Sirkku Kivisaari

Management of Foresight Portfolio: Analysis of Modular Foresight Projects at Contract Research Organisation

While the expansion of foresight scope towards systemic processes and societal considerations has provided significant opportunities for learning and synchronised action between different business units and/or policy fields, it may also have caused digression and ambiguity in the practice and theory of the management of foresight processes. This is true, in particular, in contract research organisations that have faced major challenges to reorganise their foresight activities as part of the changes in their innovation practices. The paper examines the exercises and consequent responses to this shift at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. The paper develops and applies a coherent classification framework for foresight exercises. The framework provides practical support for the design and management of foresight projects, as well as supports the overall management of the portfolio of different kinds of foresight activities. The findings also point out the need for the modular process design that helps adjusting foresight exercises in different contexts.

System innovations in the making: hybrid actors and the challenge of up-scaling

The article addresses the problem of how to create sustainable change in health care. It builds on two case studies that examine endeavours to develop system innovations so that they deliver high quality services more efficiently. The innovation processes are studied through the lens of a multiple-level model of change. The model suggests that change takes place as the outcome of linkages between external pressures on the current regime, policy measures, and local initiatives. The results highlight the critical role of hybrid actors for (1) assuring the societal quality of the innovation, and (2) developing the embryo so that it is relevant beyond the local level. The up-scaling of an innovation embryo entails that local actors adopt a wider perspective and that policy-makers support the spreading of local innovations. The findings are thus useful for policy-makers and local developers.

Systemic transformation, anticipatory culture, and knowledge spaces: constructing organisational capacities in roadmapping projects at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

This article suggests that, in the current interlinked innovation meta-system, research and technology organisations (RTOs) would benefit from developing two systemic capacities: partial structural openness enabling flexibility in organisation and an anticipatory culture that builds on an anticipatory agency, that is, a proactive participatory approach that leads to action. In this article, we explore the questions of systemic transformations and the building of an anticipatory culture in the context of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. First, we discuss the strategic development paths, anticipatory culture and systemic transformation capacities in the context of RTOs. Second, we show how process-based roadmapping can be applied in building the systemic transformation capacities and anticipatory culture. Third, we illustrate these notions by analysing four roadmapping projects as case studies.

A Framework for Developing Distributed ICT Applications for Health

Distributed health information and communication technologies (ICT) applications tend to fail in the marketplace. A framework comprising of four pillars is constructed that explains the reasons of failure and how the trajectory from idea to a product in the marketplace could be managed more successfully

On Foresight Design and Management: A Classification Framework for Foresight Exercises

The gradual paradigm shift in innovation research and policy from linear to systemic innovation models has also challenged also the conventional technocratic technology-driven forecasting practices and called for new participatory and systemic foresight approaches (Smits and Kuhlmann 2004). In the 1980s, publicly funded foresight activities were commonly seen as an instrument for assisting in the development of priorities for research and development (R&D) resource allocation (Irvine and Martin 1984). Later on, stakeholder participation and networking have been regarded as increasingly important elements of foresight activities for ‘wiring up’ the multilayered innovation systems both in the public (Martin and Johnston 1999) and private sectors (e.g. Salmenkaita and Salo 2004). Reports from recent foresight projects have, in turn, emphasized the importance of common vision building as a step towards the synchronization of the innovation system (Cuhls 2003). In these developments, the locus of foresight activities has tended to shift from positivist and rationalist technology-focused approaches to the recognition of broader concerns that encompass the entire innovation system, including its environmental, social and economic perspectives. The High Level Expert Group appointed by the European Commission crystallized these trends by defining foresight as follows (European Commission 2002): ‘A systematic, participatory, future intelligence gathering and medium-to-long-term vision-building process aimed at present-day decisions and mobilizing joint action’.