Evolution of foresight in the global

historical context
Marek Jemala
Abstract
Purpose The main purpose of this paper is to dynamically outline the evolution of foresight in different
generations of globalization and different countries. The intention is to characterize several main events,
inventions and circumstances that have conducted the evolution of this pervasive method together with
broader participation and a changing focus of foresight over time.
Design/methodology/approach The assumption is that foresight has evolved as a consequence of
increasing uncertainties that bring globalization and technological progress, and that it is a specic form
of very long-term participative strategic planning. It is impossible to directly link the increasing
uncertainties in the global environment and the spread of foresight. However, it is possible to compare
the history of foresight in relation to the history of globalization through several main historical events,
inventions and initiatives typical for both evolutions. These events were primarily selected based on The
History of the World. The inventions were primarily voted as the Invention of the Year in different
industries and the foresight initiatives were selected from the European Foresight Monitoring Network
(EFMN). The study was based on an intensive literature review and comparison, and complemented by
the foresight history bibliometrical statistics of the EFMN database in order to see how exactly foresight
has evolved and changed over time.
Findings The paper provides a comprehensive insight into the history of foresight based on the
description of the main foresight generations and their characterization. What can be claimed based on
this study is that foresight has its predecessors and conditional evolution. According to the study, the
evolution of foresight is connected with the establishment of China in 1949, where the government and
many specialists worked together on the long-term S&T development strategy that had many elements
of foresight. Since that time, many countries have beneted from this synergic participative long-term
planning. Foresight has been successful and has spread to more and more countries, which is obvious
from the increasing rate of new initiatives every year.
Research limitations/implications The scope of this theme and the diversity of specialists opinions
do not allow overly excessive analyses. The main approach here is to identify the fundamental
development of foresight in relation to several key historical events and the history of forecasting and
globalization, and to outline several linkages. Second, there are signicant differences in dating
foresight as a new developing scientic discipline in many countries over time. Lastly, the opinions of
experts differ too much considering the difference between foresight and forecasting.
Practical implications The paper includes appeals for further detailed studies/hindsight and
discussion of each foresight generation mainly in relation to its real effectiveness, especially in countries
like China, Japan, the USA, Germany, France and the UK, which have been applying foresight for 20 to
50 years. This is especially important in order to develop foresight as a purposeful effective scientic
discipline.
Originality/value The paper is a clear comprehensive analysis of foresight history. Its key added
value lies in the comprehensive insight into three subsequent tables and gures that depict foresight in
relation to the milestones of globalization and the world history.
Keywords Globalization, History, Forecasting, World economy
Paper type Research paper
DOI 10.1108/14636681011063004 VOL. 12 NO. 4 2010, pp. 65-81, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1463-6689
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Marek Jemala is a
Researcher and Lecturer in
the Faculty of Business
Management, University of
Economics in Bratislava,
Bratislava, Slovakia.
Received: 16 June 2009
Revised: 7 December 2009
Accepted: 14 December 2009.
There is much that we can learn from our history, for there is the past in our present (Nayyar,
2006).
Introduction
In order to manage the instability of global changes and probably an increasingly difcult
business situation in the future, foresight has become one of the most popular strategic
planning tools for establishing common visions, strategies and long-term plans on the
government and business levels among policy-making bodies and corporate managers.
This set of planning instruments and methods, personal networks and specic know-how
tends to provide a bridge between current business wishes and the uncertain future.
Globalization has often created uneven systems that have led to uneven global changes and
created different opportunities in different countries and as such, inuenced their different
developments. Many foresight initiatives have simply tried to moderate the consequences of
globalization, especially in developing countries, in narrowing their competitive problems in
the global economy (UNIDO, 2005).
If we look at history, after a long period of equivocal forecasting, initial repeated foresight
efforts can be seen in China, the USA and Japan around the 1950s and these were followed
by similar efforts in France, The Netherlands, Germany and the UK in the late 1980s, focused
mainly on S&T. Basically, at rst, South Korea, France and partly the UK oriented foresight
projects in a more self-organized manner. They had applied foresight data from the strategic
planning of companies, and afterwards set priorities for different research programs. Such
limited attitudes were less risky nancially, but more appropriate for smaller countries. The
fast diffusion of foresight to smaller and developing countries can be seen in the late 1990s.
In Europe, these activities also become popular among many of the new member states, but
with varying intensity and scale. In Central Europe, full-scale national exercises were
performed in Hungary and the Czech Republic around the year 2000, while in Slovakia,
Malta, Cyprus, Estonia, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria only partial foresight exercises, more
about setting priorities, building capacities or re-structuralization of national R&D systems
were conducted (Saritas et al., 2006). Some countries, such as the Czech Republic, Poland,
Ukraine and Hungary, have also made efforts to promote foresight on the national level, and
increasingly more and more governments recognize the need to plan their future results that
can contribute to shaping national or regional long-term development (UNIDO, 2005).
