Moscow Gathers International Experts on Futures Studies at HSE Annual Conference on Foresight and STI Policy

October 30-31, 2013 National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) hosts its Annual Conference 'Foresight and STI Policy'. Well known and highly reputed speakers from leading research centres, universities, international organisations and transnational companies will gather to explore new frontiers in Foresight — one of the most requested instruments to analyze the future. 

Foresight approaches have been widely used in addressing many problems in science, technology and innovation policy. This Conference aims to examine how Foresight might be advanced so that it is better able to contribute to policy-makers' new search for Great Responses to the many Grand Challenges that confront contemporary societies.

New demands from the policy side will be reviewed and related to the potential of conventional Foresight approaches to meet these demands and become fruitfully embedded in everyday decision making. Another key topic of the Conference will be networking as a key feature of Foresight processes to gather intelligence from wider sources, and to engage stakeholders. The participants will address such questions as: How can professional expert network communities be created and/or used for better understanding and shaping of the future? How can different communities be integrated in overarching networks, enhancing development of shared perspectives across, say, different sciences (e.g. natural and social sciences) and technology fields?

Foresight-related communities have been increasingly focusing on different kinds of future shocks, X-events, and threats. The very special thing about the Conference is that it will take into account that 'mood matters', and pay more attention to the bright sides of the future, including positive 'wild cards' and the scope for real progress in responding to some of our persistent Grand Challenges. The Conference will thus discuss the potential for breakthroughs of various kinds that could make people wealthier and happier: human enhancement; sustainable development; new energy, and the like.

There also will be a U-turn from speaking about Foresight of the future to discussing the future of Foresight. This theme will focus more on new methods of futures studies, issues posed concerning their practical use, and the scope for cross-fertilisation of different approaches and platforms. Among these methods we may consider systematic approaches to addressing 'wild cards' and 'weak signals', to developing strategic intelligence from semantic analysis and other IT-assisted tools, to strategic roadmapping, modelling and visualisation, and the like. Such approaches are inherently interesting, but the Conference will be especially concerned by their scope for application to new policy demands and the forthcoming agenda of STI policy.

Among the keynote speakers are:

• Ludmila Ogorodova, Deputy Minister of Education and Science, Russia
• Luke Georghiou, University of Manchester, UK
• Leonid Gokhberg, HSE, Russia
• Jonathan Linton, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Canada
• Angela Wilkinson, OECD
• Ian Miles, HSE, Russia; University of Manchester, UK
• Kuniko Urashima, NISTEP, Japan
• Ozcan Saritas, HSE, Russia
• Philip Shapira, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
• Rongping Mu, Institute of Policy and Management, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
• Alexander Sokolov, HSE, Russia
• Cristiano Cagnin, CGEE, Brazil
• Anastassios Pouris, Institute for Technological Innovation, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Please register by following the link https://www.hse.ru/expresspolls/poll/97367509.html.

The contact person for registration and other conference-related issues is Mrs. Olga Maximova

(e-mail: ovmaximova@hse.ru; tel.: +7 495 772 9590, ext. 11715).

Elena Gutaruk specially for the HSE News Service