RIF explores possible future ways of doing and organising research in order to inspire fresh thinking among research stakeholders about underlying potentials and looming risks in the present.
Archive for the ‘Geography’ Category
EFP Brief No. 255: RIF Research & Innovation Futures
Wednesday, February 20th, 2013EFP Brief No. 254: New Trends in Argentina’s Science, Technology and Innovation Policy
Thursday, February 14th, 2013The brief describes the historical evolution of the national policy of science, technology and innovation (STI) in Argentina, identifying major turning points from the period of the import substitution model that lasted for 40 years to the current development pattern still in the making, with a sharp shift during the 1990s to a harsh market-led path. Domestic learning processes and emerging international trends led Argentina in the new millennium to adopt a new more proactive, flexible and participatory model of STI, which was further pushed by the creation of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation in 2007. The National Plan of STI 2012-2015 reflects on-going efforts to deepen the redesign of research, technology and innovation policies.
EFP Brief No. 253: Egypt’s Desalination Technology Roadmap 2030
Thursday, February 14th, 2013This project was an activity within the framework of Egypt’s Vision 2030 project carried out by the Center for Future Stud-ies in the Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center, with the aim of identifying the future needs for desalination technology development, charting a series of research and development activities that will result in cost-effective, efficient revolutionary desalination technologies that can meet the national future needs, and providing short and long term action agenda to guide desalination research and investments in Egypt till the year 2030.
Download EFP Brief No. 253_Desalination Technology Roadmap 2030
EFP Brief No. 252: Egypt’s Water Security – Future Vision 2030 Using Delphi Method
Tuesday, February 12th, 2013This study was an activity within the framework of Egypt’s Vision 2030 project carried out by the Center for Future Studies in the Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center. Using Delphi Method, the study aims at identifying, analyzing and foreseeing potentials of Egypt’s water security as ground to thinking of pilot solutions aimed at evading problems and crisis as well as developing a set of procedures whereby Egypt’s water security is attained.
EFP Brief No. 251: VERA – Forward Visions on the European Research Area
Wednesday, February 13th, 2013The VERA project provides relevant strategic intelligence for the future governance and priority-setting of the research, technology, development and innovation (RTDI) system in the EU and for better adapting science, technology and inno-vation policy to the shifting global environment and upcoming socio-economic challenges. For this purpose VERA carries out an in-depth stocktaking of RTDI related forward looking activities in Europe and internationally and a thorough review of trends and drivers of long-term change of European RTDI governance. On the base of these insights VERA develops scenarios on the evolution of the European Research Area, assesses the critical issues for the ERA’s future capabilities emerging from these scenarios, explores subsequent strategic options and ultimately generates a set of policy recommendations for responsive and future oriented multi-level, multi-domain RTDI policy strategies. As VERA will run until 2014 we will present some intermediary results of the first two work packages in this Brief.
Download EFP Brief No 251_VERA
EFP Brief No. 250: Mediating Different Stakeholder Levels in an “International Cooperation Foresight” Process
Friday, February 1st, 2013The purpose of the New Indigo foresight process was firstly to identify the most important and most relevant drivers of current S&T cooperation between India and Europe. Its second aim was to engage relevant stakeholder groups in a structured discussion on what this cooperation should look like in 2020. Thirdly, long-term and short-term policy-recommendations for shaping this future have been developed.
EFP Brief No. 249: Measuring Foresight Impact
Wednesday, January 30th, 2013This brief describes a new instrument for measuring the impact of foresight. The foresight impact measurement instru-ment consists of 54 measures covering a wide range of foresight activities and potential policy and other impacts. This instrument, developed primarily by Ron Johnston and the author, is the result of several sessions with leaders of many of the most active national foresight programmes and includes a variety of types of measurement categories – notably those that align with the policy cycle in terms of positioning foresight for future impacts on policies as they emerge or are developed. It also has been pilot-tested on two Canadian foresight programs – in both cases achieving strong participation rates, high frequency of written comments and positive assessments of most of the measures and very strong endorsements of several key measures. One of the cases, a national foresight project on animal health and food security is described in this brief. Essentially the instrument provides a baseline for interim evaluation – while the experience is still vibrant – and in so doing it can (1) provide a unique mix of qualitative and quantitative feedback for stakeholders, participants and sponsors; (2) be immediately applied if required to making the case for continuity, future foresight funding or new projects; (3) form a credible baseline against which more formal evaluation can be structured later; and (4) help create a key international benchmark data base entry and case example of public sector foresight impact measurements – and thus position the EFP well for the future.
EFP Brief No. 248: Drivers, Trends and Grand Challenges in Security
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013This brief gives an overview of the recent trends, drivers and ‘grand challenges’ in the area of security as they were iden-tified in the mapping and analysis of the 2nd EFP Mapping Report on Security Futures (Amanatidou et al., 2012). These findings were compiled from 16 different forward-looking activities (FLA), representing four types of FLA, namely: fore-sight, impact assessment, horizon scanning and forecasting. The selected FLA offer an interesting and complementary mix of national views and European perspectives.
Download EPF Brief No. 248_Drivers, Trends and Grand Challenges in Security
EFP Brief No. 247: Delphi-based Foresight for a Strategic Research Agenda on the Future of European Manufacturing
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013This follow-up brief recapitulates the foresight exercise of the “Manufacturing Visions – Integrating Diverse Perspectives into Pan-European Foresight (ManVis)” project. Six years after the project was concluded, we look back with the purpose of extracting key lessons learned. We ask what the mid-term and long-term implications of this foresight exercise are, specifically how effectively the Delphi method was deployed to examine a wide spectrum of aspects underpinning the future trajectory of European manufacturing with a particular emphasis on the elaboration of scenarios that provide a broad basis for public discussion on the future of European manufacturing. This follow-up brief draws particularly on the lessons learnt from the organisers’ perspective.
Download EPF Brief No. 247_ManVis_Follow-up
EFP Brief No. 246: Foresight and STI Strategy Development in an Emerging Economy: The Case of Vietnam
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013With the purpose of supporting the definition of the Science and Technology Strategy 2011 – 2020 by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam, a novel approach to policy and strategy development was introduced, combining foresight techniques alongside traditional strategy programming tools. This novel approach is considered useful for application in developing countries with strong planning traditions.
Download EPF Brief No. 246_Foresight and STI Strategy Development for Vietnam