The main purpose of this work is to dynamically outline the evolution of foresight in different
generations of globalization and different countries. The intention is to characterize several
main events, initiatives and circumstances that have conducted the evolution of this
pervasive method together with broader participation and a changing focus of foresight over
time. It is not possible to describe all of the listed events and all of the foresight initiatives that
were selected and studied based on mutual regional/national spatial and semantic relations.
The role of most of these events and inventions here is rather complementary, in order to
better depict this evolution.
1. Insight into the development of foresight through globalization
If we take a closer view at foresight history, it is necessary to examine the circumstances,
reasons and challenges for this kind of future study. It is essential to place foresight in terms
of the common phenomenon of globalization. This phenomenon has been highly developing
in the last 100 years. We know that the global economy strongly affects national economies
and as such, their business outcomes. However, the world economy is signicantly
fragmented and there are different starting points available for an orientation in the future
(Pracha r, 2005). It is not worth unifying the entire concept of globalization, but it is clear that
unpredictable global changes are features of globalization and technological progress.
Generally, there may be a mutual presumption that the current situation in the changing
world due to the processes of globalization is something new and represents close
reections from the past. Globalization is not a new phenomenon. The fact that highly
uncertain business conditions also prevailed in the nineteenth century has been conrmed.
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Foresight is not a new strategic tool, but its systematic and systemic bases can only be
found in the twentieth century.
In a negative sense, it can be said that globalization never led to rapid growth and economic
convergence in the world, but on the contrary, to larger gaps between industrialized and
developing countries (Nayyar, 2006). However, globalization can also be explained in a
positive way, by pointing to the process of mutual interconnections in the global world and by
speeding up the technological progress. Foresight should simply look for new opportunities
and challenges for this progress. Generally, the process of globalization creates winners
and losers. Asset-owners, prot-earners, renters and the educated with professional skills
can be considered as the winners. Leaseholders, wage earners, debtors and those without
specic know-howor skills are usually losers. Corporations, exporters, global risk-takers and
technology leaders are often thought of as winners, and small domestic rms, and importers
as risk-averse; technology followers are more or less losers (Nayyar, 2006). For example,
about 33 percent of Europeans (mainly Finns, Swiss and British) are considered as winners,
but about 25 percent (Hungarians, Slovaks, Russians) regard themselves as disadvantaged
in the process of globalization. In these circumstances, this issue of winners and losers can
help foresighters to solve the problem of who should take the main nancial responsibility for
the foresight process.
Without purposeful systematic participative strategic planning, the specic impacts of
globalization can inevitably tend to impair social stability and as such, unilateral global
integration can speed up social tensions in many countries. On the corporate level, the gap
distinguishing global leaders and the others can be even more visible. However, by
considering the global economic rise and the rise of the global population over the last 100
years, this can on average highlight the fact that globalization through the global product -
has led more to the increase rather than the decrease of economic and social development,
as illustrated in Figure 1, of course, with reasonable regional or national socio-economic
differences.
This graph demonstrates the signicant rise of global productivity around the year 2000,
when GDP increases surpassed that of the global population. Millennium effects also
caused governments and companies to initiate many planning programs in order to be
better prepared for the twenty-rst century. In these relations, we can also see signicant
increases in new foresight generations around the year 2000. We can also notice the rapid
decline of global GDP due to last years global economic depression. How this will impact
foresight processes remains to be seen.
2. Era of forecasting in the rst phase of globalization
The beginnings of pre-globalization can be traced back to the age of Christopher Columbus
in the 1490s (Rock, 1987). The history of globalization can be divided into three main phases
(Nayyar, 2006). The rst phase (to 1913) is known as the Laissez Faire Phase. From about
1870, we can see the emergence of the global economy with all the aspects of globalization.
Global payments and transfers of goods, capital and human resources across national
boundaries were almost unhindered. Government interventions in economic activity were
minimal. During this period, which ended with the First World War, international business was
mainly conducted by England (Bairoch and Kozul-Wright, 1996). Therefore, this period can
also be called the Age of Empire. Western Europe and especially England was the main
source of FDI[1].
In this rst phase, we cannot see many systematic efforts at strategic planning or
forecasting, except for military, urban and regional planning with predicting elements which
began around 1870, mainly in larger cities (Benninde, 2000), illustrated in Figure 2. However,
the bases for economic forecasting can be seen much earlier by the ancient Egyptians
(c. 3000BC) in their harvest predictions (Hawkins, 2005). The general concept of Strategic
Planning can be later seen in the rst Chinese military strategy during the spring-autumn
period of China (722-481BC) (Kane, 2002). Since that time, many well-developed military
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strategies were implemented in many countries. These created the bases for further
economic, social and industrial planning.
