Deadline for applying as a speaker is 4 May 2012.

See the conference website/blog for more details.

Background

Mobility and transport are fundamental and vital for the economy and society worldwide. For Europe, efficient and sustainable transport and mobility is essential for participating competitively in the world economy, supporting the prosperity of Europe, and maintaining a good quality of life for European citizens. As stated by the European Commission in the Transport 2050 Whitepaper (Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area), European mobility and transportation is facing a number of challenges:
- CO2 emissions from transport are still growing, despite cleaner vehicles,
- transport is extremely dependent upon oil, while oil will become scarcer and more expensive,
- rising levels of congestion, while demand for mobility and transport is growing,
- the infrastructure in eastern and western parts of Europe are unequally developed, with poor infrastructure conditions for people and businesses in eastern parts,
- and the European transport sector faces a growing competition from other world regions developing transport modernization and infrastructure investment programmes.

Many of the road maps, action plans and research priorities focus on realizing future technological solutions and service innovations for challenges that are presently recognized like described in the EC Transport Whitepaper. However, the addressed solutions, often have a technological focus. The present visions on smart mobility and transport would benefit from a thorough discussion of alternative opportunities which are not presently easily recognized, combined with a view on the impact of these opportunities on the lives of individuals and the European society.

The workshop

In this EFP workshop, we discuss the human side of possible far futures of smart mobility. This discussion is structured through the use of three provocative sketches of the future of smart mobility in 2050:

• “Mobility and Smart living: keep moving in cooperative systems!”;
• “Networked mobility – from collective or individual to collective individuality shifting to mobility services instead of car ownership!”;
• “Slow and virtual living against always flexible and mobile in second modernities velocity and deterritorialisation”!

The goals of this workshop are:

• to sketch a range of future visions on smart mobility based on the latest insights from forward-looking activities in general and in the transport domain;
• to explore new views on developments in smart mobility against the background of different long-term future visions bringing in a human-centred perspective;
• to discuss credibility, feasibility as well as the main drivers and barriers towards these future visions and the uptake of smart mobility solutions in these context;
• and to suggest implications and requirements for policy actions and measures to deal
  with drivers and barriers in each of the three future scenarios.

A draft agenda is available, along with information on how to register:
EFP Workshop Smart Mobility 2012 agenda

The FOCUS winter school was hosted by the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), with an emphasis on security research from a multidisciplinary point of view. Methods used in FOCUS were introduced in lectures, and seminars held that addressed cross-cutting issues, such as ethics aspects in security research and related scenario planning. Participants were particularly interested in analytical and practical approaches to security cultures, including citizens’ acceptance of risk management and civil protection strategies and technologies. The second day of the winter school was merged with the FOCUS mid-term symposium, where methods and so-far results were presented and discussed by end-user representatives from the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, NATO, and first responder organization Magen David Alom of Israel. One of the conclusions was that scenario foresight for the planning of security research should also consider practical mission scenarios and capability needs, such as “plane crash 2035”.

Presentations are available online on http://www.focusproject.eu/web/focus/downloads.

The young researcher’s session on forward-looking activities (FLAs) is part of the EFP final conference and aims at bringing together PhD students and master students from the field of future studies, FLAs and foresight. The objective of this session is to discuss insights, approaches, concepts and methods that students use in their research and to further extend the participants’ knowledge on FLAs in a European context and beyond.

Research work on all FLA related subjects is welcome. Presentations may be given in traditional (papers or posters) as well as in innovative forms, including creative software like Petcha Kutcha and Prezi. The program will be facilitated and commentated by senior expert researchers.

Applications including an abstract of max. 500 words, a CV and a short description of the participants’ research and research interests can be submitted to susanne.giesecke@ait.ac.at (or dana.wasserbacher.fl@ait.ac.at) until 15 June 2012.

Travel grants up to 400€ can be provided for the four best papers summarized in an EFP Brief and submitted together with the other above mentioned documents until 15 June, 2012 (only one grant per person is possible). Notification will be taken by the programme committee until June 30, 2012. The brief template can be downloaded here http://www.foresight-platform.eu/briefs-resources/brief-submission/.

Further information will be uploaded in the coming weeks.

It includes the following themes: Future Entreprises Design 2020, Economics of digitality,  Maturity models for digitality, performance rules and standards, and Managing IS /digital spaces & functions in 2020.

This call for projects is open to research teams from public research institutes, universities and high schools/ colleges. International teams are also encouraged to participate.

The total funding for this call is €450,000. The deadline for submitting proposals is 6 April 2012.

Find out more on the CIGREF website.

This report explores likely future changes in family and household structures in OECD countries; identifies what appear to be the main forces shaping the family landscape between now and 2030; discusses the longer-term challenges for policy arising from those expected changes; and on the basis of the three subsequent thematic chapters, suggests policy options for managing the challenges on a sustainable basis.

