Marcio de Miranda Santos: Analysing Big Data is important to agree on “starting points” for moving on into the future
Marcio de Miranda Santos, executive director of the Centre for Strategic Studies and Management of Science, Technology and Innovation (CGEE) (Brazil) spoke during his presentation at the Foresight Conference about the new tools for monitoring and analysing global and national STI trends. The presented tools allow to collect and process large volumes of data, and distribute the results among participants of foresight studies. Some of these tools were designed jointly with the Foresight Centre of the Higher School of Economics.
Ted Fuller on the humane attitude to the future and foresight practitioners’ responsibility
The first session of the International academic conference "Foresight and STI Policy" devoted to new trends and tools in futures studies opened with a presentation by Ted Fuller, professor at the University of Lincoln (UK) and editor-in-chief of Futures scientific journal. He analysed specific features of foresight methodology’s evolution, highlighting several drivers prompting the changes.
Figure of the day: 60%
of managers at industrial manufacturing companies in Russia are not holding out hope for positive changes in investment dynamics in 2016. These data are presented in a new Monitoring the Investment Activity at Large and Medium-Sized Industrial Enterprises, which was prepared by the Centre for Business Tendency Studies at the HSE ISSEK. The report uses the results of a pilot survey of more than 1,000 active investment and industrial organizations that HSE commissioned from ANO Statistics of Russia.
Figure of the day: 15%
of Russian parents help their school-age children with their homework, or even do it with them. These data were obtained during a survey of Russian families with children under the age of 25 that was conducted in September 2015. The survey was part of a Monitoring of Education Markets and Organizations study conducted by HSE in collaboration with the Public Opinion Foundation.
Text mining helps to look into the future
Text mining allows to forecast development of technologies and markets, assess the level of experts’ competence, and identify the most promising R&D trends. Ilya Kuzminov, leading expert at HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge, spoke about the latest developments in the text mining area at the International Conference “Foresight and STI Policy”.
Fifth International Academic Conference on Foresight and STI Policy held in Moscow
The fifth International Academic Conference on Foresight and STI Policy took place at the Russian National Research University – Higher School of Economics (HSE, Moscow) on 18-20 November 2015. The conference was organized under the auspices of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. Among the speakers of the conference were officials and experts from Russia and other countries.
Innovations in Russia often remain on paper
Large state research organisations in Russia are quite actively making themselves known on the pages of scientific journals, but visibly lag behind foreign companies in terms of actual results of their intellectual activities, such as new technologies registered as patents, utility models, and design specifications. This was the topic of report entitled “Assessing Results Produced by State Research Organisations in Russia” presented at the “STI Policy” session of HSE International Academic Conference “Foresight and STI Policy” by Konstantin Fursov, head of HSE ISSEK’s R&D Performance Analysis section.
Figure of the day: 15%
of Russians agree that too much importance today is attached to the achievements of science and technology, which is to the detriment of the spiritual side of life. These data were obtained during the public opinion survey that was carried out for the Monitoring Survey of Innovative Behavior of the Population for 2014.
Higher School of Economics became a coordinator of the International Foresight Centers Network
National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) and Brazilian Center for Strategic Studies and Management in Science, Technology and Innovation (CGEE) founded an International Foresight Centers Network. The Letter of Intent was signed on November 20, 2015, on the concluding day of HSE V Annual International Academic Conference on Foresight and STI Policy.
The Public Should Take Part in Setting Research Priorities, in Order to Benefit from its Results
Research and development priorities should be set with the interests of the state, business community and general public in mind, since it is the public who will, in the end, be the most important consumers of the results of scientific research. Support for fundamental science must not come at the expense of the humanities, engineering and design – which all provide added value. A discussion on promising areas for development in Russian science opened the 5th International conference "Foresight and science, technology and innovation policy" organised by the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge at HSE.