Project funded under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities

Concept and approaches in the SESTI project

Victor van Rij

Workshop on Methods, 26th of Oktober 2010

University Foundation, Brussels

Project funded under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities

Workpackages SESTI

Project funded under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities

EWSPotential New

EmergingIssue APotential New

EmergingIssue

Potential New Emerging

Issue B

EWS

EWS

EWS

EWS

EWS

EWS

EWS

Potential New Emerging

Issue

EWS

EWS

EWS

EWS

EWS

EWS

EWS

Selected new emerging issues

A…. N & wild card descriptions

Interests, Emotions, Facts

with accompanying signals

EWS EWS

EWS

Regional policy

National High Level energy research policy

National high level health

policy

Criteria&

SelectionAnalysis

Synthesis

Main values

EWS

Pool of EWS

And potential

Emerging Issues

Discourse on emerging issues

Policy action and values

General public others

National High Level research

policy

High Level EC employment

policy

High Level EC health policyHigh Level EC

health policy

High Level EC energy policy

High Level EC research policy

Tanslate&

Dosage

EWS

EWS

EWS EWS

Potential New Emerging

IssuePotential New

EmergingIssue B C

EWS

EWSWCEWS

EWS

EWS

Project funded under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities

News on public risks subprime loans sample on News google timeline

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

1001995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

years/quarters

art

icle

s

Number of articles in sample

percentage not paying back

(subprime/alt a)

Amount loaned subprime and

alt-a (x100 million US dollars)

Early warning signals of the 2007 financial crisis

Project funded under the Socio-economic Sciences and HumanitiesExamples of early warning

signals• It's a bomb! Shout in crowd sets-off

stampede at Amsterdam War Memorial

Project funded under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities

Radical pension system change

needed according

to chief economists

Agism lays around the corner

in Europese ageing future

say social scientist

Individualization of

society (trend)

Demographic models

show 30-40 % above 65

in 2040

Economic recovery not

sure

Nano-medicin promises

to cure every disease

Succes in cancer

research increase life

expectancy

Growing suicides

amongst poor elderly?-Increase post/near

retirement death?Age discrimination

increase in

employment?

Negative news articles

on aged people

Successful integration

young migrants

Negative behavior

against aged people

Indication for next

financial crisis

POTENTIAL EMERGING ISSUES& WEAK SIGNALS

Project funded under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities

& WEAK SIGNALS

POTENTIAL EMERGING ISSUES

Economic recovery not

sure

Nano-medicin promises

to cure every disease

Succes in cancer

research increase life

expectancy

Growing suicides

amongst poor elderly?-Increase post/near

retirement death?Age discrimination

increase in

employment?

Negative news articles

on aged people

Successful integration

young migrants

Radical pension system change

needed according

to chief economists

Indication for next

financial crisis

Individualization of

society (trend)

Negative behavior

against aged people

Demographic models

show 30-40 % above 65

in 2040

Agism lays around the corner

in Europes ageing future

says social scientist

Project funded under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities

Potential wild cards

Warning card

Lobby card

Think card

Propaganda card

Project funded under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities

Questions Workshop

• Policy relatedness

• 1. How are scanning activities related to policies? Aggregation level and timing ? Unpleasant news? Does the

• policy area impose certain methodological choices (except for budget constraints) ?

• (please give your experience on this)

Project funded under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities

Questions Workshop

• Priority setting and clustering

• 2. What are the practices and procedures of priority setting and /or clustering you use or prefer? How are you

• conducting priority setting and clustering for what reasons. Who is involved in the process of priority setting?

• What can be expected from policy makers in the process?

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Questions Workshop

• The use of early warning signals signals and where to start

• 3. What is the role of (weak or early) signals, should and can (early‐weak) signals be used to detect complete

• new unknown emerging issues? Or can they only be used to determine the emergence or dissolving of

• "proposed" emerging issues? In your experience, what are the procedures to get the useful signals?

• (can you give of examples on how you have done it or would like to do it based on your experience‐ with

• examples of (proposed) new emerging issues and weak signals)

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Questions Workshop

• Deeper analysis

• 4. If a proposed new emerging issues or a weak signals is detected, further analysis is usually needed (for

• instance on the factual or evidence basis or its source) . What should the further analysis of potential emerging

• issues contain for which reason? What are the methods you use in regard to further analysis (tracing back on

• internet, expert consultation, use of specific databases …)?

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Questions Workshop

• Role of automation and textmining

• 5. What could be the role of automatic processes in the Horizonscanning procedures? How are you using

• automatic processes within scanning and what kind of support do you want from automatic processes?

• (please write down your experience with this and sketch what do you expect for the future and what are the