The other historical roots of forecasting can be found in the world famous Oracle of Delphi
from about 800BC. Although the Oracle played an interesting role in ancient history, we can
consider it only for equivocal forecasting and it was abolished by Rome in the fourth century
as it conicted with Christian beliefs (Broad, 2007).
Nostradamus (1503-1566) the French apothecary, contributed a chapter of forecasting
history through his collection of prophecies that later became popular all over the world. He
is best known for his book Les Propheties in the 1550s. However, recent research has
revealed that many of his prophetic works were mainly Bible-based (Reading, 2006). In the
seventeenth century, Sir William Petty, a Londoner, identied a seven-year economic cycle,
suggesting other bases for economic forecasting. This was at the time of the Great Plague of
London (1664-1666) which caused more than 70,000 deaths in the population of around
460,000 (Bell, 1976). Pettys forecasts were often based on estimations and more than once
he was accused of doctoring the gures (Hawkins, 2005).
From the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, wide-range forecasts and plans were
used to improve general decision making and anticipate future trends. Before this time,
forecasting was more or less used as a natural need of human beings to deal with the human
fear of the future. In the nineteenth century, during the age of the Industrial Revolution,
forecasting became more focused and short-term-oriented on social sciences. In the early
twentieth century, forecasting included mainly trend extrapolations and some social
indicators (Saritas, 2006). The rst forecasting industry was developed in the USA between
1910 and 1930. Many of these efforts were concerned with developing leading
Figure 1 World GDP and population in comparison with foresight generations
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barometers. Standard errors and multiple correlation coefcients were later used as
indicators of forecasting validity (Clements and Hendry, 1998). This rst industry was almost
destroyed by the Great Depression (1929-1939). These efforts can be considered as the
bases for systematic forecasts; afterwards rst foresight activities were also performed, but
these were already part of the second phase of globalization.
3. Beginnings of foresight in the second phase of globalization
Technology Foresight offers means for wiring up and strengthening connections within an
innovation system so that knowledge can ow more freely among constituent actors, and the
system as a whole can become more effective at learning and innovating (Martin and Johnston,
1999).
We know that the world wars did not affect global production equally; many regional
economies, especially in Europe, were completely destroyed. The Great Depression was
one of the longest and most serious economic downturns in the industrialized world. This
caused dramatic declines in global production, high unemployment, and high deation in
many countries. Its social and cultural effects were especially seen in the USA, where the
depression represented the biggest afiction since the Civil War (1861-1865). The Wall
Street Crash (1929) came just before this Depression. However, economists disagree about
its primary role in the subsequent economic, social and political events. For our purposes,
neither event was predicted (see Figure 3).
The second phase of globalization started around 1914 and lasted until the 1980s, mainly
because of the above-mentioned world wars and the ICT boom in the 1970s. The sudden
Figure 2 Foresight and globalization c. 800 BC-1913 AD
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end to the period of incremental global growth in the early 1970s provided the inevitable
lesson of what can happen if forecasts and strategies do not adjust to emerging risks and
global expectations. The 1973 Oil crisis began when the Arab members of OPEC
announced that they would no longer transport oil to countries such as Japan, the USA and
its allies in Europe that supported Israel. These countries responded with a wide variety of
initiatives, and inter/intra-national economic consolidations hastened the creation of many
warning initiatives as never before.
The recession of the late 1980s reduced global ows by hitting much of the world after the
Black Monday stock collapse in 1987. It was a larger collapse than in 1929. After 1980,
exible production systems, systematic long-term strategic plans, global strategies,
numerous ICT patents, mainly in the USA and Japan, a changing output mix, the so-called
complex packet and the rapid increase of investment in education inuenced companies to
improve their positions. Companies faced not only global recession, but also many other
disruptions due to new legislative norms, safety protections, environmental limits, new
Figure 3 Foresight and globalization 1914-1990
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business models and social-cultural shifts. From the 1970s to the 1990s, IBM was the main
market player in the mainframe business with a market share of around 70 percent and a
prot share of around 95 percent (Christensen and Raynor, 2003). In the next years, the
combination of high competition, overpriced products, unsatised customer needs and
inadequate cooperation with other stakeholders nearly led the company into bankruptcy.
Fortunately, IBMquickly reacted by changing its business focus fromthe manufacturing and
sale of goods to the preparation of key complex sophisticated products together with a good
planning system, consulting for customers and the forming of partnerships with its rivals
(Garr, 2000):
We do not have a vision, we have a mission (IBM, 1980s).
If we have a look at foresight in the second phase of globalization, certain specic origins
can be seen. Aside from the rst forecasting industry in the USA (1910-1930) a similar
industry was established in Australia. The rst ofcial estimate of the Australian national
income (in the world) was for the years 1938-45 (Haig, 2001). The science ction writer, H.G.
