Foresight in Research and Innovation

Technology Centre CAS in cooperation with the European Commission organised on October 7th, 2022 on-line workshop following the series of international workshops on foresight in research and innovation held under auspices of the German (November 2020), Portuguese (June 2021) and Slovenian Presidency (December 2021). 

The Czech Presidency workshop focused on the Inclusive foresight and public engagement, linked to a stronger involvement of citizens in structured discussions on the future direction of research, technological development and innovation.

Plenary session started with welcome speeches of Marek Havrda (Deputy Minister for European Affairs of the Czech Republic) and Alexandr Hobza (Head of Unit, Common R&I Strategy & Foresight Service, DG RTD).  Public engagement in policy-making processes highlighted presentations on public engagement in foresight by Matthias Weber, AIT and Tanja Schindler, 4strat and on public engagement in technology assessment by Tore Tennøe, NBT.   A series of the Mutual Learning Exercise on R&I Foresight as an exemple of effective involvement of society in R&I decision-making presented by Nikos Kastrinos and Jürgen Wengel. Emanuelle Jannès Ober a Marie de Lattre-Gasquet shared their experience in the PROSPER network of the French public research foresight actors.

The presentations followed by three interactive sessions. The aim of the parallel sessions was to address the following topics:

• Challenges for R&I policy that need to be addressed through greater involvement of citizens
• How to involve marginalised groups in decision-making processes
• Policy mechanism for implementing TA and foresight in decision-making processes

Discussion was summed-up by rapporteurs of each session. All outcomes of the workshop can be found in the summary report.