European Journal of Futures Research

Innovation policy and international relations: directions for EU diplomacy Abstract This paper explores how innovation becomes an increasingly important topic in international relations, with a deep impact on collaboration as well as on competition between countries. It analyses how certain key patterns of techno-economic change lead to changes in the global distribution of innovative activities around the world and how this affects the institutions for global governance. It outlines three near-future scenarios of the international politics of innovation. The first, called “populism and protectionism”, describes an international environment which is dominated by populist and nationalist tendencies. The second outlines the approach of “innovation as a global public good”, in which everybody benefits, and global collaboration is the dominant model. The third scenario combines a few innovation forces in society, which can be captured as “bottom-up innovation”. These scenarios are then brought together in a single framework in which international dimensions of innovation policies that relate to a specific scenario can be mapped. In a next step, the potential consequences for international relations and innovation diplomacy are presented. The final paragraph discusses what Europe can and should do in its external relations to provide adequate answers to the forces outlined in the three scenarios. It results in a vision, which is based on the combination of four policy directions. Together, these offer a framework for aligning the different stakeholders, at the local, regional, national and European level.

Hybrid leadership councils: envisioning inclusive and resilient governance Abstract To address future challenges of planetary decision-making on key ecological and social issues in an increasingly nationalistic world, we propose a new global governance model of technocratic ascendancy that can be integrated with quasi-democratic norms. Our model proposes the creation of a series of self-organized “Hybrid Leadership Assemblies” (HLA) led by “Hybrid Leadership Councils (HLC)” and supported by a number of more specialized Issue Action Committees (IACs) in five key issue areas: Environmental Protection and Climate Change Management, Security from Armed Conflict, Fighting Poverty and Inequality, Managing Population Growth, and Women’s Inclusion. Inspired by the popular environmental slogan, “Think global, act local,” our proposed governance model makes a revived subsidiarity principle central to its re-imagination of global governance as a non-hierarchical system of organization. In addition to creating opportunities to approach challenges at multiple levels of governance, our broadly participative model also makes innovative networking across different groups, levels of governance, and issues integral to solving complex socio-ecological problems.

Will vehicle data be shared to address the how, where, and who of traffic accidents? Abstract Vehicles are increasingly equipped with sensors that measure the state of the vehicle and surrounding road users. Although most of these sensor data currently remain local to the vehicle, the data could be shared with the aim to improve road safety. We postulate that there is a range of scenarios regarding data sharing, with two extremes: In scenario 1, the acquired shared data will be analysed regarding the how, where, and who of road traffic errors, violations, and accidents; actions can then be taken to improve automated driving systems, manage accident hotspots, and provide personalised feedback, rewards, or penalties to road users. In scenario 2, the recorded data will not be shared, because of privacy concerns. We conclude that there exists a tension between a position of utilitarian use of data and a position of privacy.

Future smart energy software houses Abstract Software is the key enabling technology (KET) as digitalization is cross-cutting future energy systems spanning the production sites, distribution networks, and consumers particularly in electricity smart grids. In this paper, we identify systematically what particular software competencies are required in the future energy systems focusing on electricity system smart grids. The realizations of that can then be roadmapped to specific software capabilities of the different future ‘software houses’ across the networks. Our instrumental method is software competence development scenario path construction with environmental scanning of the related systems elements. The vision of future software-enabled smart energy systems with software houses is mapped with the already progressing scenarios of energy systems transitions on the one hand coupled with the technology foresight of software on the other hand. Grounding on the Smart Grid Reference Architecture Model (SGAM), it tabulates the distinguished software competencies and attributes them to the different parties—including customers/consumers (Internet of People, IoP)—involved in future smart energy systems. The resulting designations can then be used to recognize and measure the necessary software competencies (e.g., fog computing) in order to be able to develop them in-house, or for instance to partner with software companies, depending on the future desirability. Software-intensive systems development competence becomes one of the key success factors for such cyber-physical-social systems (CPSS). Further futures research work is chartered with the Futures Map frame. This paper contributes preliminarily toward that by identifying pictures of the software-enabled futures and the connecting software competence-based scenario paths.

Assessing the emergence of bioeconomy by the radical technology inquirer tool Abstract This paper reports research results from the application of the Radical Technology Inquirer (RTI) approach on the emergence of bioeconomy as part of the mega wave of socio-technical change that has taken off with the global financial crisis of ca. 2008 and is expected to peak around 2030. The appearance of bioeconomy-related phenomena on this wave was found to be strongly related on the one hand to eight Global Value-Producing Networks (GVNs), and on the other hand on 14 Radical Technological Solutions (RTS). A correlation of these two types of findings reveals an even smaller number of highly promising global value networks (on health, quality of life, and governance) and technological breakthroughs (on DNA research, biosensors, and industrial use of GMOs). The latter appear to follow mostly converging technological pathways, with the bio-info convergence pattern playing the dominant role.