Wells, who used the term foresight to express professors of Foresight in the 1930s,
distinguished forecasting from foresight for the rst time[2]. The term forecasting was used
in the same meaning until about the 1980s (Georghiou, 2001).
After the establishment of China in 1949, the government and many specialists worked
together on the long-term S&T development strategy that had many elements of foresight.
The strategy consisted of the two S&T development plans: the National Long-range Science
and Technology Prospective Program (1956-1967) and the Science and Technology Plan
(1963-1972). Technological forecasting was contained in both. Chinese S&T development
was deeply inuenced by these rst programs. In the 1970s, independent forecasting in
China turned up in social development elds. In 1979, the Forecasting R&D Association that
covered S&T forecasts and their publishing was established. Since 1978, the Chinese
economy has been developing extremely quickly (Yang, 2003).
After all, economic forecasting of different types has a long history, although its current form
can be considered as the consequence of the Keynesian Revolution (Hawkins, 2005).
Ofcial economic forecasts have been produced periodically since the Second World War,
mainly in Scandinavian countries, and then spread to the UK in the 1950s and to several
advanced countries in the 1960s. Strategic management as a discipline originated in the
USA and together with technology forecasting as a method of planning, was formally utilized
(for the rst time) in the US defense sector in the late 1950s. The rst larger strategic
forecasting exercises were conducted by the US Navy and the US Air Force in the 1960s.
Technology forecasting was used by the private sector too, especially the energy sector. At
the same time, other systematic forms of strategic planning can be found in US military
planning in the early 1960s and later (Ackoff, 1999).
The next development of strategic forecasting, and the emergence of foresight, appeared in
Japan. It decided that S&T forecasting represented a useful strategic tool and methods of
foresight have become useful in many areas of Japanese society afterwards. Towards the
end of the 1960s, Japan sent a foresight team to the USA to study foresight methodology. In
1970, the Science and Technology Agency (STA) performed its rst 30-year technology
forecast. Many experts from industry, academia and government organizations completed
Delphi questionnaires about possible technological developments and future risks. The
results of the exercise were given as inputs to the decisions by the Council for Science and
Technology of Japan on future national S&T policy. Since that time, this long-termforecasting
has been repeated approximately every ve years (UNIDO, 2005). However, Delphi became
more popular when it was applied to the large-scale national technology forecast in the USA
in the 1960s (Helmer, 1983)[3]. Later, the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy
of Japan (NISTEP) conducted a survey of 250 companies to assess the extent to which the
results of the exercise helped them in running their businesses. The main applications of the
STA results included planning for R&D and business activities, analyzing medium-term
technological trends and analyses of many specic problems. The NISTEP found out that
more than 60 percent of the exercise topics had been realized in the last 20 years. Japanese
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experts recognized that the main value was not only in the direct output of foresight, but in
several additional synergic effects[4]. Generally, Japan has one of the longest continuous
histories of foresight. Japanese foresight is conducted on different levels and many specic
approaches are applied (Cuhls, 2003).
In the USA, one of the main approaches to foresight has been a series of reviews of
individual scientic elds in the civil sector. In the 1960s and early 1970s, many of these eld
surveys were carried out, mainly after the Oil Shocks. The National Research Council
conducted several foresight surveys during the 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunately, they
generally had little direct impact on the US Government.
In Europe, foresight also has a long and interesting history, mainly in The Netherlands,
Germany and the UK. The origins of European foresight can be traced to the 1970s;
examining and strengthening the relationship between S&T and society characterize these
years. Since the 1980s, branch councils (for agriculture, environment and health) in The
Netherlands have carried out various foresight activities[5]. SMEs were the main target
group, but the problem there was that the most innovative SMEs were already informed of
new technologies, while larger and less innovative companies were not invited to participate
in the foresight process. It required more effort and time than had been expected. But the
design of the foresight process geared to specic elds had two advantages; it made the
implementation much easier and provided more complex solutions in dealing with specic
S&T problems (UNIDO, 2005). Nowadays, The Netherlands is one of the foresight leaders.
France performed many interesting foresight initiatives in the early 1980s under government
watch that gave higher priority to S&T as a means for strengthening economic and social
development. For example, in 1982, the French National Colloquium on Research and
Technology was held together with various regional meetings, with about 3,000 experts.
They identied the main technological priorities and the government subsequently launched
national mobilizing programs to promote these priorities. In 1994, the Delphi survey on future
technologies was triggered by the Ministry for Higher Education and Research. Foresight
questionnaires were sent to experts from industrial, academic and public research
organizations[6] (UNIDO, 2005). Generally, as in other countries, these rst national
exercises stimulated other regional and international foresight activities.
