TY - JOUR
T1 - Policy lensing of future-oriented strategic intelligence
T2 - An experiment connecting foresight with decision making contexts
AU - Robinson, Douglas K.R.
AU - Schoen, Antoine
AU - Laredo, Philippe
AU - Molas Gallart, Jordi
AU - Warnke, Philine
AU - Kuhlmann, Stefan
AU - Ordonez Matamoros, Gonzalo
N1 - Funding Information:
Jordi Molas-Gallart is Research Professor and Deputy Director at INGENIO, a research institute of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Polytechnic University of Valencia. Before joining INGENIO, Jordi worked for 13 years at SPRU, University of Sussex. His research interests include science and technology policy evaluation and impact assessment. He has been a member of several European Commission expert groups, including the group on “Foresight on Key long-term Transformations of European systems: Research, Innovation and Higher Education”. He is President of the European Network of Indicator Designers (ENID), Chair of the Science Europe Working Group on Research Policy and Programme Evaluation and Spanish National Expert in the H2020 Programme Committee for Societal Challenge 6 (‘Europe in a changing world – Inclusive, Innovative and Reflective Societies’). He is the author of one book, and of more than 80 articles, book chapters, monographs and reports. He is co-editor of Research Evaluation, published by Oxford University Press.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2021/8/1
Y1 - 2021/8/1
N2 - The rich and complex outcomes of foresight activities are often difficult to translate into policy relevant intelligence. The struggle in connecting futures intelligence to policy making can be read as a basic challenge in foresight: working on futures intelligence has emerged as a way to improve policy, but once it is delegated to professional foresight practitioners with attendant quality and quality control, however, it also introduces a distance to policy making. Whilst independence and methodological rigour is desirable for high quality futures intelligence, bridging this intelligence with the policy context is essential for its use. Experiencing this challenge during a scenario exercise on the future European research and innovation system, the authors of this paper embarked on an experiment to go beyond evaluating the robustness of the scenarios, produced in a foresight exercise, by developing and applying “policy lenses” to translate the scenarios into policy tailored intelligence. This paper describes the experiment, which saw the development and application of three types of policy lenses: (1) a lens based on the layered processes of European policy making, (2) a lens based on three research and innovation policy priorities and (3) a lens on alternative geo-political situations of the European continent. The paper describes the logic behind the lenses, the interpretation of the original scenarios when viewed through these lenses, and then concludes by reflecting on how such an experiment could be generalised to other settings of policy-oriented foresight.
AB - The rich and complex outcomes of foresight activities are often difficult to translate into policy relevant intelligence. The struggle in connecting futures intelligence to policy making can be read as a basic challenge in foresight: working on futures intelligence has emerged as a way to improve policy, but once it is delegated to professional foresight practitioners with attendant quality and quality control, however, it also introduces a distance to policy making. Whilst independence and methodological rigour is desirable for high quality futures intelligence, bridging this intelligence with the policy context is essential for its use. Experiencing this challenge during a scenario exercise on the future European research and innovation system, the authors of this paper embarked on an experiment to go beyond evaluating the robustness of the scenarios, produced in a foresight exercise, by developing and applying “policy lenses” to translate the scenarios into policy tailored intelligence. This paper describes the experiment, which saw the development and application of three types of policy lenses: (1) a lens based on the layered processes of European policy making, (2) a lens based on three research and innovation policy priorities and (3) a lens on alternative geo-political situations of the European continent. The paper describes the logic behind the lenses, the interpretation of the original scenarios when viewed through these lenses, and then concludes by reflecting on how such an experiment could be generalised to other settings of policy-oriented foresight.
KW - 2022 OA procedure
KW - Innovation systems
KW - Mission-oriented policy
KW - Policy-lensing
KW - Research systems
KW - Scenarios
KW - Europeanisation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85108333248&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120803
DO - 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120803
M3 - Article
SN - 0040-1625
VL - 169
JO - Technological forecasting and social change
JF - Technological forecasting and social change
M1 - 120803
ER -