Second International Seville Seminar on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA): Impacts on policy and decision making 28th- 29th September 2006

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Second International Seville Seminar on
Future-Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA)
Impacts on policy and decision making28th- 29th
September 2006
Foresight within ERA-NETs Experiences from the
Preparation of an International Research Programme
Ville Brummer, Totti Könnölä and Ahti Salo
Helsinki University of Technology Technical
Research Centre of Finland
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Foresight within ERA-NETs
ERA-NETs
ERA-NET Scheme

• An innovation policy tool in the EU
• Funding from FP6 (budget approx. 160 M in 2002 -
  2006)
• Coordination and cooperation among national and
  regional research programmes
• New innovations, efficient use of resources, risk
  spreading
• Focus on selected sciences and/or technologies
• Approx. 75 ERA-NETs to-date
• Transportation, climate change, hydrogen, cancer,
  etc.
• Diverse practices
• From 10 to 50 partners
• Budgets from 100 k to 100 M
• Mode of operations ranges from
• weak coordination of national programmes to
• common pot of resources for a joint RTD programme

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Foresight within ERA-NETs
WoodWisdom-Net
Background

• Timeline
• Established in 2004
• Calls for proposals in 2007 - research will start
  in 2008
• 18 partners (ministries and national funding
  agencies)
• Austria, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany,
  Norway, Sweden, UK
• Joint Research Programme
• Research projects to be funded by WW-Net partners
• Partners allocate funds to researchers in their
  countries
• Funding decisions are taken jointly
• Cross-national research projects
• Five workpackages (WPs)
• WP2 strategic activities WP 2.4 and 2.5
  Collaborative Shaping of Research Agendas in
  WoodWisdom-Net

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Foresight within ERA-NETs
Collaborative Shaping of Research Agendas
Consultation process

• Challenges
• New instrument ? No established approaches
• A broad range of issues to be covered
• Forestry, wood products, paper industry, etc.
• Research, industrial and societal perspectives
• Different partners (funding organizations)
• Different management cultures
• Different national interests
• Different focus areas
• Systematic process to engage key stakeholders
• Well-defined roles and responsibilities
• Taxonomy for research issues
• Multiple methods (internet surveys, multicriteria
  analysis, participatory workshops)
• Over 400 participants from eight different
  countries

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Foresight within ERA-NETs
Process Description
Participants

• Representatives from funding organizations
• One per each organization
• National coordinators
• One per each country (i.e. Austria, Denmark,
  France, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, UK)
• Researchers
• Approx. 200 researchers
• Industrial leaders
• Approx. 50 industry representatives
• The project team
• Project manager plus research group at TKK (the
  authors)

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Foresight within ERA-NETs
Process Description
Taxonomy
RESEARCH AREA 1 Knowledge-based products new
value- added e.g. for construction, interior
design, information, packaging and health-care
purposes Sub-area 1.1 Wood-based biopolymers to
composites Sub-area 1.2 Eco-friendly chemicals
and polymers Sub-area 1.3 Creating new
functionalities or improved to materials/products
Sub-area 1.4 Combining fibres with other
materials Sub-area 1.5 Creating new innovative
wood and fibre structures for different end-uses
RESEARCH AREA 2 Biorefinery concept for
efficient utilization of wood raw material
Sub-area 2.1 Modification and processing of wood
raw material into innovative, eco-efficient
products Sub-area 2.2 Effective utilization of
side streams Sub-area 2.3 Development of
recyclability characteristics Sub-area 2.4
Advanced production of bioenergy Sub-area 2.5
Utilization of enabling technologies to improve
productivity and reduce capital costs RESEARCH
AREA 3 Sustainable, renewable raw material
production Sub-area 3.1 Techniques for
measurement and characterization of the
properties of wood and fibres Sub-area 3.2 Tree
breeding using traditional techniques or forest
biotechnology Sub-area 3.3 Factors affecting
wood and fibre properties Sub-area 3.4
Silvicultural methods, procurement and harvesting
operations Sub-area 3.5 Optimizing the raw
material supply chain for specific products or
demands RESEARCH AREA 4 Socio-economic aspects
related to scientific innovations of wood-based
materials Sub-area 4.1 Combining social and
natural/engineering sciences Sub-area 4.2 Values
and perception Sub-area 4.3 New business models
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Foresight within ERA-NETs
Process description
Process Design
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Foresight within ERA-NETs
Process description
Tasks 1 3 Web-activities

• Task 1
• Timetable Mid-July Mid-October 2005
• Participants 200 Researchers
• Researchers submitted research issues
• Output 317 Research issues
• Task 2
• Timetable December 2005 Mid-January 2006
• Participants 200 Researchers
• Researchers assessed proposed research issues
• Task 3
• Timetable January 2006
• Participants 50 Industrial leaders
• Industrial leaders assessed research issues

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Paper title
Process description
Task 1 Exapmle
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Foresight within ERA-NETs
Process description
Task 4 Initial screening of research issues

• Timetable
• January February 2006
• Participants
• The project team
• Task
• Multi-criteria analyses with RPM-methodology
  based on the assessments (http//www.rpm.tkk.fi)
• Output
• Key evaluation statistics
• Shortlists of most promising issues

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Foresight within ERA-NETs
Process description
Task 5 Workshops for researchers and funding
organisations

• Three one day workshops in February 2006
• New value added products and production, Wood
  products and Forestry
• Participant
• One researcher and one Industrial leader from
  each participating country / workshop
• Issues, assessments and analysis on each research
  sub-area allocated to each workshop by topic
• Discussion of solicited issues
• Evaluation of sub-areas with regards to i)
  suitability for WW-Net and ii) tentative
  proposition of distribution of funding
• Synthesis of the results i) at the international
  level and ii) on each country

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Foresight within ERA-NETs
Process description
Task 6 Workshop for funding organisations

• Timetable
• March 2006
• Participants
• Representatives from funding organisations
• One-day workshop
• Results from previous tasks supported discussions
• Funding organisations estimated i) how much and
  ii) which sub-areas they would be willing to fund
• Three working groups of WW-Net partners created
  based on these answers ? Specification of
  Calls-for-Proposals

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Foresight within ERA-NETs
Collaborative shaping of research agendas
Conclusions

• Benefits to stakeholders
• Researchers Learning from a systematic process
  
• Industry Influence through comments on
  prospective research
• Funding organizations Improved understanding of
  research issues that are relevant to researchers
  and industrialists
• Makes it easier to commit funds
• Supporst the development of Calls-for-Proposals
  
• Key process considerations
• How to balance top-down and bottom-up
  prioritisation?
• At what stage to build a taxonomy of research
  issues?
• How to foster new networks of collaboration?
• Extensive analyses distributed among WW-Net
  members
• Potentially useful in other ERA-NETs, too