Australian foresight initiatives represent another attempt to develop a competitive approach
to direction and priority setting for R&D during the second phase. Two institutions, the
Commonwealth Scientic and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Australian
Science and Technology Council (ASTEC) were active in Australia. CSIRO prepared the
national research priority identication mechanism in 1988. Its core element was the
assessment of a range of 16 socio-economic research categories against four main
criteria[7]. Each research category was assigned and selected on the basis of scoring. The
best score had the highest priority. ASTEC was active from 1981 to 1995 (Tegart, 2001).
In the second phase of globalization, beginning in the 1950s, technology foresight became
more and more popular in many wealthy countries. The beginnings of foresight were related
to the establishment of China and applications in the US Army. In addition to general trends,
forecasts of S&T trends were conducted by experts in large international corporations. At
that time, foresight was already being distinguished from strategic planning and
forecasting[8]. Foresight activities became the responsibility of experts in futurology and
technology. Participation was limited to small teams of experts and futurologists. The new
methods, e.g., Delphi, Scenarios, Brainstorming and Expert Panels, were established
(Saritas, 2006). Simple trend analysis became inadequate for the complex processes of the
global environment, thus simple forecasting was not deterministic enough and was not even
sufcient to prolong the past. However, the results from current evaluations of economic
forecasts conrm that they were much better than mere extrapolating trends:
You can only predict things after they have happened (Ionesco, 1959).
As it has been already mentioned, in the 1970s, there was a general rise in the importance of
forecasting and strategic business planning due to the 1970 oil shocks (Saritas, 2006). After
the rst initiatives in China and the USA, Japan has been performing wide-ranging foresight
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activities since the 1970s, and several foresight initiatives were conducted in The
Netherlands and France in the early 1980s. Later, Australia, Canada and Sweden also
implemented technology foresight. In the 1980s, foresight became the prime instrument in
the process of setting priorities for S&T resource allocation (Irvine and Martin, 1984). A
higher diversity of foresights that were used to express a wider frame of future pictures in
terms of considering different alternatives and creating actions to achieve a desirable future
(Saritas, 2006) could be seen. Afterwards, stakeholder participation and networking were
regarded as the new dimension of foresight activity for wiring up the multilayered innovation
systems in the public (Martin and Johnston, 1999) and private sectors (Salmenkaita and
Salo, 2004). The key issues in the rst foresight generation were accuracy of prediction and
the spread of results to non-experts.
4. Systematic foresight in the third phase of globalization
This new phase of globalization (after 1990) has had an unprecedented impact on all
aspects of global society. Generally, there are two main tendencies: trade globalization
reduces disparities between countries while nancial globalization increases them (IMF,
2007). However, the analyses conrm that technical and technological progress support the
afrmative side of globalization, while being prepared for the future enables the
exploitation of future opportunities and the avoidance of risks. This phase also features many
interesting milestones, illustrated in Figure 4.
At rst, it was the Asian economic crisis in 1997 that evolved in Thailand after the great
burden of foreign debt that rendered the economy ineffective even before the collapse of its
currency. The crisis hit most of Southeast Asia and Japan, and debased stock and real
estate markets and caused the accumulation of private debts. Two years later, Thailand
started to institute the foresight program that is currently part of the common APEC foresight
and as such, also strengthens the active cooperation between Thailand and other APEC
members.
Another important date on the world calendar was September 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks
later had a strong psychological impact not only on the global world, taking into account
great expenditures for protection against terrorism, but also for better understanding
between nations in order to predict and avoid such accidents. In Figure 4, we can see the
higher density of foresight initiatives after the attacks in many countries. For example, in
Europe, many developing economies became members of NATO and other large
international organizations (e.g. OECD, European Union (EU)). The largest expansion of the
EU came in 2004. After this enlargement, many new EU members started to conduct their
own foresight exercises and many joint foresight actions have been conducted within the
European research area (ERA).
If we look at the third phase of globalization, the world trade output has grown about ve
times since 1980. Total cross-border nancial assets are now twice as large as in 1990.
Generally, the global economy is still growing; however the nal impacts of the current global
economic crisis are not predictable yet. China and India (about 20 percent of the global
GDP) the new global leaders have enjoyed comparable long-term economic expansion
similar to that in Western Europe after the Second World War.
The spread of systems devoted to future studies can be seen in this second generation of
foresight in the 1960s and 1970s (Saritas, 2006), but there is a need to expand systemic
foresight (SF) in the current foresight. This concept requires systemic attitudes especially
related to institutional foresight by taking foresight as a systemic process and applying
systemic thinking primarily in the creative phases of this process. We know that this concept
is not very easy to achieve due to the lack of foresight methodology and a theoretical basis of
system thinking and the multiplicity of its applications (Loveridge, 2009). Foresight as a
regular systemic activity is one of the trends for the future.