You can buy e-book and paper versions on the OECD website.

From the conference website:

The Track focuses on developing greater understanding of Strategic Foresight in organization’s day to day thinking, acting and the link to strategizing and (long term) strategies. Strategic foresight is our capacity for both sensemaking and probing the future. In organizational environments characterized by ambiguity and complexity, medium to long term forecasts and predictions become less reliable strategic planning processes, other techniques and reasoning must be employed to understand these ambiguous and complex organizational environments. This poses a challenge for both practicing managers and academic scholars attempting to make sense of these unfolding and changing environments – how organizations perceive, respond or enact foresightful insights?

Visit the conference website for more information. Registration and paper submission details are not available yet.

As mentioned in the project description, in FESTOS it was planned to identify and assess evolving security threats posed by the abuse or inadequate use of emerging technologies and new scientific knowledge, which basically means to do research on the dark side of technology. The workshop with the topic “Technology Foresight: Security Threats and Responses” was structured in three sessions, based on the main FESTOS objectives,

• identification of future security threats posed by emerging technologies
• presentation of narrative scenarios
• assessment of the need for knowledge control
• and evaluation of policy measures to cope with the threats

At the conference some nice weak signals for upcomming possible threats, caused by emerging technologies were presented. Sorted by the time of sufficient maturity, these are the weak signals:

2012

Smartphone technologies mash-ups
“New mobile phones could enable “open source intelligence” to be carried out discretely and without any special equipment. A smartphone with video camera and GPS device can can enable terrorists or criminals to easily collect location-based video imagery of possible target areas. New combinations with advanced augmented reality and other features could be even more useful for planning and executing malicious actions.” [FESTOS Alert Report, 2011]
Time of sufficient maturity: 2012; Easiness of abuse: 3.7; Threat severity: 3.5

Cloud Computing
“As private and public organisations are handing storage and other tasks to outside providers, new opportunities arise for hacking and cyber-attacks.” [FESTOS Alert Report, 2011]
Time of sufficient maturity: 2012; Easiness of abuse: 3.3; Threat severity: 3.5

2018

Internet of Things
Experts have warned that the security risks of the internet of things are first of all related to privacy issues.” However even a simple act of shutting down important IoT services by terrorists, might create chaos.[FESTOS Alert Report, 2011]
Time of sufficient maturity: 2018; Easiness of abuse: 3.6; Threat severity: 3.5

Synthetic Biology
“Such technologies in wrong hands could facilitate production of current and new biological warfare agents, without special need of large biotech production facilities. Engeniered organisms could be released into the enviroment with orders to attack.” [FESTOS Alert Report, 2011]
Time of sufficient maturity: 2018; Easiness of abuse: 3.2; Threat severity: 3.4

2023

Cyborg Insects
Cyborg insects, controlled through neuro-implants, “could be used by perpetrators for harming people, spying or other malicious activities. Swarms of such insects could be directed at agricultural areas for harmful purposes, e.g. to damage crops.” [FESTOS Alert Report, 2011]
Time of sufficient maturity: 2023; Easiness of abuse: 3.3; Threat severity: 3.1

Molecular Manufacturing
“Molecular manufacturing could be used to create new hazardous materials, or new types of weapons. If versatile and sufficiently small nanofactories are developed, such items could be created anytime anywhere, including in sensitive locations places where no weapons are allowed.” [FESTOS Alert Report, 2011]
Time of sufficient maturity: 2023; Easiness of abuse: 2.5; Threat severity: 2.5

2030

Swarm Robotics
“Robot swarms may pose a threat in the future, if the self adaption and self-reprogramming are employed for malitious behaviour of the swarm. They could perform new kinds of coordinated attacks in which for example each robot carries a small dose of explosives, combined together to cause a large damage.” [FESTOS Alert Report, 2011]
Time of sufficient maturity: 2030; Easiness of abuse: 2.9; Threat severity: 3

Programmable Matter
“Programmable matter can provide a perfect camouflage of any object, e.g. in areas where weapons are prohibited.” [FESTOS Alert Report, 2011]
Time of sufficient maturity: 2030; Easiness of abuse: 2.3; Threat severity: 2.8

Self-replicating Nano-assemblers
Self-replicating may include certain dangourges. “While uncontroled runaway replication is considered by experts as highly unlikely and can be prevented by appropriate safeguards, one can not preclude intentional malicous design of such devices for wrong doings.” [FESTOS Alert Report, 2011]
Time of sufficient maturity: 2030; Easiness of abuse: 2.75; Threat severity: 2.9

Nanotechnology-enabled Brain Implants
Brain implants could be used for thought- or behavioural-control of humans. Brainwashed people can cause social unrests, violence, etc. . Terrorists might use this technic to get “super mental power”. [FESTOS Alert Report, 2011]
Time of sufficient maturity: 2030; Easiness of abuse: 2.7; Threat severity: 3

In Session 1 the overall results of the project about the sources of future security threats were discussed. As a selection of specific results, Aharon Hauptman did talk about “Technology horizon scanning – emerging technologies and future threats” and Roman Peperhove presented his results on possible “Cyber-Insects attacks”. A more in detail list of these results is available on the project home page.

