Technology foresight : first report. Volume II, Minutes of evidence and appendices / Science and Technology Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Science and Technology
Date:
1995
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Technology foresight : first report. Volume II, Minutes of evidence and appendices / Science and Technology Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    24 October 1995] [Continued 53. We recommend that the LINK scheme should be broadened and expanded, and the OST science base industry schemes such as ROPA be sustained. 54. We recommend that Business Links, Business Connect (Wales) and Business Shops (Scotland) be fully involved in promoting Foresight at the regional and local levels. 55. We recommend that universities be supported to serve as local pan-sectoral foci for anticipating local and regional business and social change. 5.17 Private Sector. The biggest challenge to the Foresight Programme is to encourage private sector concerns—including inward investors, who tend to invest chiefly in high technology fields, and who are expected to pay a full part in Foresight—to perceive that Foresight is fundamental to their competitiveness (see recommendations 45-55). The natural focus for work on this front is the Foresight panels which can tailor the Foresight message to individual target audiences in their sectors. DTI sector divisions and regional offices are assisting the panels in this task. They are playing a key role in disseminating the Foresight results to the private sector, and encouraging take-up of priority recommendations. Ministers have set aside a budget of £2 million for this activity, largely targeting SME concerns, and a substantial programme is now underway. 5.18 But the task ahead should not be underestimated; it will be difficult to promote long-term issues, such as Foresight, onto the main Board agenda of our leading corporations without hard evidence that Foresight can influence the “bottom line.” A number of necessary conditions for progress in this area might be: — Successful Foresight examples from the private sector. — Evidence that Foresighting companies tend to outperform stock market average trends. — The clear grounding of Foresight analyses in expected market trends. 5.19 Some work on all of these areas is ongoing. For example, a leading investment bank is putting together an experimental “Foresight Portfolio”; the portfolio will represent companies who are known to employ Foresight in their strategic planning. The Centre for the Exploitation of Science and Technology (CEST) has published a business guide to exploiting the outputs of the Foresight process’ and mounts interactive Foresight workshops designed to show how the Foresight “habit” can be incorporated into strategic company thinking. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is promulgating Foresight both at a national and regional level. The Association of Independent Research and Technology Organisations (AIRTO) is assessing how best it can deliver the Foresight message to its client companies. 5.20 Territorial departments and agencies—for example, the Scottish Office, Scottish Enterprise, and the Industrial Research and Technology Unit in Northern Ireland—are mounting a series of events to highlight the work of particular Foresight panels which have considerable importance for the local company (e.g., food and drink in the Northern Ireland economy). 5.21 Professional institutions and learned societies—for example, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Institute of Materials, the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Academy of Engineering—also have a key role to play in particular sectors. Many of these have already organised dissemination events which tailor the Foresight message to their members. The focus on the particular rather than the general in this work is clearly right for the business audience. It is likely that Government is not best equipped to deliver Foresight ideas to corporate targets; and it will increasingly look to non-governmental deliverers (including business schools, the universities, CEST, RTOs and other consultancy organisations), with a direct financial interest in selling Foresight as a useful strategic tool, to convey the Foresight message to business. INTERNATIONAL ISSUES 56. We recommend that the Government takes a fully pro-active role in shaping EU policy on SET strategy and regulation, emphasising the need for an open market, customer focus and global competitiveness. 57. We recommend that EU programmes and national programmes continue to be established on the basis of complementarity. 58. We recommend that the Government does more to place UK scientists, engineers and technologists in key areas of influence in Brussels. 59. We recommend that more attention be given to developing appropriate global partnerships and alliances in the areas of SET. Collaboration can be more influential than competition. ' Acting on Foresight (CEST, London, 1995).