty on population trends – linked to birth of statistics) MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

The Discovery of the Future C 19 th Industrial Revolution – but also social and political upsurge (French Revolution). The future could, would be different. Elsewhere Elsewhen. …Not in Utopia, subterranean Fields, Or some secreted Island, heaven knows where! But in the very world, which is the world Of all of us, --the place where in the end We find our happiness, or not at all! William Wordsworth, 1805 “French Revolution, as it Appeared to Enthusiasts at its Commencement” MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

Elsewhen: Fiction and the Future proto. FS • Sargent, English-language Utopias: 8 in C 16 th, 60 in C 17 th and 18 th, 300+ in C 19 th • Mercier’s L’An 2440 published in France 1771 (UK 1772) – innovations and megaprojects help signify future • I F Clarke, The Pattern of Expectation, Voices Prophesying War, etc…. future wars in fiction • Science fiction with educational and didactic missions (Verne, Wells) MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

Utopians vs (industrial) utopia) • Luddism and Pandemonium – technological change inescapable, but not always welcomed. • Political economists asked big questions, took long views • Change became assumed attribute of future (but Morris, Butler, AT; Jeffries; technodystopias) • Marx – no recipes for the cookshops of the future • But scientific socialism: tended to stress technological change (growth in means of production will undermine obsolete relations of production) MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

Futures Studies – beyond Political Economy and SF According to Clarke, dozens of “futures” books in 1890 s and early 1900 s, starting with Richet, 1892, Dans Cent Ans highlights include – • 1897, Gottleib, The War of the Future in its Technical, Economic and Political Relations • Collections by Edmund Carpenter in USA (social) H G Wells in UK (Anticipations of the reactions of mechanical and scientific progress upon human life and thought) round turn of century. Wells in 1902 articulated call for systematic study of future in The Discovery of the Future First World War – shattered many illusions of progress, delegitimised political elites FS • Postwar: Kegan Paul Today and Tomorrow series (inc Haldane’s Daedalus 1924) both social and technological “genius forecasts” MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

Wanted! Professors of Foresight FS “It seems an odd thing to me that though we have thousands and thousands of professors and hundreds of thousands of students of history working upon the records of the past, there is not a single person anywhere who makes a wholetime job of estimating the future consequences of n e w inventions and new devices. There is not a single Professor of Foresight in the world. ”-----H G Wells (1932) MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan Forecast technologies, assess impacts

(Technological) Forecasting FS • Technology multifaceted – decreasing scope for “genius” forecasts a la Haldane • 1930 s crisis – US National Resources Committee – Recent Social Trends – William Ogburn and colleagues – social indicators, social forecasting, implications of agricultural technology – sub. Marxian model of technological change -Gilfillan and technological forecasting. Basic extrapolative techniques. • Postwar: Military and aerospace forecasting: RAND, NASA, etc: methodological development – Delphi, systems analysis, scenarios. MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

The Visible College* * * cf Gary Werskey’s book • Socialists tended to identify technological progress with social progress (? deferred ? ) • Major crisis: scientists drawn to socialism/ technocracy • Haldane in 1920 s: “"If we are to control our own and one another's actions as we are learning to control nature, the scientific point of view must come out of the laboratory and be applied to the events of daily life. It is foolish to think that the outlook which has already revolutionized industry, agriculture, war and medicine will prove useless when applied to the family, the nation, or the human race. " • Scientific planning and science policy seen as close cousins -> (esp with WW 2 applications of proto. IS OR and statistics to decision making). Bernal inspiration MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

From Science Policy to Innovation Studies IS • Bernal inspiration • de Solla Price in US, Science Policy Research in UK…. • Innovation studies emerge – politically plural, but attractive to UK left (critique of capitalists if not of capitalism; alternative explanations for UK economic and technological problems – not organised labour, but disorganised management (cf PANTS). • Critique of (some) innovation – from Bernal (50 s) through new left (60 s), feminists (70 s), greens (80 s)… MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

The Techno-optimistic Future FS • US Commissions… • US framework of technological change (long-term multifold trend), post-industrialism, “end of ideoloogy”, etc • Kahn crystallised “futurology” with books like Thinking about the Unthinkable and the less military-focused Things to Come (1972) etc. • Recrudescence of ideology, global tensions • Nuclear technology (and eugenics? ) further destabilised assumption of automatic complementarity of scientific/technological and social/moral progress. MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

The Futures Movement FS • 1960 s: futures studies took off very widely – centres, associations, consultancies formed, large-scale projects launched. Think tanks and expert groups; indicators and models. • European futures partly emulated US technooptimistic models, but in large part focused more on political uncertainties and strategies – a “third way” – as earlier articulated by Jungk, Galtung, and in France Berger, de Jouvenel… and many more) • Limited uptake in UK: scepticism – Peculiarities of the English? ? • Fairly rare to find bottom-up, participatory approaches (some radicals, some corporate, and la prospective) MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

