Foresight activities have often supported priority-setting, networking and consensual vision-building. Drawing on complementary evolutionary perspectives, this article discusses these objectives from the viewpoint of diversity, which may be vital in contexts characterised by technological discontinuities and high uncertainties. Although the solicitation of weak signals has been widely advocated in such contexts, the solicitation of ideas for prospective innovations may result in more focused, action-oriented and comparable reflections of future developments.
Building on this argument, the article extends Robust Portfolio Modelling (RPM) into a collaborative foresight method called RPM Screening, with phases for the generation, revision, evaluation and analysis of innovation ideas. It reports experiences from a pilot project in which the method supported the work of the Foresight Forum of the Finnish Ministry of Trade and Industry.
The results of the pilot and other applications suggest that RPM Screening holds promise for fostering diversity in a variety of contexts, for instance in the development of shared research agendas and in the identification and assessment of technological risks.
Könnölä, T., Brummer, V., & Salo, A. (2007). Diversity in foresight: Insights from the fostering of innovation ideas. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 74(5), 608–626. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2006.11.003