CO 2 reduction costs and benefits in transport: socio-technical scenarios Abstract The transport sector produces 23% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally. While the mitigation of climate change requires GHG emissions to be drastically reduced, the emissions from the transport sector are expected to grow. The purpose of this study is to produce alternative scenarios which meet the target of 80% CO2 emission reduction by 2050 for the Finnish transport sector and to analyse the carbon abatement potentials, costs and benefits of the required behavioural and technological measures. We found that the most cost-efficient measure for the society is to support a shift from private car use to shared car use through increasing car-sharing and ride-sharing. Aiming to reach the emission reduction targets solely through technological measures would require a rapid uptake of alternative energies and the society would not receive the possible benefits, including health benefits, energy savings and fixed car cost savings.

Connective knowledge: what we need to know about other fields to ‘envision’ cross-disciplinary collaboration Abstract This paper centralises the question of what academics in higher education settings need to know about other fields to stimulate cross-disciplinary collaborative work. The concept of ‘knowledge’, while recognised as important within cross-disciplinary studies, has failed to be properly problematized. Little attention has been paid to what cross-disciplinary knowledge actors should possess, the purposes that knowledge might serve and few pause to consider the concept of collaboration itself, as an inherent source of situated learning. The result is recommendations about what researchers should ‘know’ that cannot be operationalised in practice. Highlighting a distinction between ‘Of-Knowledge’, entailing a detailed understanding of a field, and ‘About-Knowledge’, a rudimentary form of knowledge about fields, we explore two key points of the cross-disciplinary collaborative life-cycle to evaluate the needs, purposes, limits and possibilities of knowing. Noting that cross-disciplinary learning is a long process, and for which no pre-packaged ‘knowledge’ emerges to address the kinds of cognitive deficits that researchers typically identify, we argue that collaboration itself provides a non-substitutable venue for cross-disciplinary learning. In contrast, focusing on the point of ‘envisioning’ where specialisms are ‘scoped out’ and collaborative horizons ‘mapped’, we argue for efforts to be placed in enhancing researchers’ ‘About-Knowledge’, a form of connective knowledge that extends researchers’ basic knowledge about other fields prior to constructing collaborative projects. Critical for the aspirations of futures research, and the importance of fostering global, national, regional and local collaboration, we highlight how a little knowledge can go a long way.

Citizen visions for European futures—methodological considerations and implications Abstract In recent years, citizen involvement has been increasingly recognised as a source of complementary insights to expert-based foresight. This article analyses citizen visions on desirable and sustainable futures gathered in three recent European involvement projects and reviews how the methodology of topic modelling can be applied to identify commonalities in the visions and how the identified topics are distributed across the citizen involvement projects. A common topic addressing a European citizen desire for wide-ranging societal development with an emphasis on education was identified in the modelling. In addition, three specific topics that correspond to the foci of each involvement project were evident: ‘local production’, ‘cultural variety’ and ‘concerned collectives’. Hence, the results indicate that there are further opportunities for further citizen involvement activities and that specifically focused open-ended envisioning events can contribute to unique sets of citizen-induced topics for the future. These results are particularly useful for the institutionalisation of citizen involvement in foresight studies.

Urban energy futures: a comparative analysis Abstract No contemporary major city is sustainable, with current population and levels of consumption, beyond the fossil fuels which have facilitated what has appropriately been called “high-energy modernity.” At present, there appears to be no realistic possibility in any major city of replacing most of the energy from fossil fuels with renewable energy. Even in cities which could get most of their electricity from renewables, there is still a heavy reliance on motorized transport of people, goods, and food into and around the city. There does not appear to be a way to power and reproduce these fleets of vehicles solely with renewable energy, and most cities are not sustainable at their current size and density without them. But cities and regions vary in sustainability depending on local renewable energy sources, hinterland food production, population, extent of urban sprawl, and access to water-borne transportation. This paper identifies the features of more sustainable versus less sustainable cities, with examples from Asia, the Americas, and Europe. Case studies of two cities—Hong Kong and Vancouver, B.C.—are used to illustrate the analysis.

Corporate foresight: developing a process model Abstract Based on previous studies on corporate foresight, companies and organizations still suffer from the lack of a framework to encounter future economic conditions as well as assuring all relevant external changes and providing proper responses. This study developed capabilities of corporate foresight and the ability for companies and organizations to utilize foresight activities successfully. The research methodology of this study was mixed. The first step of this study was to extract components to devise a proposed model. The second step of this study was to validate the proposed model quantitatively. Findings indicate that the proposed framework of the study facilitated the analysis of future scenarios and developed a strategy by incorporating foresight methodologies. Part of the strategic planning included a plan for companies to recover against discontinuous changes and yield to decrease the uncertainty of companies.