The best practices of evaluating S&T foresight: Basic elements and key criteria

Abstract

As the impact of strategic decision-making at the corporate, sectoral and nationallevels increase, there are growing demands for high quality and solid Foresight outputs. In this regard, a timely detection and elimination of problems in Foresight projects is of great importance. A thorough evaluation of criteria and methods used in Foresightanalysis would permit the improved effectiveness of Foresight activities. The resultscould be set against the aims to decide on the feasibility of projects and identify ways to improve them. Despite great interest in Foresight evaluation demonstrated by stakeholders at various levels, the general principles for conducting it have not yet been formulated, which hinders its development and the diffusion of successful expertise. The purpose of this paper is to identify the basic elements - criteria and methods - usedin evaluating national Foresight. It presents the most interesting results for specifictasks, the themes examined, the methods and the findings, in general. In addition, the study allowed some inference about theory and practice of project management. The study reveals that a key motivation for evaluation of Foresight projects is to provide feedbackto national Foresight organizations and identify areas for further development. Evaluation is used to guide Foresight (in varying degrees) and provide lessons learned for future projects (for example, simplifying implementation, involving business and social organizations, recognizing the need for better compliance with the methodology and objectives of the study participants). The paper serves to develop a general methodology for assessing national Foresight programmes. A further agenda is to develop a comprehensiveanalysis of Foresight, ensure comparability of results of Foresight evaluation initiatives in different countries, promote standardization of evaluation procedures.