Session 2 was more about the epistemic and ethical implication of the project with a discussion about the “Freedom of knowledge in the era of emerging technologies”. Ewa Rokicka and Tal Soffer had their presentation about “The knowledge control dilemma” and in an enlightening panel discussion the drawbacks between scientific freedom of speech and security needs of society were discussed. On the on hand, it is necessary to do research about the dark side of technology.

Finally in Session 3 the policy implication were discussed with insights into how to prepare for future threats. Burkhard Auffermann had a presentation about “Coping with the threats: FESTOS policy recommendations and after some presentations about cyber security, as an example for a “not so new” thread alert, a wide range of national policy perspectives were discussed and examples of policy implementations due to FESTOS results were mentioned.

So the overall impression of the final conference was, that there are quite some valuable results and the direction of research is important to increase the resilience of our society. We wish the FESTOS Consortium good luck in their FESTOS 2 proposal.

Jari Kaivo-oja, a Foresight specialist in the FESTOS Consortium has graciously agreed to write a brief about FESTOS later on, which you will find then in the brief section of EFP.

A conference under the theme of “Foresight a Way to View the Future” was organized in Astana as part of the Innovation Forum devoted to the 20^th anniversary of Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Innovation Forum, which was opened by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Mr. Karim Masimov had the main objective to summarise the industrial and innovative development of Kasakhstan throughout the 20 years of its independence and to provide a platform for dialogue on prospective directions of innovative development of the country in the long run.

The Forum brought together representatives of government agencies, international agencies, Kazakhstani business, international partners, as well as existing and potential foreign partners for future collaborations.

Several events were hosted in the framework of the Innovation Forum: The first meeting of the Presidential Innovations Club, which was opened by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan H. E. Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Lean Technologies Conference, a Commercialisation Conference, the Foresight Conference, an Innovative Projects Exhibition and a Youth Debate Tournament on Innovations.

The Foresight Conference provided the opportunity to discuss preliminary results of the first Science and Technology Foresight in Kasakhstan in 2010 and 2011 with leading international institutions in the planning and orientation of government science and technology policies and the promotion of policy related foresight research that have experience in the establishment of National Foresight Programmes in a diversity of country contexts, such as the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP), the Japanese National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP), the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIOIR), the United National Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT). Taking into account the high importance attributed to the role of foresight in shaping the strategies to underpin Kazakhstan’s future industrial development, the organizers of the conference highly appreciated the presentation of the European Experience in Foresight Research that was held by AIT. The long list of European foresight initiatives, in which AIT continues to play a leading role have been imperative for the evolution of national and European S&T policy frameworks. The presentation of the European Foresight Platform (EFP) and the INFU project, which provides insights on new innovation patterns, such as open innovations, that will become widely diffused in the future provided a new understanding from a European perspective how foresight may be employed as a strategic tool to achieve a better understanding of plausible long-term scenarios for changing innovation processes and configurations and their implications for society and economy in the context of Kazakhstan’s future industrial development.

During the 27^th and 28^th of October, the iKnow project organized its final conference in Brussels under the theme “Towards a Strategic Issue Management System for Science, Technology and Innovation”. During the conference, new methods and tolls developed by iKnow to support foresight, horizon scanning and forward-looking activities (FLAs) were presented to a mixed audience of stakeholders from different academic and practitioner communities. The main objective of the conference was to launch the key recommendations and outcomes from the project that have wider applications to the European Research Area and many related future-oriented activities. The activities from a half-dozen workshops , over 60 interviews, large scale-Delphi surveys, systematic horizon scanning of over 1,000 ERA-relevant issues, the Practical Guide on Wild Cards and Weak Signals as well as the ERA toolkit were presented to a targeted audience that included supranational, national and sub-national actors involved in research and innovation policy shaping, risk analysis and strategic planning.

The thematic and methodological synergies between the European Foresight Platform (EFP) and the iKnow project, such as the development of the mapping framework, were presented during a panel session on the theme “Optimising Research and Collaboration Agendas”.

In sum, the final conference of the iKnow project was a good occasion to address the key issues underpinning the support activities carried out in the framework of the EFP project to a broad audience of interested stakeholders. The participation of the EFP in this conference was highly appreciated by the organizers of the iKnow conference and it offered a variety of interesting information relevant to the EFP as well as several opportunities for future collaboration of the EFP with a diversity of international foresight networks.