The Futures Movement • 1960 s: futures studies took off very widely – centres, associations, consultancies formed, large-scale projects launched. Think tanks and expert groups; indicators and models. • European futures partly emulated US technooptimistic models, but in large part focused more on political uncertainties and strategies – a “third way” – as earlier articulated by Jungk, Galtung, and in France Berger, de Jouvenel… and many more) • Limited uptake in UK: scepticism – Peculiarities of the English? ? • Fairly rare to find bottom-up, participatory approaches (some radicals, some corporate, and la FS prospective) Often large-scale, global studies MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

Limits to Futures • Futures debate – (population) Malthusians vs techno-optimists, (development) Marxists, structuralists, conservative economists • Club of Rome intervention 1970 s (see Peter Moll From Scarcity to Sustainability 1991, Peter Lang) • HUGE media impact FS MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

Thinking about Models • SPRU critique of Limits – Thinking about the Future (UK) or Models of Doom (US). Resources Food per capita Industrial production per capita population • Faulted data, analysis and methods on many points, but especially the lack of any notion of technological innovation as able to confront resource shortages (or tackle pollution). • Raised many questions of ecology, equity, etc. MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

Beyond Limits FS IS • SPRU researchers went on to review futures methods (Art of Anticipation) • Review the world futures debate and prepare a major intervention of their own (Freeman and Jahoda, World Futures: the Great Debate) – radically alternative scenarios – possibility of growth and more equity • Generate a series of futures studies (eg. Worlds Apart), critiques of the field (Luxury of Despair), social and policy analyses of FS (Uses and Abuses of Forecasting) • PREST established, technology futures MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

Innovation Policy • S&T policy: inadequacies of linear model • Public sector constraints (fiscal crisis of state, rise of neoconservativism) IT revolution: strategic research • Shortcomings of funding system • Search for new decision-making tools – ACARD and other reports on selecting critical technologies, promising areas of IS science, etc. MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

Toward Foresight FS F IS • 1984: Irvine and Martin’s first book Foresight in Science (strong impression from Japanese experience… which had Nipponised US futures studies methods and applied them to Research Policy) • Picking the Winners - Oops! • Other battles being fought… • Martin & Irvine 1989 Research Foresight… more studies and then. . . MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

UK Foresight Programme – “First Cycle” FS F IS • Several 1990 s efforts to determine critical technologies (involving SPRU, PREST and consultancies): this approach has been pursued in US and France, in particular. • 1993 White Paper: improve connection between science base & wealth creation + quality of life. Foresight a major instrument. • Specific goals: to inform priorities (planning) & promote “Foresight culture” of forward and longer term thinking “beyond the business plan” (futures, networking) • Initiatives in several other countries mid 90 s MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

UK (Technology) Foresight 1 Ben Martin on Steering Committee: undertook review of other Programmes; PREST undertook much methodological work (delphi, • Accessing dispersed other surveys, knowledge, sharing it through panel training…) futures FS F IS Innovation studies • Informing R&D priorities communities • Networking (wiring up engaged innovation system) MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan Widely viewed as major success

UK (Technology) Foresight 1 – “Fully-Fledged Foresight”? PARTICIPATION Access to distributed knowledge, establishing and reinforcing Networking networks Networking tools and techniques, groupwork and facilitation, survey approaches, etc Informing and legitimising action, establishing preparedness PLANNING Priority lists, Strategic action plans FS F IS Planning tools and techniques, OR and systems approaches, etc. Sharing visions. Exchanging knowledge, mutual understanding. . . Foresight Identifying indicators & determining goals, evaluation processes & mechanisms MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan PROSPECTIVES Futures reports, scenarios, forecasts and visions Futures methods, forecasting techniques, modelling & visionary approaches, etc.

Participative Elements enlarging the Technocracy – knowledge base Transition Management – enlisting agents in visioning, action MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan Democracy stakehol – engaging ers opening dialogue

What is new about Technology Foresight • Not ivory-tower futures studies, but tied to actual decisions and policy processes • Not just small expert group analyses, but involving wide participation • Achieving wide legitimacy and (often) publicity, developing communities of practice, being embedded • WARNING: term is appropriated widely! MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

Foresight diffuses FS & IS • Foresight approaches widely emulated and developed – roles of EC and UN – UK experience taken up • Important efforts to relate Foresight to innovation studies (eg Innovation Systems Analysis in Sustainability Foresight (Germany) • Foresight embedded in much innovation policy action More sweet ? music MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan

End of Presentation MIo. IR/PREST Foresight Course 2008, COMSTECH Pakistan