The application of foresight to address the challenges of uncertainty and rapid change has grown dramatically in the past decade. In that period, the techniques have been greatly refined and the scope has been broadened to encompass future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) and more recently, the concept and practice of strategic intelligence. FTA addresses directly the longer-term future through the active and continuous development of visions, and pathways to realise these visions. It is increasingly seen as a valuable management and policy tool complementing, and extending further into the future, classical strategy, planning, and decision-making approaches. This book charts the development of FTA and provides the first coherent description and analysis of its practical application and impact in the worlds of business, government, education and research in both advanced and developing countries. It draws on papers addressing the application of FTA around the globe which were presented at the Second International Seville Seminar in September 2006. The insights and practical experience will be invaluable for company managers, government ministers and officials, researchers and academics with responsibilities for effective planning and decision-making in an increasingly turbulent and unpredictable world.

Cross-cutting analytical chapters explore the emergence and positioning of foresight, approaches and methods, organisational issues, policy transfer and evaluation.

Nanotechnology has been the subject of extensive ‘assessment hype,’ unlike any previous field of research and development. A multiplicity of stakeholders have started to analyze the implications of nanotechnology: Technology assessment institutions around the world, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, re-insurance companies, and academics from science and technology studies and applied ethics have turned their attention to this growing field’s implications. In the course of these assessment efforts, a social phenomenon has emerged – a phenomenon the editors define as assessment regime. Despite the variety of organizations, methods, and actors involved in the evaluation and regulation of emerging nanotechnologies, the assessment activities comply with an overarching scientific and political imperative: Innovations are only welcome if they are assessed against the criteria of safety, sustainability, desirability, and acceptability. So far, such deliberations and reflections have played only a subordinate role. This book argues that with the rise of the nanotechnology assessment regime, however, things have changed dramatically: Situated at the crossroads of democratizing science and technology, good governance, and the quest for sustainable innovations, the assessment regime has become constitutive for technological development. The contributions in this book explore and critically analyse nanotechnology’s assessment regime: To what extent is it constitutive for technology in general, for nanotechnology in particular? What social conditions render the regime a phenomenon sui generis? And what are its implications for science and society?

Research Methods in Service Innovation provides an essential methodological toolbox for researchers, students and practitioners interested in better understanding innovation and improving innovation processes in service organisations. Each chapter presents a specific method, introduces its theoretical foundations, explains its practical application, and provides examples and suggestions for its implementation.