Position Paper. ForSociety ERA Net Task 2.2. Enablers Science-Society Dialogue

Transcription

1 Position Paper ForSociety ERA Net Task 2.2. Enablers Science-Society Dialogue

2 Position Paper ForSociety ERA Net Second deliverable to task 2.2 Enablers of science-society dialogue by KLÜVER, Lars, Mr., director, The Danish Board of Technology, BEDSTED, Bjørn, Mr. Project Manager, The Danish Board of Technology, HOFF, Anders, Mr., Project Assistant, The Danish Board of Technology, GULBRANDSEN, Elisabeth, Ms., The Research Council of Norway, RASK, Mikko, Mr., Helsinki Institute of Science and Technology Studies, The position paper has been prepared in co-operation with: BAIN, Pascal, Mr., Directorate of Research of the Ministry of Public Works, Transport, Tourism, and the Sea, CUNION, Karl, Mr., Department of Trade and Industry, HARPER, Jennifer Cassingena, Ms., Malta Council for Science and Technology, KANGASPUNTA, Seppo, Mr., The Ministry of Trade and Industry of Finland, KONSTANTOPOULOS, Nick, Mr., General Secretariat for Research and Technology, ILLIE, Romeo, Mr., The Romanian Academy, MAYER-RIES, Jörg, Mr., Institute for Organisational Communication, VEIE, Ellen, Ms., The Research Council of Norway, ØVERLAND, and Erik, Mr., The Research Council of Norway. 2

3 Index 1. Introduction Why science-society dialogues? Current Foresight in Europe: Analysing 16 cases Different understandings of science-society dialogues Width of involvement... 7 Involved actors... 7 Autonomy Depth of participation... 9 Distribution of responsibilities...10 Involvement at different stages of the foresight process Top-down and bottom-up processes Motivations for dialogues Recommendations for Foresight: Improving science-society dialogue Option #1: See foresight as science-society dialogue Option #2: Go for socially robust results Option #3: Strengthen autonomy by involvement Option #4: Beyond the elite and bottom-up Option #5: Broad definition of societal actors Option #6: Delegate responsibility to the actors Option #7: Participation in all phases Option #8: Expand the toolbox Option #9: Develop a common European foresight language Concluding remarks

4 1. Introduction By this position paper, the ForSociety ERA-net working group on science-society dialogue wishes to present 9 options on the improvement of science-society dialogues in future foresight programmes. The position paper is based on an overview of current foresight activities. These are described in a working paper, in which activities in the field of science-society dialogue in the programmes of ForSociety are reviewed on the basis of 16 national benchmark cases written during spring 2005 as part of ForSociety Task 1.4 on benchmarking. The summarizing chapter of the working paper is presented in the Position Paper in chapter 3. The working group of ForSociety partners had a discussion on potential messages for the position paper in Helsinki, June 2005, and at a Network meeting in Copenhagen in November 2005 the working group discussed a draft for position paper made by the task team. Based on the discussion, the task team has finalised the position paper and it has been reviewed and accepted by the Working Group. The task team consists of the Danish Board of Technology, the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Finland, the Research Council of Norway and the Romania Academy, while the working group include ForSociety members from Malta, UK, France, Greece and Germany. The finalised paper will be communicated to the partners of ForSociety, who will be expected to use it as inspiration to their programmes. Through two monitoring rounds improvements in science-society dialogue in the partners programmes reaction to and use of the options will be registered. A final report will sum up the overview, options and improvements. The options described in this Position Paper should be understood as an encouragement. It is imperative to recognise the importance of science-society dialogues for many reasons. Involvement, participation and dialogue are means to achieve a democratic legitimate process and a higher success rate with regards to acceptance of the results of foresight. But also, broad involvement is an effective communication tool, which distributes ownership and understanding of the foresight process and its results, and communicates knowledge and values into the foresight process. Accordingly, the options in this Position Paper all point at conceptions and approaches, which could lead to an increased and beneficial use of science-society dialogue in foresight. While the aim is to improve the overall standard of science-society dialogue in foresight, it is however recognized that there are no universal solutions. Therefore, the partners and the broader foresight community should use these options in an inspirational manner to develop their own approach to initiating science-society dialogue as a mechanism and an aim in their foresight activities. 2. Why science-society dialogues? The role of science in our societies is changing. There is a move away from a belief and reliance on science as the only rational input to policy-making, towards a more complex understanding of the relationship between science and decision-making. Part of this is a move towards democratization of science by means 4

