Economia delle ICT

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eForesee 2003 Malta,
November 13rd- 14th, 2003 RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN THE CHANGES IN THE EUROPEAN
SOCIAL-ECONOMIC CONTEXT AND FORESIGHT
Monica CARIOLA - Secondo ROLFO
National Research Council of ITALY
Ceris-Cnr Institute for
Economic Research on Firms and Growth
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AIM OF THIS RESEARCH This work analyses the
reasons of some experiences of transition from
National Forecasting towards Regional
Foresight in Europe
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INTRODUCTION Up to date definition of
Foresight (by the EU STRATA-ETAN Expert Group,
2001) An important tool in the development and
management of future-oriented innovation system,
based within a wider context of future-oriented
co-ordination activities in a society. It could
be defined as a purposefully organised process
bringing together expectations of diverse actors,
about possible development paths, to formulate
strategic views about the future that take into
account broad social and economic developments
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• Why this definition of Foresight?
• F. has diverged from forecasting due to greater
  attention for orientation and ability in managing
  uncertainties and ambiguities, rather than
  attempting to predict the future in a mere
  exercise of extrapolation from the past
• these efforts imply greater consideration for the
  centrality of human activities, as interaction of
  a number of players, interests, perspectives,
  disciplines, needs and levels of power
• this leads to the need for a strategic and
  parallel vision of risks, problems, but also
  opportunities
• the approach has to be holistic and to consider
  the interaction among technological, social,
  economic, political and cultural variables.

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• Evolution macro - micro economic context
• At macro-economic level
• Last decades transition from a mainly hierarchic
  capitalism (stable markets, physical resources)
  to a flexible one (competitive local and global
  markets, intangible resources)
• At micro-economic level this has caused a
  gradual transition
• from hierarchical organisational models with
  tangible assets
• to network organisational models knowledge-based,
  facing complex and unsettled scenarios

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• Forecasting and Foresight cant be considered out
  of this new context and of changes in Strategic
  Thinking
• Traditional Mechanistic Approach (hierarchic
  capitalism) influenced the first experiences of
  Technology Forecasting
• probabilistic prediction of technological
  developments, national ambits, reductionism of
  phenomena, search for linear cause-effect
  relationships, objective vision of reality
• Recent dynamic Non-linear Approaches and
  Regionalisation of Innovation Policy are
  influencing replacement of Forecasting with
  Foresight and Regional Foresight, where is kept
  more into account
• complexity of phenomena, their rapid and
  continual change, their local and global aspects,
  no more cause-effect relationships, subjective
  view of reality

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Diffusion of foresight at National level Due
to the parallel dissemination over the same
period of the National System of Innovation
(NSI) (theorised by Lundvall and Nelson)
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• Driving forces of rapid diffusion of National
  Foresight
• (Martin)
• increasing globalisation and competition in
  industry and economy
• key role assumed by knowledge-based sectors and
  services, more dependent on innovation and
  strategic research
• recognition that governments, from an NSI
  viewpoint, must support investments in ST,
  strategic for national competitivity
• awareness that, to control public spending, not
  all areas of S T can be financed and it is
  necessary to identify, thanks to foresight, those
  with major possibility of development and impact
• change in the nature of production of knowledge
  more interdisciplinary activities, an increasing
  number of players not only producers of
  research, but also users and institutions (the
  concept of NSI finds in this way full
  justification).

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Regionalisation of foresight Fordist
capitalistic system has evolved into a
post-Fordist system revealing not only an
evolutionary model of technological development,
but also its embeddedness in the territory with
apparent contradiction between a strong local
embeddedness of companies and their
contemporaneous appurtenance to global networks
Competitive pressure from low-labour-costs
Countries, pushed the local production systems to
seek independent evolutionary paths EU policies
supported co-operation between companies in the
various regions of member States for creating
international networks
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The renewed interest in regional dimension of
development highlighted the presence in
literature of Regional Innovation Systems (RIS)
besides National ones (Cooke, 1998) Also
Regional policies for innovation replaced or
complemented the National ones, according to
distribution of competencies existing in the
individual Countries
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• But the institution of policies for innovation by
  an increasing number of EU regions had created
  two problems
• the evaluation of regional innovation potential
  to identify the starting point
• (undertaken in many regions with a certain
  success)
• the planning of possible technological evolutions
  to identify the paths and the priorities
• Regional technology
  foresight
• But the initiatives are limited, due to their
  intrinsic novelty and difficulties

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• A comparison of four regional foresight
  experiences in Europe
• The four regions are
• Lombardy in Italy
• West Midlands in UK
• Grand Lyon in France
• Catalonia in Spain

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• The comparison has been carried analysing some
  important aspects of the process of Regional
  Foresight in each regions
• origin and kind of link with National Foresight
• objectives and time horizon
• participation mechanisms and methods used
• output and status of the processes

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• Conclusion
• The four cases presented show as the changes in
  foresight activities depend mostly, according to
  our hypothesis, on
• regionalisation of the policies
• evolution in the macro and micro economic context
  
• Italy and UK are closest to the rationales of
  national foresight and more business-oriented,
  with shorter time horizons in strategic planning
• Grand Lyon and Catalonia are broader in scope and
  time horizons and put a greater emphasis upon
  political issues, democratic renewal and
  international relations.

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• All the regions show purposes and preoccupations,
  not only with technological innovation, but also
  with a greater diversity of actors to be involved
  and a social context more and more complex
• methodological approaches are a little different
  from national level, with the enrolment of a
  broader (non-expert) participation base and a
  wider use of scenarios, panels, surveys,
  workshops and conferences
• forums for debate and emphasis on communication
  also among different regional perspectives,
  confirm as regionalism and globalisation are
  growing in parallel and cannot be considered
  separately

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Some suggestion for the EURO-MED Research and
Innovation Area coming from the Experience of the
old European Countries

• To work on Foresight much more than on
  Forecasting
• Emphasis on communication also among different
  Countries using Networks on subject of common
  interest
• Focus not only on technological innovation,
  involving a greater diversity of actors and
  considering a social context more and more
  complex
• Wide use of scenarios, panels, surveys, workshops
  and conferences
• Even if in a global contexts, to consider at the
  same time a regionalisation of the policies