Scanning the innovation horizon

• Author: Nikos Kastrinos and Ewelina Pysklo, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission
• Pages: 752-770

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1. Introduction

The European Union makes substantial

investments in research, science, technology

and innovation, aiming at lowering technical and

commercial risks associated with innovation

to make its economy more competitive and

to enable its society to achieve goals such

as prosperity, sustainability and quality of

life. European strength in science, technology

and industry is necessary to ensure that

Europe is able to achieve its objectives. To be

competitive, Europe needs to maximise the

value and productivity of its investments in

R&I, and this requires appropriate intelligence

and coordination between relevant policies

and strategies at EU, national and regional

levels. These investments may follow Europe’s

strengths or weaknesses and concentrate

on areas where the greatest impacts can be

expected and where the most benef‌its would

lie. A good understanding of capacities and

aspirations for future innovations is an invaluable

basis for ref‌lection and debate on potential

impacts of dif‌ferent investment decisions, and

on the normative and strategic considerations

that should guide those investment decisions.

This paper presents a brief overview of how

horizon scanning took hold in EU ef‌forts to im-

prove priority-setting in science and technology.

It begins with the history of the development of

priority setting in R&I policy and the analytical

methodologies used to support it, showing the

hand-in-hand evolution of political and analytical

developments. Despite being practised for many

years, especially in Japan, horizon scanning in

science and technology (S&T) really took of‌f with

the publication of the Chinese Roadmaps for

2050. The close coupling between understand-

ing the horizon, the policy goals and the com-

mitment to achieving them that seemed to drive

the modernisation of China incentivised other

governments to undertake R&I horizon scanning,

and to use it in priority setting. The paper reviews

some key national projects before describing the

European Commission’s experience with horizon

scanning. Its conclusions simply appraise this

experience and point at questions and possible

improvements that could determine whether

horizon scanning becomes a regular part of the

EU policymaking toolbox or remains an experi-

ment from which lessons are applied elsewhere.

Summary

This chapter is dedicated to ef‌forts gathering

wide-ranging intelligence to identify new signs

of emerging issues, trends and challenges for

the future. It describes in detail the practice

of horizon scanning, which can be seen as the

basic groundwork of foresight projects, or as

an important strategic function in its own right.

It presents the European Commission’s latest

research and innovation (R&I) foresight

exercises which are essential in the context

of the increasing emphasis being placed by

the EU’s R&I policy on directionality, in par-

ticular towards sustainable development.

The need for informed policy priorities re-

sults in demand for more systematic, con-

tinuous and comprehensive scans to feed

into decision-making processes.

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CHAPTER 15

2. Horizon scanning in R&I policy

1 In 2018, the JRC developed an online megatrends hub: https://ec.europa.eu/knowledge4policy/foresight/about_en and a set

of methodologies for using it as the context for decision-making games.

A great deal of modern S&T has its roots

in the ef‌forts to sustain the technological

leadership of the US military and the com-

mercial advantages these generated for US

f‌irms (Bush, 1945; McDougall, 1985; Gholz,

2011; Mazzucato, 2011). The EU’s R&I ef‌forts

originated in an ef‌fort to catch up with the USA

in certain f‌ields of S&T (EC 1970, 1985; Patel

and Pavitt, 1987; Sharp, 1989). The EU was not

alone in this ef‌fort. Japan, the Soviet Union and,

increasingly, other parts of the world began to

invest heavily in R&D and to seek to compete

with the USA in S&T. During the 1980s, it

became clear that no country could af‌ford to

be the world leader in all f‌ields of S&T and

strategic R&I programming became prominent.

Japan led the way with the launch of the Very

large-scale integration (VLSI) programme in

1976. The ALVEY Programme in the UK and the

ESPRIT programme in the European Community

were reactions to Japan’s VLSI. More and more

countries set of‌f to develop capacities in key

technologies (Rothwel and Zegveld, 1985),

which ‘when ef‌fectively controlled, of‌fer keys

to economic success’ (Revermann and Sonntag,

1989, p. 1). The ef‌fort to devise priorities led

to the development of disciplines such as

scientometrics (De Sola Price, 1978), techno-

metrics (Sahal, 1985) and to the application

of foresight in S&T (Martin and Irvine, 1984,

1989; Urashima, Yokoo and Nagano, 2012). The

foundations of these disciplines lie in the belief

that priority-setting in S&T can benef‌it from on

an informed understanding of capabilities and

aspirations, which can be revealed by the study

of expert communities and their communication.

The practice of horizon scanning evolved in this

context and can be seen either as the basic

groundwork of foresight projects, or as an import-

ant strategic function in its own right. It signif‌ies

an ef‌fort to gather wide-ranging intelligence that

goes beyond the normal intelligence practice, to

identify new signals of emerging issues, trends

and challenges that could help preparedness for

the future (Cuhls, van der Giessen and Toivanen,

2015). In S&T, horizon scanning provides intel-

ligence about capacities and aspirations which

could push forward the frontiers of knowledge and

innovation. For contemporary R&I policymaking,

this intelligence is an essential part of the stra-

tegic context of policy decisions. It allows informed

evaluations of expected costs, benef‌its, challenges

and opportunities associated with particular R&I

policy options and directions (ibid.). Again, Japan

led the way. Regular foresight studies in science

and technology, with a broad horizon scan, began

in the 1970s, and since 1996 they have been inte-

grated into the revision of the Basic Plan, the basis

of Japanese S&T policy that is reviewed every f‌ive

years (Urashima, Yokoo and Nagano, 2012).

The need for a more strategic approach to R&I

policy underpins the European Commission’s

recent ef‌forts to develop a more systematic

understanding of the innovation horizon. These

ef‌forts build on two foundations: the f‌irst is the

development of strategic foresight in the EU’s

R&I policy during Horizon 2020 (EFFLA 2013;

Burgelman et al., 2014; Kastrinos, 2018). In the

practice of strategic foresight, some of the most

powerful context is provided by megatrends1

(Gore, 2013; EEA 2010, 2015; OECD 2016;

ESPAS 2015, 2019), described as inescapably

powerful forces). However, in their content

megatrends invariably resemble signif‌icant

debates about the future rather than determined

historical destinies. The interplay between

determinism and strategies to change the future

requires foresight to decompose megatrends,

to juxtapose established trends with emerging