At present, UK foresight is one of the leaders in quality and intensity, but not only in
Europe. The rst UK foresight was conducted in the 1980s to explore possible areas of
S&T based on key technologies methodology. The second generation was demonstrated
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by the rst UK technology foresight program from 1993 to 1998. The main task was to
connect technological and market trends. Approximately 600 foresight events were
conducted and about 130 000 reports were distributed. In the second phase of the
program, efforts were concentrated on reducing the problems from the rst phase[9].
Current UK foresight demonstrates some common features of the third generation.
Branch panels and some thematic panels in the areas of ageing, crime and production
are similar to those of the second phase. An interdisciplinary approach is always
required. Some external institutions, such as trade associations, run their own specic
Figure 4 Foresight and globalization since 1991
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foresight programs based on general approvals of the key program. The need to evaluate
the effectiveness of foresight networks and to build the appropriate culture of the process
has also evolved (Georghiou, 2007).
In Germany, a positive attitude towards foresight developed around 1990. A major policy
change led to the launching of various foresight activities by the German government. The
reason for the change included problems associated with the German recession, the
structural crisis and the increasing popularity of foresight in other countries. Since 1990,
several foresight exercises have been conducted in Germany. The rst attempt to apply
Delphi in Europe on a large scale took place just in Germany. In one of the largest German
foresight exercises: Technology at the Threshold of the Twenty-rst Century, the key goal
was to evoke an intensive dialogue between six of the project agencies and the Federal
Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). However, only a limited number of people
were involved in these projects[10]. These problems were later resolved when Germany
cooperated with Japan in the sixth Delphi exercises in the late 1990s. Generally, German
foresight has had an impact in several directions. At the federal level, it has inuenced
budget priorities and strengthened links between industry and R&D organizations; at the
industry level, more specic foresight exercises have been conducted by industrial
associations. Finally, foresight has had a more direct impact on German society[11] (Cuhls
and Grupp, 2001).
5. History of foresight through national initiatives
If we look at the history of foresight through the number of completed national foresight
initiatives (Table I), we can see that contrary to the size of a country, it is neither the USA, nor
the UK, but The Netherlands that leads the way due to its completed foresight initiatives
throughout almost all of the foresight generations. We can also see a large amount of
completed foresights, in the second generation alone, in this country. But it is obvious that
the main generation within foresight history the fourth generation, beginning around the
year 2000 has not been very well specied. The large number of foresight initiatives can be
explained by the already mentioned millenniumeffects and human fears after September 11,
2001.
Table II depicts the foresights according to their focus areas. The leader in the foresight
focus areas is engineering and technology, the original area of technology foresight in the
rst generation. Social and natural sciences (e.g., economics, sociology, and biology) have
ranked highly after the year 2000. these new dimensions of foresight are interconnected with
the general rise of the importance of complex multidisciplinary management after the year
Table I Foresight initiatives by country between foresight generations
Country Second generation Third generation Fourth generation Fifth generation Sum total
The Netherlands 32 15 179 5 231
UK 6 2 126 14 148
USA 16 12 100 0 128
Germany 5 3 103 2 113
France 14 1 29 1 45
Finland 1 0 37 3 41
Spain 1 1 35 0 37
Denmark 0 0 22 1 23
Ireland 0 2 10 0 12
Czech Republic 0 0 6 0 6
Slovak Republic 0 0 2 1 3
All countries 97 51 912 44 1,104
Note: Tables I-IV depict the total number of completed foresight initiatives registered in the European Foresight Monitoring Network
database. Calculations are based on bibliometric analyses of those initiatives that have an exact year of completion. Unfortunately, the
EFMN evidence only includes initiatives carried out from 1995 to the present; it is not possible therefore to add numbers for the rst
foresight generation
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2000, simply due to the necessity to solve new disruptive complex problems in the
environment.
The purpose of Table III is to showthe number of foresight initiatives according to the sectors
for which they were completed. The manufacturing sector is the leader, followed by
electricity, gas and water supply and logistics. This is because of the higher demand of
these sectors for participative strategic planning just for higher innovation intensity and the
impact of the global environment. It is also interesting to view foresight history through the
outputs of foresight exercises; this can be especially useful if we want to measure the
effectiveness of the process, illustrated in Table IV. The main purpose of foresight exercises
in the foresight history is to provide policy recommendations. Others include trends and
drivers, variant scenarios and research priorities, all to enable better strategic
decision-making.
Results and conclusions
We can nd thousands of reasons throughout history to explain why countries, regions and
companies come together to form entities and networks. In the same way, we can nd many
reasons to explain why they plan their future. But there are several main correlations. They
include the phenomenon of globalization, technological and technical progress, hence new
global opportunities and risks, new customer/shareholder requirements, a higher value of
information and know-how. The global economy has become very vulnerable. The
expansion of the global economy is expected to be more gradual because of the new risks
and current vulnerabilities from the current global economic crisis, highly leveraged
investments, through emerging markets in developing countries, up to the unexpected
extreme environmental changes.
