This activity was conducted as part of the EU FP7 CIVISTI project (Citizen Visions on Science, Technology and Innovation) funded through FP7 under the Social Sciences and Humanities theme. The project aimed to develop and pilot a cost-effective mechanism for involving citizens in the formulation of European science, technology and research policy. A number of new and emerging issues for European S&T were identified, leading to the development of a set of recommendations for future European framework programmes.
Posts Tagged ‘technology’
EFP Brief No. 204: Citizen Visions on Science, Technology and Innovation
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011EFP Brief No. 192: Delphi-based Disruptive and Surprising Transformation Scenarios on the Future of Aviation
Thursday, August 18th, 2011Our study intends to present disruptive and challenging events, i.e. wildcard scenarios, with a significant impact on the aviation industry. We aim to assist decision and policy makers in preparing for the future and enrich decision making processes on possible courses of action by presenting a robust and reliable decision support system and creating awareness for opportunities in strategy and policy. We demonstrate how a Delphi survey (in our case a real-time variant) can be applied as a starting point to systematically develop wildcard scenarios by conducting a deductive wildcard analysis.
EFP Brief No. 186: Is Technology Still Enough to Change the World?
Thursday, August 4th, 2011The EU has a long tradition of legitimating its policies based on its “technical charisma”. The European Commission’s initiatives are justified economically and supported politically through a strong link between science and policy-making. In this framework, forward-looking activities and quantitative models play a critical role, even more so in the field of R&D. It thus comes at no surprise that several FTA exercises have been implemented in the industrial technologies area in order to define priorities for research and to set up the R&D agenda.
EFP Brief No. 183: Prospects of Quantum Key Distribution: Making Data Communication Secure for the Future
Tuesday, July 19th, 2011The application of the highest information-theoretically secure cryptographic primitives for securing data transmission was long considered unfeasible because of a missing primitive for the distribution of the necessary cryptographic keys between sender and receiver ensuring a comparable level of security. With quantum key distribution (QKD), a technology has been invented that enables the generation and distribution of appropriate cryptographic. ETSI started a standardisation initiative including foresight elements looking into the next ten years of QKD applications.
EFP Brief No. 177: Scenario Workshops GM Crops and Foods
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011Five scenario building workshops were organised in autumn 2008, each involving students of different disciplines and a school class. In the workshops, the lay participants developed scenarios on the future development and use of genetically modified crops and foods in Germany. The underlying driving forces and the resulting opportunities and risks were discussed. The aim of the project was to develop and test a new approach for scenario building workshops with laypeople and to contribute to the debates on future research agendas for genetic engineering in the agriculture and food sector.
EFP Brief No. 176: Foresighting the AgriClimate Ecology
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011This exercise was part of an EU FP7 Blue Skies Project aimed at piloting, developing and testing in real situations a foresight methodology designed to bring together key stakeholders to explore the longer term challenges that face their sector (or cut across sectors) and to build a shared vision that could guide the development of the relevant European research agenda. This approach was applied to the first theme selected, namely “Application of Breakthrough Technologies to Adaptation to Climate Change in Agriculture”. This met the criteria for a sectorally driven topic, was research-driven and involved a clear and vital European policy challenge. Moreover, from an early stage, there was strong stakeholder engagement from the Standing Committee on Agricultural Research and the Directorate-General for Research in Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Aquaculture.
