Manchester Institute of Innovation Research ANNUAL REPORT ï²ï°ï±ï±

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The fourth concluded project was SANDERA, which examined the evolving relations between Security and Defence Research and the ERA (Andrew James was PI, leader of this multi-country study – see SANDERA 2011). The project grappled with the blurring of issues and actors across defence and security research, the evolution of relations between these fields and the main lines of work supported within the ERA, elaborating scenarios of very different plausible outcomes – with no change from the current status quo being highly unlikely. Research Highlight: iKnow iKnow was a research and horizon scanning project sponsored by the European Commission with the goal of advancing knowledge and tools that can help establish more proactive European research policy, that can anticipate and take into account emerging issues liable to impact on STI. The project took the opportunity of this research theme to develop more systematic methods for identification and appraisal of wild cards and weak signals (WI-WE). Foresight analysis has long recognised the importance of these phenomena, but systematic ways of dealing with them have been largely absent. iKnow has achieved, in addition to a great deal of output on STI issues, advance in foresight methods. Its website - http://wiwe.iknowfutures.eu/ - not only contains documentation on a large number of WI-WE but also provides tools, access to resources, instruments for Delphi surveys, that can be applied in other studies. Already two projects have adopted these tools in their own work, so that the website is becoming a portal applied in other projects. One is a further European study, and the other is horizon-scanning for the Centre for Workforce Intelligence (CfWI), a large initiative designed to inform health and social care workforce planning in the UK (see http://www.cfwi.org.uk/). iKnow officially concluded with the submission of a series of glossy reports, in the wake of a successful conference in Brussels at the end of 2011. A proposal for a successor project is currently under preparation; if successful, this will advance the used of social networking in development of foresight appraisals. iKnow had a tremendous media and internet appeal, being one of the most “clicked” foresight projects and having had special features in prestigious Newspapers such as FT Germany and “Die Zeit”. In each of these two cases – and indeed in the case of iKnow, too – further publications and journal articles are being prepared for 2012. A fifth project exploring the future of Public Research Institutes, how they might develop within and contribute to the ERA (with Kate Barker as PI for Manchester) resulted already in a journal publication in 2011 (Cox et al, 2011). In the European context, Rafael Popper is building on previous work mapping and surveying European (and world) Foresight activities with the European Foresight Platform (see EFP 2011 and www.mappingforesight.eu). Luke Georghiou has been appointed to the European Forum on Forward Looking Activities, a high level advisory body to the European Commission which will draw upon foresight and other findings to identify key issues of significance for research and innovation policy or wider domains. The year also saw the publication by the UK government of earlier work by the Horizon Scanning Centre, to which Luke Georghiou had contributed, on Technology and Innovation Futures http://www.bis.gov.uk/foresight/our-work/horizon-scanning-centre/technologyand-innovation-futures . This work, originally conducted for Her Majesty’s Treasury, was extensively cited in a recent major policy speech by the UK Science Minister David Willetts. 15
Beyond EU projects, applied Foresight research is underway for a range of sponsors. This includes studies led by Ozcan Saritas for the Rockefeller Foundation (horizon-scanning – see Saritas and Miles, 2011 – a journal issue will be devoted to this activity in 2012). Ozcan has also led industrially-related work for INFO (the International Natural Fibres Association), involving scenario analyses and roadmapping and he has played a key role in Romanian foresight in connection with Higher Education. Rafael Popper’s extensive evaluation of the Colombian Foresight programme was published at the end of 2010, too late for the last annual report (Popper et al 2010); while Miles has a new study of evaluation practice in press, Miles, 2012). Dr Popper’s experience as foresight systems developer in the iKnow and EFP projects has led to the formation of Futures Diamond (a ‘spin-off’ IT company in Czech Republic). Ian Miles is on the editorial board of three journals in the foresight field, and Dr. Ozcan Saritas is editor in chief for the journal Foresight, a key outlet linking high level academic understanding standing with impact on the practitioner foresight community. This gives MIoIR more scope to influence the quality and directions of research agenda in the field, to be involved in the extensive networks of Foresight researchers and practitioners, and to participate in academic and practitioner. Besides regular issues, special issues of the journal have been edited on “Foresight for Smart Globalisation”, “Emerging Areas in Technology Foresight”, “Anticipatory Systems and Future Studies” and “Is Africa the land of the Future” Four more special issues on other important topics are currently being edited including the “Impacts of Foresight”, “Horizon Scanning: Approaches and Methodology”, “Is Middle East the land of the Future”, “Future of Security and Defence in Europe”, and “Knowledge Intensive Business Services”. The journal issues have been well-received by Governmental Advisors, Public Agencies, R&D Managers, Corporate Planners, Academic Researchers and third sector decision makers, who are among the key journal audiences. As well as attracting high quality papers, the journal has encouraged existing and emerging researchers to improve their publications through good quality feedback in peer-reviewing processes. Further, Dr. Saritas has been involved in the Romanian National Foresight project on the “Quality and Leadership in Higher Education” as a scientific advisor on Foresight. The main goal of the project is to develop a vision and a strategy for the Romanian higher education system (within year 2025 time horizon), in order to ground medium and long term policies, and to contribute to improving the financial and strategic management of Universities. The project is sponsored by the Romanian Government Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Protection and implemented by the Executive Agency for Higher Education and Research Funding. The Systemic Foresight Methodology developed by Dr. Saritas has been used as a key methodological approach for the Foresight exercises and has been described fully in the “Blueprint for Organising Foresight in Universities”, which provides practical solutions to challenges that universities might be confronted with while conducting their own foresight exercises. Blueprint for Organizing Foresight in Universities was published by the Romanian Academy and has been distributed in Romanian universities as a support instrument for conducting their institutional Foresight exercises. The Blueprint has been presented as a success story in the newsletter of the Strategic Projects for Romanian Higher 16
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Page 3 and 4: CONTENT Staff List 2011 ...........
Page 5 and 6: 1. Introduction and Summary In 2011
Page 7 and 8: the Academy of Management, the Atla
Page 9 and 10: articles are already accepted for 2
Page 11 and 12: and Science David Willets and the t
Page 13 and 14: In association with the Sustainable
Page 15 and 16: and industry structures. Methodolog
Page 17: presentations of this research were
Page 21 and 22: Already anticipated by the establis
Page 23 and 24: 3. PhD Research and Training The In
Page 25 and 26: Table 3 :PHD completion in MIOIR 20
Page 27 and 28: During 2011, in terms of engagement
Page 29 and 30: 6. Organising Academic Discourse: S
Page 31 and 32: Howells, J., Edler J. (2011) Struct
Page 33 and 34: Edler, J. (2011) Innovation in EU C
Page 35 and 36: April 2011, organised by the Sustai
Page 37 and 38: Conference, Workshop and Seminar Pr
Page 39 and 40: Edler, J. (2011) Lead Markets and P
Page 41 and 42: Kitagawa, F. (2011) Industry relati
Page 43 and 44: Organised by The British Council in
Page 45 and 46: Conferences organised by MIoIR Shap
Page 47 and 48: Massini, S. Expert Committee Member
Page 49 and 50: Surname Forename Country Research I
Page 51 and 52: MIoIR Doctoral Students 2011 Studen
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Manchester Institute of Innovation Research ANNUAL REPORT ï²ï°ï±ï±