Foresight Training in Manchester

In the middle of the summer, two events, landmark to Foresight experts, took place in Manchester (UK): RADMA R&D management conference, and the annual Foresight training which is considered a “must” and a “quality mark” by all practitioners in the field. The week-long course programme largely consisted of lectures delivered by staff members of the International Research and Educational Foresight Centre, or by its long-standing partners.

The speakers included head of the ISSEK Laboratory for Economics of Innovation, professor at the Manchester University Ian Miles; the HSE research professor and editor-in-chief of the international Foresight journal Ozcan Saritas, and President of the International Advisory Board for the ISSEK Foresight Centre, Vice-president for research and innovation of the University of Manchester Luke Georghiou. Presentations made by their university colleagues also attracted a lot of interest, among them were the patriarch of the Manchester Foresight training courses Denis Loveridge, and young researchers, established Foresight practitioners including Rafael Popper (in addition to his research work he’s head of Futures Diamond company, and manages a large European project iKnow — Innovation, Foresight and Horizon Scanning System), Joe Ravetz, co-director of the CURE (Centre for Urban & Regional Ecology), and other prominent experts.

Russian Foresight was represented by Alexander Chulok and Lubov Matich, staff members of ISSEK

The audience of the training courses was sufficiently diverse, comprising trainees from the UK, Germany, Italy, Finland (developed countries where Foresight studies were regularly conducted for a long time), and developing countries which are eagerly adopting Foresight tools and techniques to develop and implement their S&T and innovation policy (such as Brazil, Peru, Thailand, and Turkey). Russian Foresight was represented by Alexander Chulok and Lubov Matich, staff members of ISSEK.

The course programme, designed according to the General-to-Specific pattern, included presentations on the concept of Foresight, and practical workshops on setting up Foresight projects and identifying specific priorities for S&T development.

The introductory lecture on Foresight evolution was delivered by Professor Ian Miles. He quoted the statistics illustrating the growing popularity of this methodoly: judging by the number of works published after 1993 whose titles included the phrase “Technology Foresight”, it was way ahead of “Technology Forecasting”, “Technology Future”, etc. However, explosive popularity growth has a downside too: numerous examples of “faux” Foresight, when people who claim to conduct Foresight studies in fact have no grasp of the methodology, or apply it in a wrong way.

Ozcan Saritas spoke about general principles and stages of Foresight studies, and various combinations of relevant techniques. He also presented his Systemic Foresight methodology, and a review of road maps — one of the most popular Foresight tools which allows to graphically link future prospects with available resources and existing limitations. The speaker demonstrated some of the existing road maps, including ones developed at HSE, particularly for catalysts.

Coaching on practical aspects of Foresight studies was continued by Rafael Popper, who presented 25 principal techniques (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed). The speaker paid particular attention to online tools for conducting Delphi surveys. The audience took part in one such poll, and then analysed the results. Joe Ravetz also invited the trainees to take part in an interactive presentation devoted to different stages of Foresight projects concerning the development of public health care system.

Luke Georghiou, vice-president of the University of Manchester, reviewed the national UK Foresight study “8 Great Technologies”, based on which experts have identified graphene as one of the key elements of development strategy for the whole British industry. We’d like to note that the material was discovered by Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, physicists of Russian descent from the University of Manchester, who were awarded the Nobel Prize for this breakthrough.

Many of the speakers noted two key trends typical to Foresight projects in countries, which are considered to be “trend setters” in the field: conducting national Foresight studies in a sustainable, cyclic mode, and focusing projects on sufficiently narrow, problem-oriented areas connected with global challenges and their country-specific manifestation, e.g. public health, environment, urbanisation.

The audience of the training courses used the information disseminated at the presentations to design their own Foresight projects during practical workshops. This year the organisers invited participants to analyse future prospects of medicine. During the workshops the students, divided into groups of 6-8 people, outlined possible developments in this field in three aspects. One group analysed the potential of genomics, another – of personal health systems, and the third one considered preventive steps to respond to such challenge as ageing society. Each group identified trends and built scenarios. The groups with Russian participation in effect did more than it was required (in particular, one of them designed a prototype road map), and got the highest marks.

Alexander Chulok presented results of the long-term Russian S&T Foresight

 “Actually, the word “Russia” was mentioned every day”, says Alexander Chulok. “For example, speaking about road maps, Rafael Popper noted that in terms of visual presentation, the most informative road maps he’d ever seen were the ones designed at Higher School of Economics. Ozcan Saritas also referred to them presenting his Systemic Foresight methodology”. Also noteworthy is the fact that for the first time in the history of the Manchester Foresight training courses (organised since the late 1990s), a trainee gave a presentation along with the lecturers. Alexander Chulok was invited to speak about the results of the long-term S&T Foresight. According to Ian Miles, one of the founders and permanent leaders of the Manchester Foresight courses and head of an international research laboratory at the ISSEK, “the presentation of the Russian work was made very well, and obviously impressed people”. At the same time he suggested that it was so sophisticated and large-scale that some participants would probably have felt that they could never aim at something so ambitious. “The courses have attracted roughly similar sorts and mixes of people over the years”, noted the professor. “Some years people are more vocal and sometimes more challenging. The Russian participants generally seem well-informed; so much so that I have been surprised several times by the very positive feedback they have usually given, that they have found new ideas!”

Ian Miles noted that the main goal of the training was to give practitioners, would-be practitioners and users sufficient knowledge to make well-informed decisions about the conduct and interpretation of Foresight work. “While we present our views, this is not intended to be primarily a push for our own approaches or a sales exercise for our own competences,” stressed professor Miles.

Due to its long-standing traditions and richly experienced professors (e.g. the leading speakers made major contribution to establishing the UNIDO Technology Foresight courses, and have practical experience of conducting Foresight projects in dozens of countries), the Manchester Foresight training was a good venue for discussing the Russian project on developing national Technology Foresight system, which is currently being launched. Some of the trainees — mainly from Germany, Brazil and Finland — also suggested a number of practical recommendations. E.g. Finnish experts noted that a compulsory element in their national Foresight system was validation of the selected projects and technologies by international experts, particularly regarding S&T priority setting. Brazilians focused on building efficient Foresight infrastructure, and on making sure to involve universities in Foresight studies.

Students from Higher School of Economics noted a well thought-out cultural programme. Specifically, they remembered the visit to the Museum of Science and Industry, where they had a literally “hands-on” experience with, for example, path dependence in industrial design, which sets a development paradigm for quite a long time in the future.

The typically English weather also contributed to active studies. It was dank and raining the whole week, and the sun only smiled to the participants to say good bye — probably to see them off to a better future.

 

Written by Lubov Matich and Elena Gutaruk