HSE Conference to Discuss Foresight Research from Russia to Singapore

What should Russia’s policy be on Science and Technology? What do Russian and international foresight research results show? How is international cooperation in science developing? These are among the questions which will be discussed at the 5th annual international research conference on Foresight and STI Policy at HSE on 18th - 20th November.  

The HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) is one of the leading foresight research centres in Russia.

This area of research is becoming more widespread and relevant in Russia in both academic circles and in business. For example, the demand for foresight research into new markets and technologies is now part of the design for innovational development programmes for companies with public ownership. The Federal Agency for Scientific Organisations (FANO) is actively expanding foresight research programmes in institutes, formerly part of the Academy of Sciences. On the basis of leading HEIs and research centres, the Ministry of Science and Education, with methodological support from HSE, is developing a network of industrial centres for S&T prognosis.

At the conference HSE specialists will present the results of their research on S&T foresight in general and in various branches of the Russian economy and researchers from abroad will report about the latest foresight research results in their countries too. There will be discussions on the problems of government S&T policy and implementation and foresight methodology itself. International speakers will make presentations on every subject under discussion so participants can compare approaches in different countries.

S&T development in Russia

There will be two roundtables on strategic problems of STI development in Russia. The first in the morning of the 18th November and the second in the afternoon of the 20th. At the conference leading Russian experts, RAS, federal ministerial and departmental and state-owned company representatives will discuss approaches to prioritising S&T development, new tools of government policy and possible institutional transformations for the sake of development in innovation.   

HSE has prepared a long-term prognosis for S&T development in Russia up to 2030. But work has already begun on a prognosis for 2040. ‘We’re at the early stages and want to take the opportunity at the conference to discuss the new approaches and methods we’ll be using with an international audience,’ says HSE First Vice Rector, Leonid Gokhberg. ‘Every research project, besides its practical value is an experiment in developing new foresight methods.’

ISSEK specialists will reveal some previously unpublished results. Konstantin Fursov will present his research on evaluating productivity in Russian state-funded research organisations. While Vitaliy Roud will explain how innovation policy tools differentiate from one another.

Learning from the experience of others

Anyone interested in foresight methodology shouldn’t miss Ted Fuller’s lecture. Professor Fuller teaches at the University of Lincoln and is Editor-in-Chief of a leading international foresight journal Futures.On 19th November he will talk about the latest trends in researching the future.

On the same day experts from Brazil and Canada will talk about contemporary approaches and methods for analysing potential areas in science and innovation. Jose Cordeiro from Singularity University in California will give a presentation about methods for evaluating the future used in the Millennium project, a global think-tank which brings together three thousand five hundred scientists, thinkers, businessmen and politicians. 

For those more interested in practice than methodology, there is a whole series of presentations on foresight research in Singapore, Japan, China, Great Britain and analysis of government S&T policy in Turkey, South Korea and the EU. 

Nicholas Vonortas from George Washington University will talk about evaluating the efficiency of government funding for S&T research, Philip Shapira from Georgia Tech will give one of the first ever presentations of its kind on S&T policy in synthetic biology.

Building international research cooperation

In parallel with the conference, there will be a special seminar on 20th November on the European Research programme Horizon 2020, an EU competitive research and innovation programme open to scientists from different countries, including Russia. Another seminar on the same day will be on international cooperation in STI in the APEC programme. Representatives from countries on both sides of the Pacific (from Japan and Malaysia to Mexico and Chile) will meet. HSE experts will present a report commissioned by APEC about indicators for international S&T cooperation between countries in the region. 

‘It looks like this time our conference will be the most representative in geographical terms’ says Leonid Gokhberg. ‘We’ll talk about what is going on in Russia and we’ll cover most parts of the world - Europe, North and South America, the Asia-Pacific Region and even Africa. One of our foreign colleagues will give a presentation on the potential for S&T development in Senegal’.

The full programme for the conference is available on the ISSEK pages of the HSE website.