The Role of Foresight in the Policy-Making Process

Policy Facilitating and Policy informingInherent tension or two sides of the coin?

Background & brainstorming presentation

Philine Warnke, Olivier Da Costa, Fabiana Scapolo

FOR-LEARN Mutual Learning WorkshopSeville, 2nd December 2005

Aim of the 3 FOR-LEARN “Mutual Learning”workshops

How can Foresight be useful for policy making?Impact will only be achieved when

Real needs are met but alsoWhen they are met in a suitable way

Therefore crucial to understandPolicy needsChallenges in fulfilling these needs arising from the current nature and context of policy making

Based on this understanding we aim to derive some recommendations on the conceptualisation and practises of Foresight for policy-making.

Content

1. Why re-consider impact of Foresight?2. Foresight as “policy-facilitating”3. Foresight as “policy-informing”4. Tensions / trade-offs between different functions?5. Approaches to address this tension:

SeparationIntegrationTranslation

6. Discussion

1 Why re-consider impact of Foresight?

Long-standing experience in Foresightreview of lessons learnedimpact assessment

Shifting balance between product and process calls for rethinking the impact on policyChanges in context of policy calling for new policy support tools

Need for systemic instruments

Drivers for the need for systemic instrumentsCentral role of networks and interfaces within knowledge societyInsight into co-evolution between technology and societal context

• Broadening of decision making proceduresMulti level governance

Focus of systemic instruments (Smits & Kuhlmann 2004)Management of interfacesFacilitate new combinations of elements within a systemProviding a platform for learning and experimentingProviding an infrastructure for (distributed) strategic intelligenceStimulating demand articulation and common visions

Benefit for policyEnhancing capability for self-organisationFacilitating policy implementation

Foresight as a systemic instrument

Foresight is fulfilling many of the functions of systemic instrument such as

Establishing linkagesBuilding joint visionsProviding learning platformsPromoting new combinations between elements

Foresight is a “promising candidate” to be used as a systemic instrument

Contributions of Foresight to the policy-making process

Providing forward-looking intelligence for policy conceptualisation and design (“policy-informing”);Building common ground, links, interfaces and visions among and across actors and stakeholders within a certain policy arena to enhance the capability of systems to change (“policy-facilitating”/tuning/ mediating / wiring up???.).Additional

Democratic dimensionSymbolic functions

Foresight Functions

Policy

ArenaAnticipatory intelligenceRecommendations

Links

Policy Facilitating

Policy informing

Distributed Intelligence

Distributed IntelligenceJoint Learning Platform

Joint Vision

2 Foresight as policy-facilitating

Building common groundEstablishing linkages & interfacesBuilding joint visionsProviding learning platformsPromoting new combinations between elements

Creating distributed intelligence

Policy benefit: Enhanced capability of systems to change and thereby to react to future challenges

Challenges of “policy-facilitating”

Assumed influence on policy decision making one of the main motivating factors for actors to engage in the process

Coming together for the sake of it is not sufficientDanger that lobbies dominate the process (Rémi Barré)Policy makers are “disconnected” and may question the legitimacy of the exerciseOther instruments may be better suited to orient stakeholders in a certain direction (e.g. transition management)Normal channels of democratic decision making might be put at risk (Rémi Barré)

3 Foresight as “policy-informing”

Providing forward-looking intelligence for policy conceptualisation and design

Challenges of “policy-informing” I

Under severe time pressureInformation overload,

not always reliablenot always relevant

Uncertainty, speed of change Difficulty to switch modes “urgency focussed” “long-term overview”Increasing complexity of issues

Multi-dimensional: S&T, cultural & social, political, economic, environmentalInter-connection, inter-dependencyMulti-causal, good old fashioned “control system” not applicable“You can never change one thing”

Challenges of “policy-informing” II

Policy makers do not make rational choices based on pre-existent objectives but objectives are continuously adapted in the process of decision making (Menendez, Cabello, Garcia)Reduced ability of single policy actor to influence decision leads to reduced motivation to engage in intelligence collection (Menendez, Cabello, Garcia)If legitimating/symbolic function dominates the need for information gathering, the link to decision making will be weak (Menendez, Cabello, Garcia)

4 Tensions / trade-offs between different functions?

Process benefits are calling for wide participation but the wider the range of stakeholders, the more difficult it is to derive one coherent set of intelligence (Rémi Barré: trade off between extensiveness and intensiveness)

Conflicting viewpoints and conflicts of interest in a process-oriented exercise make it difficult to provide consensual recommendationsVisions of actors are not necessarily useful for policy as there are different considerations for policy makers to be taken into account Lack of knowledge of policy process may result in somewhat “naïve”recommendationsSymbolic function (rational intelligence based decision making) is reduced if “no” intelligence is produced (Cecilia Cabello Valdes)

Rémi BarréTrade-off “Intensiveness” / “extensiveness”

ExtensivenessNumber and variety of

persons involvedRef: Spanish Foresight conf

May 2002

IntensivenessCompleteness of learning

cycle

“Societal”Foresight

“Professional-analytic”Foresight

Possible consequences for Foresight exercises

Design is struggling to follow diverse objectivesExcessive expectations lead to disappointment and discredit of Foresight as a policy-support methodology

E.g. policy-makers expecting figures and rankings and indicators and receiving networks and common visions

5 Approaches to address this tension

SeparationIntegrationTranslation

SeparationTwo types of exercise

R&D community Industry

Civil Society

Policy

“Societal”Foresight

E.g.:Rémi BarréWallonie Exercise

“Professional-analytic”Foresight

IntegrationPolicy-makers part of the process

R&D community Industry

Civil Society

Policy

Foresight embedded into the policy-making

process

E.g.: Matthias Weber “adaptive policy

strategy”

TranslationOutcome of participatory Foresight is “translated to policy-

makers”

Policy

Arena

• Anticipatory intelligence• Recommendations

Distributed Intelligence

Joint Visionlinks

Interface

•Olivier Da Costa: “complexity reducing roadmaps”•Arie Rip: “Narrative scripts”

Bottleneck in the transmission of knowledgefrom the Society / Academy / Industry

to policy-making

Huge basis of material in the Society, Academy, Industry

(over)simplification and formatting for the messages to go through: ‘indicators’, ranking (universities, transparency...)

Problematic of policy-making often on a reduced basis

Intelligence has nothing to do with politics.

Winston Churchill

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it,

misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong

remedies.Groucho Marx

Ref: Prague methodologyworkshop October 2005

Translation

Rationale: Creating special interfaces from Foresight to policy such asMediators transmitting complexity to policy-makers

Graphical elements: roadmapping…Narrative scripts: Scenarios for Ambient Intelligence…Multimedia tool: Visions Project (Venice 2050)…Interactive website: FOR-LEARN…

Policy experts cooperating with the Foresight team advising on policy needs

Problematic of policy-making often on a reduced basis

Huge basis of material in the Society, Academy, Industry

6 Handing over the hot potato to you…

What kind of impact should Foresight aim atWhat is most needed?What can Foresight best provide?

How can the challenges be met?What is your experience in policy advising practice?