Narratives:The German BMBF Foresight Process

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The BMBF Foresight Process has been running from November 2007 to June 2009. It was commissioned by BMBF – the German Ministry for Research and Education with the following official objectives: (1) Identification of new focuses in research and technology; (2) Designation of areas for cross-cutting activities; (3) Exploration of fields for strategic partnerships; (4) Derivation of priority activity lines for R&D policy. The project was carried out by two Fraunhofer Institutes: The Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO).

Context

There were four main context parameters influencing the design upfront as well as throughout the process:

• The BMBF organisational structure which is characterised by a number of departments each holding responsibility for a dedicated technology or innovation area and each running strategic processes to define priorities. The strategic department that is responsible for the High-Tech Strategy as well as Foresight is located at the same hierarchical level as the technological departments. It has no mandate to define priorities for the technical department but its proposals can be “enforced” by the minister.

Picture 1. Foresight within the BMBF organisational chart

• The German High-Tech-Strategy that was already in place when the foresight started had defined a set of key technologies as well as four key lead markets. The Foresight was meant to operate independently from the High-Tech Stratgey complementing its mid-term range with a long term perspective.
• The legacy of the preceding exercise FUTUR that had been highly participatory involving a wide range of stakeholders including citizens and came up with seven priority fields few of which had found their way into BMBF policy. Many BMBF actors felt through FUTUR priorities were to be imposed on their own strategic planning. Accordingly the Foresight had to face an atmosphere of mistrust and scepticism towards Foresight within BMBF but also within the wider innovation system where many people who had been actively involved into FUTUR were disappointed on the little impact.
• The federal elections in Germany autumn 2009.

The Foresight Design

As an immediate consequence of these context parameters the Foresight department adopted a rather careful “undercover” approach with little publicity within or even beyond BMBF at the outset. Furthermore there was a pointed absence of dialogic an participatory elements. It was carefully avoided to present any outcomes before the elections in order not to tie the Foresight to the current political situation. Later on when the results were communicated within BMBF the strategic department emphasised the service function of Foresigfht to the departments.

The concept proposed by the consortium answered to these requirements by proposing the following set of methods for identifying emerging S&T topics:

• high level expert workshop for structuring the STI landscape
• bibliometric identification of top-cited articles
• in-depth desk research and literature review
• expert interviews
• online expert survey for assessment of STI topics
• high level international expert panel with two mebers per STI field to be interviewed twice

Participation

The notion of expert was applied in a strict sense of highly recognised competence in STI fields with a few social scientists included into the survey. Through the international monitoring panel expertise from xxx international top-experts was gathered. In the online survey 10000 selected experts were approached and xxxx gave at least a partial answer. In the first workshop xxx experts participated, most of them distinguished researchers and representatives of key players in the German ST landscape. In the final conference the audience was opened up a little for the first time with xxx invited participants who had the opportunity to discuss the outcomes with the project team.

Focus

In response to the BMBF requirements the Foresight adopted an explicit technology push perspective without any reference to socio-economic framework conditions. Accordingly throughout the first phase the focus was strictly on identification of emerging S&T topics. Later in the process, when the crosscutting priorities were defined response to future socio-economic framework conditions was used as assessment criterion.

Scope

As a starting point for the analysis the 14 HTS STI fields were adopted with only slight modifications. Social Science was not taken into account even though there is a department funding social science research in BMBF. For each HTS field, two theme-co-ordinators from the two Fraunhofer-Institutes were appointed to carry out the review of the field. This structure was kept throughout the Foresight exercise.

Running the Foresight

In the course of the Foresight the original concept was modified and revised several times in response to changing requirements of the client e.g. due to the appointment of a new head of unit. Also the approach was adapted in a responsive way to accommodate the nature of the outcomes.

The following steps can be distinguished:

Structuring

The initial structuring of the field was carried out within the expert workshop as outlined above. To allow for cross-cutting perspectives two thematic groups (e.g. nanotechnology and materials science) were working together. As a result, each of the 14 fields came out with a structured mindmap that formed the point of departure for the analysis of the theme coordinators and the international expert interviews. The initial topics were assessed with respect to long-term relevance as well as degree of adoption by BMBF. The most important long-term topics with little BMBF adoption were considered the most interesting for the Foresight process.

Scanning

Using the structure of the mindmap, the coordinators carried out an in-depth scanning of emerging long term topics through desk research, bibliometric analysis and national expert interviews. The members of the international monitoring panels were interviewed in depth to assess emerging topics in their field. Throughout the scanning the theme coordinators checked for overlaps.

