D7.1 Annual Report 2009
D7.7.1 Cognitive Enhancement Workshop: Weak Signals and Emerging Issues for European Policy
In order to better anticipate future opportunities and threats, foresight and other forward-looking activities are often used to initiate discussions regarding future developments in policy circles. While these activities are quite effective at clarifying issues that are currently evolving, they are less effective in identifying emerging issues that are not yet on the policy radar. Events that seem to occur suddenly may actually have been preceded by subtle warning signals which were not detected through established mechanisms.
The SESTI project (Scanning for Emerging Science and Technology Issues) has developed a mechanism which can be used to identify weak signals and emerging issues in a systematic, efficient and effective way. It is also pursuing the application and implementation of such techniques by linking them in a meaningful way to existing policy processes.
This document reports the findings of the workshop on emerging issues and weak signals in Cognitive Enhancement, which was held in Brussels on the 7th of June, 2010 as part of the SESTI project activities.
D7.7.3 Final Papers on Emerging Issues (3) – Energy Workshop: Weak Signals and Emerging Issues for European Policy
In order to better anticipate future opportunities and threats, foresight and other forward-looking activities are often used to initiate discussions regarding future developments in policy circles. While these activities are quite effective at clarifying issues that are currently evolving, they are less effective in identifying emerging issues that are not yet on the policy radar. Events that seem to occur suddenly may actually have been preceded by subtle warning signals which were not detected through established mechanisms.
The SESTI project (Scanning for Emerging Science and Technology Issues) has developed a mechanism which can be used to identify weak signals and emerging issues in a systematic, efficient and effective way. It is also pursuing the application and implementation of such techniques by linking them in a meaningful way to existing policy processes.
This document reports the findings of the workshop on emerging issues and weak signals in Energy, which was held in Brussels on the 29th of November, 2010 as part of the SESTI project activities. The workshop was attended by an international panel of thematic experts, as well as national and EU-level policy-makers.
Identified Weak Signals and Emerging Issues
The scanning process developed by the SESTI project team led to the identification of a number of emerging issues, of which the following were selected for discussion at the thematic workshop and which might require special attention on the part of policymakers:
- Hybrid nuclear energy
- Renewables from the desert
- Biofuels, biomass and biomimicry
- Unknown risks of the hydrogen economy
- Digging deeper and farther.
D7.7.4 Final Papers on Emerging Issues (4) – Health Workshop: Weak Signals and Emerging Issues for European Policy
In order to better anticipate future opportunities and threats, foresight and other forward-looking activities are often used to initiate discussions regarding future developments in policy circles. While these activities are quite effective at clarifying issues that are currently evolving, they are less effective in identifying emerging issues that are not yet on the policy radar. Events that seem to occur suddenly may actually have been preceded by subtle warning signals which were not detected through established mechanisms.
The SESTI project (Scanning for Emerging Science and Technology Issues) has developed a mechanism which can be used to identify weak signals and emerging issues in a systematic, efficient and effective way. It is also pursuing the application and implementation of such techniques by linking them in a meaningful way to existing policy processes.
This document reports the findings of the workshop on emerging issues and weak signals in Health, which was held in Brussels on the 30th of November, 2010 as part of the SESTI project activities. The workshop was attended by an international panel of thematic experts, as well as national and EU-level policy-makers.
Identified Weak Signals and Emerging Issues
The scanning process developed by the SESTI project team led to the identification of a number of emerging issues, of which the following five were selected for discussion at the thematic workshop and which might require special attention on the part of policymakers:
- Diversification in medicine.
- Happy aging? Mental health in an ageing society.
- Obesity: the global epidemic marches on.
- Is prevention better than cure? Re-prioritising health research.
- Personalised treatment.
D6.2.3 Major trends, challenges and emerging issues in Energy
The present document was prepared to support the SESTI workshop on emerging issues in and relevant for Energy science and technology with potentially high impact on policymaking in Europe. It complements the deliverable D5.1.3 (Paper on emerging issues Major trends, challenges and emerging issues in Energy). The objective of the present document is
to present an indicative snapshot of the literature on energy state‐of‐the‐art and future evolutions as well as on the associated policy issues surrounding the specific field. The overall aim is to establish a common understanding about the main elements characterizing the area of energy, in combination with D5.1, so as to trigger discussions on the topic.
D6.3.4 Health: Weak Signals and Emerging Issues for European Policy
The present document reports the findings of the workshop on scanning emerging issues in and relevant for Health science and technology with potentially high impact on policymaking in Europe, which took place in Brussels on the 30th November 2010 as part of the SESTI project activities. The workshop participants consisted of experts in health issues, foresight researchers and European policy‐makers. Different DG’s of the European Commission were represented, in particular DG JRC and DG RTD. In the workshop the discussions circled around scanning emerging issues in and relevant for Energy science and technology with potentially high impact on policy‐making in Europe.
Taking health as the example area, the objective of the workshop was to better understand what the needs of the policymaker are in order to make the decision to take up the emerging issue within the mainstream discussion in their community. By discussing the case issue of health, feedback was also sought on how to organize future workshops around new topics and develop briefs around new emerging issues. The workshop was envisaged to provide in depth information about what the needs of the users are in relation to the SESTI deliverables as well as the applied identification and selection process of early warning signals, and the processing procedures.
D6.2.2 Workshop Paper: SESTI Methodology Workshop 26 October 2010
Early warning signals are the first important indications of a change. These may be understood as advanced, somewhat noisy and generally socially situated indicators of change in trends and systems that constitute raw informational material for enabling anticipatory action. Many times these signals are difficult to spot because they are indicating an unknown, unexpected or rare change which makes it hard to distinguish them as relevant. Therefore they are usually referred at as “faint” or “weak” signals. The benefits of early warning signals can be seen when assessing their significance in an organization or a field concerned and analyzing how the phenomena reflected by the early warning signals should be reacted on. There remains some confusion about the definition of early warning signals and related terminologies as faint or weak signals. Sometimes these terminologies are referred as future oriented information, sometimes more like emerging issues.
Hiltunen (2007) has tried to clarify the confusion about the weak signal definitions, by combining signal, issue and interpretation in the concept of the “future sign”, which more holistically describes how these signals relate to change. Citing from Igor Ansoff, Hiltunen (2007)2 provides a definition of weak signals as: “warnings (external or internal), events and developments that are still too incomplete to permit an accurate estimation of their impact and/or to determine their complete responses”. Early warning signals are meaningful as long as they are evaluated in the context of both their emergence and their evolution as a part of a pattern along with other early warning signals. They do not exist in isolation.