Table II Total number of foresight initiatives by focus area between foresight generations
Focus areas Second generation Third generation Fourth generation Fifth generation Sum total
Engineering and Technology 25 14 208 8 255
Social Sciences 20 10 197 4 231
Natural Sciences 18 11 159 5 193
Agricultural Sciences 15 5 68 0 88
Humanities 13 0 13 0 26
Table III Total number of foresight initiatives by sector between foresight generations
Sectors Second generation Third generation Fourth generation Fifth generation Sum total
Manufacturing 20 16 167 5 208
Electricity, Gas, Water Supply 22 8 132 7 169
Transport, Storage, Communication 12 9 100 6 127
Public Administration, Defence 6 5 85 2 98
Education 9 3 65 2 79
Table IV Total number of foresight initiatives by output between foresight generations
Foresight outputs Second generation Third generation Fourth generation Fifth generation Sum total
Policy Recommendations 31 21 375 16 443
Analysis of Trends, Drivers 24 18 245 11 298
Scenarios 23 9 196 10 238
Research Priorities 11 12 128 9 160
Key Technologies 12 7 91 0 110
Forecasts 9 4 72 4 89
Road-maps 7 6 63 0 78
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The hypothesis persists that foresight, like the specic synergic participatory and
anticipative process, is one of the outgrowths of the increasing rate of uncertainties and
risks coming from the global development and on the other side higher risks of not being
prepared for the future. This may be true, but there are indeed many other interconnections.
They include stakeholder pressure, aggressive competition, hidden efforts to improve
strategic planning, forecasting results and new ndings in business psychology. In a
positive way, we can notice several interconnections between the development of future
studies and milestones in our history, among them: the Golden Twenties and the rst
forecasting industry in the USA (1910-1930), the establishment of China and the rst
Chinese national long-range S&T program(1949), the beginning of the information age in the
USA and Japan and the spread of US and Japanese foresight (1970s) and the year 2000
and the spread of foresight to many developing countries. Meanwhile, it is obvious that the
global economic growth of the 1970s and around the year 2000 were technology driven.
The organizing principle of the rst foresight generation was the eld of S&T in the post-war
environment, especially in the USA and Japan. The second foresight generation (around
1990) focused on industries and markets. Foresight became an institutional activity
associated with S&T policy making with different stakeholders. S&T development
interconnected with economic and social development became the central point of
foresight and a systematic approach was required within longer time conditions. During the
1990s, the rapid spread of technology foresight resulted due to increased competition in the
global economy, increasing requirements on government spending and the changing nature
of knowledge diffusion (Martin and Johnston, 1999). Foresight activities in Germany, the UK
and the USA were performed in a much smaller range compared to Japan and China. Later,
the situation changed; these countries together with Australia, France and The Netherlands
began to conduct major foresight exercises. Similar approaches (but in a much smaller
range) could be found in South Africa and Hungary, but these relate to foresights in the third
phase of globalization. Since the 1990s, foresight became one of the main tools of strategic
planning in industrialized countries and several developing counties. However, despite this
spread and because of the disunited foresight methodology, foresight was not
systematically evaluated as an instrument of S&T policy (UNIDO, 2005). In the second
generation of foresight, the responsibility for the process was shifted towards academics.
Futurology moved into the background. The appropriate formulation of priorities and the
establishment of networks became the key evaluation issues.
The third generation of foresight, around 2000, added a social and user-oriented
perspective. This generation retained the actors from the Second generation but engaged
more and more social stakeholders, such as non-prot social and environmental
organizations. As time went on, the involvement of the right stakeholders in the process
and the appropriate foresight culture became the most important factors. Foresight
exercises focused on different areas of socio-economic interactions based on different
forms of motivation, risks and trends (UNIDO, 2005). Foresight studies did not mainly focus
on R&D or technological questions; they also started to reach other areas of society, such as
the environment, education, ethics, social questions, employment and resource allocation.
Results from new participatory foresights: the fourth and fth generations, emphasize the
signicant role of a systemic and systematic approach, common vision building towards
deeper correlation of R&D, technology management and the innovation system (Cuhls,
2003). After the year 2000, the higher importance of social, cultural and sustainable
environmental aspects of S&T planning has been inuenced by the higher importance of
technological and product innovation in business. The development of the knowledge
society creates many opportunities for the third sector that have been in high demand by
consumers (Saritas, 2006); this also creates a new challenge for foresight development. The
current generations of foresight should increasingly focus just on these disadvantaged
groups.