Assessment

All topics identified were assessed with respect to criteria defined by BMBF:

• Long-term relevance (more than 10-15 years)
• Relevance to German industry
• Relevance to environment
• Relevance to quality of life

The highest scoring topics were subjected to an online survey were the topics were assessed with respect to these criteria again by a wider group of experts. For each of the 14 fields experts were selected to participate in the survey. However, respondents were free to answer questions in other than their core field of expertise. The same assessment was requested from the members of the international monitoring panel. Finally, taking all the assessments into account, the theme-coordinators selected between 5 and ten top-future topics within their fields.

In-depth information on the methods deployed for the identification of emerging S&T topics can be found in the first report.

Synopsis

At some point during the scanning, a researcher from the Foresight team reviewed the relevant long-term topics in all fourteen fields and identified “nodes” i.e. perspectives were a number of topics seemed to be converging to. These nodes were tentatively sketched and put up for debate with the theme co-ordinators, BMBF and the external experts.

It turned out that there were two main rationales for forming these new fields:

• Bottom up science and technology dynamics

Emerging S&T topics that could not be adequately addressed within the established S&T framework

• Dynamics of socio-economic framework conditions

Future challenges that could not adequately be addressed within the existing S&T framework.

In this way four priority areas were identified: ProductionConsumption2.0, Future Living-Spaces, Human-Technology-Cooperation, Generic Modelling Issues. Later on three more were added: Understanding Ageing, Time research, Energy pathways. The names were a constant source of debate and changed a number of times.

Prospective TIS Analysis

In a next step, for each new area the team elaborated the main lines of research and identified potential actor constellations for addressing these issue on the base of interviews, desk research and bibliometric analysis. In two cases, workshops were carried out where researchers from different fields discussed the proposals of the team.

Recommendations

For each field recommendations for BMBF for implementation were elaborated on the base of the findings of the previous steps

Embedding into BMBF

After the future topics and new future fields were tentatively fixed the strategic department decided to introduce the findings to the S&I departments on request. Accordingly, after some time the report was sent to all departments and the foresight team presented both, the findings in the established areas and the proposed future priority areas, to selected departments. In most cases the synopsis work was appreciated departments as a welcome complementary perspective allowing them to situate their own field in the bigger picture whereas the findings in their own arena were sometimes contested.

Finally, a short paper summarizing the new priority fields was agreed upon by all departments and submitted to the minister.

Communication to the public

In a final conference the results were presented to a selected audience of ca. 200 S&T actors. The new priority areas were presented and discussed. However, the reports were not published till now.

Tangible Outcomes

In its several reports, the Foresight produced the following main outcomes:

• Within fourteen established Research and Innovation areas:
  • Detailed review of current expectations on upcoming research topics
  • Assessment of long term relevance of these topics
• Proposal of eight new priority areas for research and innovation including
  • Sketching of potential actor constellations for each area
  • Recommendations for building up the area

Evaluation

The Foresight was complemented by an evaluation that monitored the effect of several individual elements such as the presentations to the departments. You can read more about the evaluation of the BMBF-Foresight-Process here.

Follow-Up

In immediate follow-up to the Foresight process the BMBF strategic departments launched the following three activities:

• Workshops with several departments to discuss ways of addressing the new priority areas
• Strategic dialogues in the innovation system around the new priority areas
• Tracking system to observe the development of the new areas and of the relevant socio-economic and technological framework conditions

Practitioners Conclusion

The process seems a striking example of the strong embedding of S&T perspectives into the institutional framework. Any priority identification is bound to reproduce the existing frame of thinking. As soon as a new proposal transcends this framework it will automatically challenge the organisational structure.

Theoretical perspectives

It would be interesting to explore what the BMBF Foresight experience implies for possibilities to turn an optimization approach into disruptive foresight or mode2 foresight that is recognizing change in the conditions of change (Riel Miller). In a way and extremely strong intra-systemic optimization approach turned into recognition of extra systemic change without any explicit methodological attempt to do so. Maybe in a classical STI policy context disruptive foresight is only possible in a Trojan Horse manner?

The follow up activities show a strong tendency towards "embedded foresight" which is discussed as the latest foresight generation.

The search framework shaped by HTS and BMBF organisational chart can be interpreted as Ansoffs mentality filter.

The BMBF Foresight Process http://www.bmbf.de/en/12673.php The German High-Tech-Strategy http://www.hightech-strategie.de/en/350.php