Transcript Document

OST
What is ‘futures’ and what benefit can it
bring?
Jo Marsden
Office of Science and Technology
26 October 2005
www.foresight.gov.uk
OST
Presentation structure
• The Horizon Scanning Centre and Foresight
• Background
• Ways of working
• Brain Science, Addiction and Drugs: some techniques used with
one project
• Foresight projects: what happened next?
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Foresight and the OST Horizon Scanning Centre…
………..produce challenging visions of the future to ensure effective strategies
now………
……….. by providing a core of excellence in science-based futures expertise and
access to leaders in government, science and business.
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Challenging visions…..
Capability
building
Setting strategic context
Horizon Scanning
Priorities, Innovation
Innovation priorities
Wild cards!
Scientists’ views
Public engagement
priorities
Scanning the Scans
3
Strategic scanning
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∑ Scan
Scan
• Strategic context
• Emerging S&T
• Authoritative evidence
• Explore implications
• E.g.……..
- ageing
- geopolitics
- culture
- climate
• E.g.…..
- stem cells
- neuroimaging
- plastic electronics
- teleportation (!)
Key stakeholders
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Academics
Investigators
Research Councils
Funding charities
Science base
Science
informing
policy
decisions
Business needs
Gov’t
needs
Government strategy
and policy
Foresight and
horizon
scanning
Business needs
Innovation support
Markets infrastructure
Procurement
Knowledge
Business
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Projects must tackle issues which:
Futures
•Look ahead at least 10 years
S&T
•Are driven by science and technology
Value added impact
•Have outcomes that can be influenced
Value added: existing
work
•Are not covered by work carried on elsewhere
Networks
Buy in
•Require an inter-disciplinary approach
•Command support
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Project Organisation Structure
Ministerial
Stakeholder
Group
Expert
Engagement
Project
Director
Sir David
King
Expert
Advisory
Group
Lead science
co-ordinators
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Team
Wider
Stakeholder
Engagement
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Project Outputs
• State of the art reviews
• Visions of the future
• Consequential actions
• Enduring networks
• Innovation in engagement
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Brain science, addiction & drugs:
project aims
• How can we manage the use of psychoactive substances in the
future to best advantage for the individual, community and society.
• What will the psychoactive substances of the future be?
• What are the effects of using psychoactive substances?
• What mechanisms do we have to manage psychoactive
substances?
State of
Science
Horizon
Scan
Scenarios
Project
launch
Assessment of
current and
future
capabilities
Highlighting
advances of
greater future
impact
Considering
those advances
in different social
environments
Responses to
the findings
from interested
organisations
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Shell’s 7 questions technique
1.
•Scoping phase
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
If you could speak to an oracle in the
year 2015 what would you like to ask?
What is your vision for success?
What are the dangers of not achieving
your vision?
What needs to change (systems,
relationships, decision making
processes, culture for example) if your
vision is to be realised?
Looking back 10 years, what are the
successes we can build on? And the
failures we can learn from?
What needs to be done now to ensure
that your vision becomes a reality?
If you had absolute authority and
could do anything is there anything
else you would do?
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Structuring our thinking:
project issue tree
• Inputs from
• 7 questions,
• scoping workshops (March and April 2004)
• meetings and discussions with various
interested organisations
• Identified the project’s key questions
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Example of part of the Issue Tree
Level 1
Level 2
What psychoactive substances
are there likely to be in the future?
Level 3
What motivates people to use them?
What can scientific advances offer us?
How can we manage
the use of
psychoactive
substances
by individuals
and society in the future?
What are the effects of using
psychoactive substances?
What are their benefits?
What are their harms?
What mechanisms do we have
to manage the use of
psychoactive substances?
How can we prevent use?
How can we respond to use?
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Areas covered by State-of-Science
Reviews
•Clinical Psychology
•Experimental Psychology
•Neuroscience
•Genomics
•Pharmacology and
Treatments
•Cognition Enhancers
•Imaging
•History of Addiction
•Drug Testing
•Behavioural Addiction
•Life Histories and Narratives
•Social Policy
•Sociology
•Economics
•Ethics
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Brain Science, Addiction and Drugs
Project: horizon scanning
•Key advances from
the state of science
reviews
•Inputs from the stateof-science writers
•Analyses by the key
scientific experts
•Contributed to the
development of the
scenarios process
•Stand alone
publication
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Scenarios
• Henley Centre/Waverley Management
Consultants
• 3 stage process/3 workshops
• Driver assessment
• Scenario development
• Scenario testing and assessment
• Stakeholders involved at all stages
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Life enhancement
High performance
Neighbourhood Watch
• Decision making is based on scientific
knowledge
• Widespread use of psychoactive substances to
optimise performance and for recreation
• UK pharmas manufacture and supply cognitive
enhancers
• Addiction is seen as an illness to be treated
• Decision making is based on prevailing social
views
• Widespread use of psychoactive substances
in early stages, declining latterly
• UK pharmas manufacture and supply
• Addiction is not tolerated; the regime is
punitive
Evidence-based
regulation
View-based
regulation
Treated Positively
Dispense With Care
• Decision making is based on scientific
knowledge
• Widespread acceptance of psychoactive
substances for treatment; recreational use less
so
• UK pharmas under treat from open-source niche
players
• Addiction is not stigmatised; increasing use of
preventative treatment
• Decision making is based on prevailing social
views
• General intolerance of psychoactive
substances other than for treatment
• UK pharmas have withdrawn from
manufacture because of cost constraints in
the NHS
• Addiction is not tolerated; those who selfharm are excluded
Life preservation
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Examples
Flooding: cross
departmental action
plan led by Defra
Minister
Exploiting the
Electromagnetic
Spectrum:
Technology
Strategy support
for priority areas
identified
Cognitive
Systems: four
Research Councils
and the Wellcome
Trust encourage
joint research
proposals
Cyber Trust:
gaming
workshops to test
robustness of new
policies
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Exploiting the electromagnetic spectrum
(EEMS)
Aims
• Identify areas of rapidly moving science which
presented a significant potential future
commercial opportunity for the UK
• Agree a plan of action to ensure that the UK
captures a share of those emerging markets
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EEMS outcomes (12 month evaluation)
(full report available on Foresight website)
Informing research and development
• DTI Innovation Group funded 2 projects (£1.6M)
• Research Councils funded >100 proposals (£37M)
Establishing links between business, investors and researchers
• Venture capital events
• Conferences
• Publications
• Media coverage (New Scientist, Physics World)
Strengthening communities of interest
• Impact of ICT on Healthcare
• Medical Imaging Network
Informing government and other agencies
• OfCom (pervasive radio frequency area of EEMS)
• RDAs (findings fed into RDA’s long term research strategies)
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Reflections on futures
• Futures work is a leap into the unknown for many!
• Need to carry people with you through a process
that isn’t always easy to grasp
• Use of technical jargon
• Explain what these futures’ outputs could do for
those involved