Generally, it can be said that foresight, like globalization, has evolved through three main
generations (Georghiou, 2008; Nayyar, 2006). These phenomena are only basic and many
individual forms are characterized by their own specic indicators. In the twenty-rst century,
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we can also talk about the fourth and fth generations of foresight, but their characterization
is still quite unclear. In the development of the global environment, the focus of foresight
activities has moved fromtechnology-based approaches towards a broader comprehensive
concept that encompasses a whole range of inuencing factors. While this progress of
foresight in recent years has provided important opportunities for learning and joint action
between different stakeholders supported by the ICT progress, it has caused
incomprehensibility in the practice and theory of foresight (Cuhls, 2003). Yet the main
functions of foresight still remain to analyze past results, current positions and to anticipate
new emerging trends, opportunities and risks in order to be able to benet from the future.
Finally, the discussion on the validity of these historical ex post analyses should continue with
the identication of the mechanisms of past interconnections in different spheres of society
(Mahoney, 2000). Very important analyses of path dependences must closer refer to those
directions for future development that are inuenced by important tendencies in the past.
Because historical path dependencies can be connected with all levels of strategic
decision-making, they may even appear in the policy and management of the foresight
process (Smits and Kuhlmann, 2004). Furthermore, foresight management should be more
frequently accompanied by the facilitating of technological, social, political and structural
changes rather than focusing on specic results. However, this requires an interdisciplinary
approach to understand multifarious future challenges and risks. The closer analysis of the
relations and circumstances of foresight evolution represents another challenge for the
further study of foresight history. This will simply require close (national/regional/branch)
cooperation between historians, innovators, managers, planners and academics.
Notes
1. The signicance of FDI in the world was almost similar at the beginning and at the end of the
twentieth century (Huff, 2007).
2. Professors of foresight looked for new technological trends.
3. If we look at Delphi applications, it can be seen that the spread of Delphi all over the world has been
largely concentrated in the strategic management of larger corporations and countries (Saritas,
2006).
4. These process benets are now known as the ve Cs: communication, concentration, coordination,
consensus, and commitment (Kuwahara, 2007).
5. The foresight process in The Netherlands is based on four main steps: consultation to outline the
list of key technologies; analysis to group together key players, potential problems and
opportunities; strategic conferences to bring together stakeholders, test results, create
consensus and to implement results; and follow-up activities to control the process and make
useful corrections.
6. Exercise topics also included areas such as robotics, exploitation of oceans and the development of
supersonic passenger aircrafts.
7. The criteria included economic, environmental and social benets; the ability to capture these
benets; the R&D potential and the capacity to realise that potential.
8. Forecasting is designed to predict or estimate future events or trends, while foresight should create
the ability to plan different futures based on specic needs or required outcomes (Oxford Dictionary,
2008).
9. E.g., communication problems, tendencies to promote only technological solutions or not enough
time for doing appropriate conclusions
10. The Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) prepared a list of 86 critical
technologies with potential economic or social utility for the next ten to 15 years. Afterwards, experts
from the Federal Ministry and different agencies (Projekttra ger, etc.) evaluated each technology
based on the criteria such as timing, economic importance and non-economic benets.
11. The new German foresight is more process-oriented. This process is called FUTUR and started in
1999 and is expected to become a more multidisciplinary integrated process. Furthermore, German
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companies apply foresight data for their own strategic purposes. They generally analyse framework
conditions which are specic to them. Then key technologies, products or main processes are
selected, data is calculated and interpreted in a specic business context, and research institutions
analyse their strengths and risks based on foresight (Cuhls and Grupp, 2001).
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About the author
Marek Jemala is based in the Faculty of Business Management, University of Economics in
Bratislava, Slovakia. In September 2008 at the University of Economics in Bratislava,
Slovakia he received recognition for the best ve research papers in 2008. In April 2007 at
the British University in Dubai, UAE, he received recognition from the International
Association for Management of Technology (IAMOT) for valuable contribution to the 17th
International Conference on Management of Technology. In November 2006, at the
University of Vigo, Spain, he participated in an educational process based on the ERASMUS
program. From September 2005 to the present he has worked as a researcher and teacher
in the Faculty of Business Management, University of Economics in Bratislava. He teaches
Technology Management and Production Management and participates as a member of
Committee for international projects on several research projects of the EUBA. His main
areas of research interest are technology management issues and policies. His work
particularly spans conceptual and empirical analysis in areas of technology planning,
technology transfer, new emerging technologies, and technology assessment especially in
a company. He is mainly interested in technology foresight policies. He has had several
scientic publications, covering these topics. From January 2003 to August 2004 he was
Teacher of Economics and English Language at the Secondary Technical School for
Transport, Bratislava. Marek Jemala can be contacted at: marek.jemala@euba.sk
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