Overview of presentations

Elina Hiltunen (Nokia, Finland)
This presentation will discuss weak signals and their complex definition, introducing a new concept to weak signals thinking: the future sign. The future sign, originating from Peirce’s semiotic model of the sign, includes various aspects of change. Kuusi and Hiltunen further refined the model elaborating the signification process by clarifying the various aspects of change (including signals). In addition Elina will present results from a number of studies that she conducted including how to identify weak signals and a new method for weak signals dissemination within organizations called ‘Futures Windows’.

Elina Hiltunen works at Nokia, corporate strategy, as a futurist. She  has previously worked as a researcher at Finland Futures Research Center finalizing her PhD thesis on weak signals and organizational learning. Elina also founded her own consultancy, ‘What’s Next Consulting’, focusing on anticipating future changes and inspiring companies to innovate. As a consultant she has worked on the Finnish pavillion for the World Expo 2010, UPM and Finnish health and wellness fairs etc. Elina has developed innovative tools for futures consulting called ‘Futures Windows’ and ‘Futuropoly’. She also co-developed ‘trendWiki’, a software for collecting weak signals and trend analysis in companies. Elina is also an active speaker, blogger, and writer.

Anssi Tervonen (Data Rangers, Finland)

M-real was in 2001 approximately the tenth biggest pulp and paper company in the world with 10 000 employees focusing on fine paper and packaging. At corporate research a common foresight process was used as one source for the annual strategy process. This led to questioning what weak signals were and why they should be collected as part of a foresight process. For that purpose a clearly defined process was defined but failed to produce significant impact for strategic management. The presentation will therefore address questions of how such a process should look like and what has been learned.

Anssi Tervonen has a degree in industrial engineering and management as well as strategic management from the Technical University of Lappeenranta. He completed his thesis with the timber firm M-real for which he started working as research engineer, responsible for developing new innovation processes and support tools. He was mentored by Jyrki Kettunen, who currently retired as futurologist and former research director at M-real. After five years at M-real Anssi with two of his colleagues started his own company called Data Rangers. Data Rangers focuses on data mining and reporting technologies including text mining and feature extraction.

TrendWiki, an online support tool for weak signals identification was started at the beginning of 2008 and developed with weak signal expert Elina Hiltunen. Currently TrendWiki is currently in pilot phase with five customers employing approximately a total of 100 000 people. The most important pilot customer being the Finnish-based mobile phone manufacturer Nokia.

Alun Rhydderch (DIUS, UK)

UK Foresight and its associated Horizon Scanning Centre work closely with government departments, the research and development community and a wide range of organisations from civil society to provide challenging, long-term visions of the future. These visions help ensure stakeholders develop effective strategies now which will enable them to make the most of future opportunities and to best manage long-term risks.

This presentation will consider the tension between weak signals capture and policy culture. It will discuss different approaches used by the Foresight Horizon Scanning Centre to ensure that inconvenient information is not left out of consideration when formulating policy. Referring to the Centre's use of Fountain Park's Strategy Signals tool, Dave Snowden's concepts (Cynefin framework) and Louise Shaxson's experience (Lines of Argument), it will consider pragmatic approaches to embedding horizon scanning in policy and introduce its dimensions of uncertainty model.

Alun Rhydderch has worked for the UK Foresight Horizon Scanning Centre since it was created in 2005. He initiated and led the International Futures Project, bringing together senior officials and working groups from 13 departments to develop a shared understanding of the uncertainties in the international environment. He is also responsible for the Sigma Scan, a synthesis of future issues and trends relevant to the UK public policy agenda. Previously he worked as a translator in Paris and founded and ran a software development company in Prague, having graduated from Cambridge University in modern and medieval languages.

Dr Anette Braun & Dr Sylvie Rijkers (VDI, Germany)

The EFMN issue analysis aims at identifying and analysing key science and technology issues emerging from international foresight studies that are relevant for European Union (S&T) policies. The results of the screening of the foresights in 2008 will be presented. Additionally, the previous three issue analysis will be used to highlight key lessons learned for foresight practitioners embarking on similar exercises.

 Dr. Anette Braun is a macro-economist and political scientist, with a PhD in health economics from UCL (B). Since 1997 she acts as senior policy and technology consultant at VDI Future Technology Center in Düsseldorf. Within VDI Anette Braun was/is coordinator of various European Prospective Research Studies, for instance EFMN. She is responsible for the performance of socio-economic analyses of global trends and drivers in the health and biotech arena, the exploitation, combination and synthesis of findings on health/biotech issues, translation of S&T policy priorities that emerge from the findings into discrete policy areas of the EC. Anette acted as Member of the High Level Expert Group for DG RTD in 2005 on “Foresighting the New Technology Wave”, and published various articles and papers on RTD and foresight, (for instance: Dolly for dinner? Assessing commercial and regulatory trends in cloned livestock, in Nature Biotechnology).

