grand challenges and uk foresight

Manchester Institute of Innovation Research

European Foresight Platform Conference - September 2012

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Grand Challenges and UK Foresight

Ian Miles

September 2012

Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, MBS, UK and Research Laboratory for the Economics of Innovation, HSE,

Moscow)



MIIRO Grand Challenges

• Water security and vulnerability• Energy security and vulnerability• Health, illness, well being• Sustainability and climate change• Ageing and demographic issues• Food security and culture• Globalization and localization• Social cohesion and diversity• Technological security, hazard & risk• Consumption and behavioural

change• Innovation, knowledge & technology• Work-life balance and mental health• Science, technology, ethics• Crime, security, justice• Governance, democracy, citizenship• Coexistence and conflict• Social pathologies and ethics• Social exclusion, poverty, affluence• Economic prosperity and dynamics• Urban and rural dynamics• Education and skills dynamics

Multi-disciplinaryProblems

Multi-StakeholderResponses

21 Grand Challenges – major problem areas, where interdisciplinary research is required- for EU identified in “ERA Toolkit” at

http://community.iknowfutures.eu/

Globally, pervasive problems include: Climate Change; Demographics/ Ageing/ Health; Security of Water/Energy/Food Supplies.Grand Challenges involve not so much Grand Solutions, as Great Responses



MIIRO “We don’t do Grand Challenges”



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3 Cycles, 18 years of the National Foresight ProgrammeWe do do Foresight

Much documentation on website, http://www.foresight.gov.uk though some older material has been discarded



MIIRO We do do Foresight

Foresight and related activities well beyond Programme

More policy innovation orientedMore policy innovation orientedMore STI orientedMore STI oriented

(Little social innovation)(Little social innovation)

Foresight Programme

DGRC projects

Research Council projects

RC & TSB prioritisation

DEFRA “horizon

scanning”NHS,HSE

horizon scanning

Risk Agency

Strategy Unit

Government departments

The are also many regional and nongovernmental activities


Foresight – British Council/Argentinian Visitors February 2012

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First Cycle (1990s) Foresight Panels: Mix of technology and “demand”

• ANRIE Agriculture, Horticulture & Forestry

• Natural Resources & Environment

• Marine

• Leisure & Learning

• Food & Drink

• Retail & Distribution

• Transport

• Financial Services

• Defence & Aerospace

• Health & Life Sciences

• Manufacturing, Production & Business Processes • Chemicals • Construction • Energy • Materials

• IT, Electronics & Communications

S&T users

S&Tproducers All sectors examined drivers

of change, often involving GCs for which they considered responses



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Key priority

areas

Key priority

areas

Inter-mediate

areas

Inter-mediate

areas

Emerging areas

Emerging areas

Feasibility Feasibility

Att

ract

iven

ess

Att

ract

iven

ess

<1/4 Steering Group Priorities



MIIRO The Third Cycle (ongoing)

• Foresight relaunched in 2002.• The role of UK Foresight Programme now is NOT setting

overall priorities.• This is largely carried out in the public sphere by (1)

Research Councils [more basic research] and (2) the Technology Strategy Board [more applied research]. Also (3) many government departments (ministries) also fund research, especially DEFRA, DoH.

• The Foresight Programme runs projects, horizon-scanning, plus some wider overviews



MIIRO Third Cycle

• Focused Foresight , which is NOT:– setting overall priorities.– (generally) a matter of assessing a wide spectrum of technologies.– trying to “wire up” the innovation system overall– run around a set of standing (sector/technology) panels

• At any one time there is a mix of projects (problem-driven vs. technology-driven; starting vs. concluding)

• Aiming to:– inform (not instruct) public and private research funders, policy

more generally– address issues which cross government department boundaries –

“joined up government”

• Embedded; evaluated in 2007 as successful and value for money.



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• Projects range over many areas of “technology-push” and

“demand-pull”.• They vary in

organisation, but typically:

– Aim to last 2 years (+)– Pre-history:

will only launch only if major stakeholder

can be located who will

engage with and champion the project

SEPT.2012

Third Cycle project focus



MIIRO Third Cycle - methods

• Begin with initial scoping seminar, • Literature and horizon scanning, in-house and external

support, • State of science review• Use of futures techniques (eg scenarios) deliberately to

avoid relying upon extrapolation or Business as Usual• Limited roles of panels, strong roles for coordinator(s)

and key experts.• Delivery target: overview, vision of what success will

look like, recommendations for action, • Create/ mobilise Networks that are willing and able to

take recommendations forward• One-year review of success after project official

completion (is this enough?)