Dr. Sylvie Rijkers-Defrasne is policy and technology consultant at VDI Future Technology Center in Düsseldorf. In this function she coordinates the issue analysis activities of the EFMN. Furthermore she was involved in foresight projects for the Luxemburg Government, the ESTO-Project on Biobanks in Europe and a comparison and assessment of international technology prognoses for the German Ministry for Education and Research. Sylvie holds a degree in Physics from the University of Düsseldorf and Nantes, France, as well as a PhD in Theoretical Physics (University of Düsseldorf). Her special fields of interest comprise Foresight, Technology Monitoring and Policy Analysis.

Dr Patrick Crehan (CKA, Belgium)

Patrick Crehan was born in Ireland and lives in Brussels. He has a background in Mathematical Physics. After a career as a research scientist and lecturer in Europe and Japan he worked at the European Commission in Brussels on the international IST research programme. His job involved linking RTD policy with policies for industry, external affairs and economic development. In addition to developing the annual programme, securing budget and organizing the evaluation of research projects, he initiated strategic actions in Eastern Europe, Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East, Japan, China and the rest of Asia. In 1999 he left the Commission to establish Crehan Kusano & Associates a consulting company specialized in the management of RTD and Innovation. He is an expert in foresight and in the management of RTD and Innovation. He is an entrepreneur and a ‘business angel’. His other directorships include ACCESS ASIA - A strategic consultancy that helps EU companies develop business in Asia. The current focus of activity is on the food sector in China, ATEJI - a Paris based provider of software productivity tools, The Club of Amsterdam - a global think tank dedicated to exploring complex, long-term issues of importance for business and society, LAMELOW - an Italian developer of intelligent glazing systems for use in construction, Crehan Enterprises - a Brussels-based construction company and Digamma - a Brussels-based construction services company.

Dr Susanne Giesecke (ARC, Austria)

The EFMN Briefs serve as a tool for community building. They are concise descriptions and analyses of Foresight processes, highlighting findings on future developments and challenges of relevance to research, technology and societal issues. During the last four years the EFMN looked out systematically for interesting content-oriented digests from foresight processes that have been implemented in regions, Member States or at international level, on sectors and themes. From call to call the number of voluntary correspondents, covering foresight activities they were familiar with or even actively engaged in, increased steadily representing almost all EU and European countries. In its latest stage the network expanded overseas to North and South America, the Mediterranean countries, even expanding to Asia, Australia and some regions on the African continent. The EFMN Briefs have become a well-known means to foresight practitioners for informing the community of their activities and to acquire knowledge on recent exercises, getting inspired for new subjects and learning from each other.

In this presentation we will reflect upon the development of the Briefs, community building, and our experience with different approaches. Furthermore, we will take a closer look at the content and context of the Briefs and related foresight activities. E.g. our collection of briefs is the only one that is able give account on questions such as: how important is the participatory aspect of foresight and how is it exercised? To what degree are recommendations that come out of a foresight transferred into political action? What difficulties arise during the process of implementation of those recommendations? Finally, we look at those Briefs that give not only account on the output but also of the outcome of the reported foresight activities.

Dr. Susanne Giesecke is Senior Researcher at the Austrian Research Centers – systems research. She is engaged in publicly funded research as well as in consulting projects. Her main focus of work is qualitative innovation research, national innovations systems and competitiveness, technology policy (especially in areas of new and emerging technologies), technology assessment; evaluation of R&D programmes as well as foresight. She is member of the core team of the European Foresight Monitoring Network, especially in the issuing and editing of Foresight Briefs. Susanne Giesecke has worked in projects for both national and European public administrations.

Maurits Butter (TNO, the Netherlands)

Maurits Butter graduated at the faculty of chemical engineering, Technical University Delft. He started his career as an environmental consultant with Dutch consultancy firm Tebodin, where he was involved in the prevention of waste disposal and emissions. In 1994-1998 he worked for the Netherlands’ Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment, department of Strategic Planning (VROM). In 1998 he joined TNO as senior advisor innovation policy. He is involved in the interface between technological innovation and policy, focussing on foresight studies and the non technological aspects of technological innovation.