MIIRO 3rd Cycle Approach

• Get range of ideas, locate high-level support• Limited roles for panels, strong roles for

coordinator(s) and key experts• Begin with initial scoping seminar• Literature and horizon scanning, in-house and

external support -> State of science review• Develop scenarios and appraise opportunities

(success) - avoiding simple extrapolation or Business as Usual

• Delivery target: overview, vision of what success will look like, recommendations for action,

• Seek implementation through networks willing and able to take recommendations forward

• One-year review of success after project official completion (is this enough?)

• Impacts on broad policies, not just “classic” STI



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•Click to edit Master text styles Second levelThird levelFourth levelFifth level

DIID Roadmap - technology to identify & characterise infectious diseases - designing smart swabs, hand-held or

portable devices to analyse fluids.



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•Click to edit Master text styles Second levelThird levelFourth levelFifth level

DIID Impacts

R&D funding announcement 2008: £55m over 5 years STI

International policy impacts – FAO summit agr

communique 2006, new Crisis Management Centre

- 25 African institutions collaboration in SACIDS – “major funding from donors” agr/h

UK stakeholders – better awareness of underlying challenges(s), and scope for radical innovation in future responses agr/h

Defra Biosecurity Chip 2006-9 £1.5bn env/agr



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Other Foresight Programme Activities

• Foresight Unit also coordinates horizon-scanning across UK government



MIIRO Other Activities - 1



MIIRO Horizon Scanning and Other Activities



MIIRO Technology and Innovation Futures

Expert group:•Undertook interviews and workshops with 180 representatives from industry, research,•international institutions and social enterprises•Identified 53 technologies which are•likely to be important to the UK in the 2020s, (comparative advantages, future needs, potential market size). “As the UK comes out of the economic downturn, it seems likely that future economic prosperity will derive in large part from seizing opportunities offered by technologies such as these.”•53 technologies - 28 clusters – 7 cross-cutting areas (But 4 main groups for workshops etc.)

2010 (update imminent)

1) Materials and Nanotechnologies; 2) Biotech and Pharmaceuticals; 3) Digital and Networks, 4) Energy and Low Carbon - estimates of size of the potential market in 2025, the disruptive potential of the technology, UK capability, and barriers and enablers. Messages about IP.SMEs, skills, and need for roadmaps.

Promoted by minister



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A Diverse Environment

• Overall (pure) S&T priority setting across areas is now the function of an overarching body for Research Councils (RCUK). This selects key areas to propose to HM Treasury. DGRC work feeds in here - Foresight as rationale. Some RCs undertake own Foresight work occasionally (e.g. ESRC Genomics Scenarios), or sponsor programmes on “the future of...” (e.g. EPSRC “manufacturing”).

• TSB for innovation-oriented R&D - searching for tools?.• Foresight activities have been underway continually and/or on occasional

basis in many locations, and many other parts of public sector and government have taken this on board.

• Currently - limited use of Delphi-type methods in UK, though EU development ongoing.

• The surprise is that so far much Foresight work has survived severe cuts to public expenditure and social research in the UK.



MIIRO Priorities beyond Foresight

• The main applied R&D mechanism in the UK is the Technology Strategy Board, funding R&D programmes and Knowledge Transfer Networks

http://www.innovateuk.org/



MIIRO Technology Strategy Board 2



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Resilience and Risk



MIIRO DEFRA

http://horizonscanning.defra.gov.uk/



MIIRO Foresight and Grand Challenges

• Foresight is a way to bring together multi-disciplinary” analysis of challenges, and multi-stakeholder approaches to responses.

• In the UK it is embedded into the policy mix, but is only part of the STI (and other) policy formation process – varying across challenges and over time.

• Problems for democracy and technocracy in complex societies: short-term (and ideological) decision making, communication across boundaries.

• These are Grand Challenges FOR Foresight

grand challenges and uk foresight

Business

culture research

research laboratory

economics of innovation

pervasive innovation

ethics grand challenges

technological security

omanchester technology

level agrcommunique