5 of a more inclusive, participatory understanding of knowledge and analysis. In the knowledge society, in which any position can be contested and knowledge is distributed across various sectors of society, it becomes increasingly evident that there is a need for a change away from the strategy of informing the public (Public Understanding of Science) to a strategy of mutual exchange of knowledge, values and needs a science-society dialogue. The concept of science-society dialogue promoted in this position paper may be termed as an advanced one, since it reaches beyond the traditional approaches of one-way communication, and since it broadens out the participation to the wider public. In this approach mere information to the public is seen as science-society dialogue on a low level having relevance in only some situations. Stakeholder participation is seen as a necessary, yet narrow inclusion strategy, which can be enriched by broader inclusion. Public consultation and empowerment are regarded as high-level dialogue, which not only draws upon the knowledge and social intelligence of the public, but also on the societal legitimacy of the participants. Not all foresight exercises will be equally fit for the higher levels of involvement entailed in this approach, but all exercises can gain from a serious consideration about involvement, resulting in a conscious and deliberate choice of means for science-society dialogue. There are reasons of principle as well as professional reasons for a methodological shift towards deeper and broader science-society dialogues. The rationale based on principle may include: Searching social coherence: By including the broader public in the process, the chance of reaching broadly acceptable and socially beneficial results increases, and the social gaps between the citizen and the innovation networks decreases. Managing uncertainty and inequality issues: The broader public will be the ones who will have to live with uncertainty (risks, contested knowledge) and inequality (new distribution of risks and opportunities). A high credibility of the management of such issues will therefore include hearing and dialogue processes with the public. Social inclusion into elite-dominated terrains: The elite might be able to come up with good and effective solutions, but they do not have the social legitimacy nor an adequate knowledge base to judge if they are good and effective in a broader societal context. Involve the affected: There is a democratic difference between finding solutions for and with the affected. Also, you have a democratic right to be heard if changes are made that seriously will change your living conditions. 5

6 Manifesting democratic traditions in the methodology: Our societies are built upon democratic traditions. Foresight as a societal process can support democracy by including these traditions in the methodology. The professional reasons for science-society dialogues may include: Drawing in a wider range of knowledge, values and ideas: Dialogue with citizens, users, stakeholders etc, can improve the knowledgebase, the range of viewpoints and the creativity with regard to options for action. Enhancing the leaning mode: Creating mutual learning between citizens, decision-makers, stakeholders and experts is motivated by and adds to the possibility reaching common results. Stimulating and distributing forward thinking: A very effective way of initiating learning on foresight issues is to involve the target groups and actors. Make use of the communicative potential of dialogue: The best way of communicating is involvement and direct dialogue. Ensuring high credibility of results: Results made in cooperation with the societal actors will have a big chance of being accepted by such actors. Increasing impact through easier implementation of results: Problems of implementation can be taken care of proactively through involvement and dialogue during the foresight process. In short, the combination of the principal and the professional benefits of science-society dialogue may give promises of higher credibility and legitimacy, increased relevance and effectiveness. 3. Current Foresight in Europe: Analysing 16 cases The 16 cases of the ForSociety benchmark task have shown some patterns in the use of science-society in foresight. These are described below, and examples from the benchmarking material are used as illustrations. The 16 foresight programmes/projects analysed were: 1) Bulgaria; ForeTech, 2) Czech Republic; Preparation of the National Research Programme, 3) Denmark; The Technology Foresight Programme, 4) Finland; The Foresight Development Project, 5) France; FuturRIS and 6) AGORA, 7) Germany; FUTUR - The German Research Dialogue, 8) Greece; The Greek Foresight Technology Program, 9) Hungary; Technology Foresight Programme, 10) Malta; eforesee Malta, 11) The Netherlands; Ocean Farming: View towards the sea, 12) Norway; CREATE, 13) Sweden; (Second round of) Swedish Technology Foresight, 14) Romania; Information Society A Society of Knowledge, 15) Turkey; Vision 2023 Technology Foresight, 16) United Kingdom; Foresight. 6

7 3.1 Different understandings of science-society dialogues Most respondents do not define science-society dialogue in the benchmarking material and many of them state that practicing science-society dialogues is not among the objectives of their programmes. Several do, however, make the observation that involvement and participation of different actors are key characteristics of any foresight programme. However, participatory activities in the programmes are seldom characterised as as science-society dialogues. It must be concluded that no common understanding of what constitutes a science-society dialogue exists. Some respondents refer to the concept as a matter of consulting different societal actors; some think that the involvement of citizens is the key characteristic of the concept; to some it simply means the involvement of non-experts. E.g. the UK and Norwegian respondents consider science-society dialogue to require the involvement of citizens. The Norwegian respondents distinguish between science-society dialogue (involving citizens) and workshop dialogues (not involving citizens). The Danish and the Dutch respondents define science-society dialogues as the involvement of a wide variety of societal actors during the foresight process. Most respondents have a more narrow understanding of what constitutes a science-society dialogue than the understanding forming the basis of our analysis, according to which the participatory activities of the programmes reviewed can be characterized as science-society dialogues, though mostly on a low level. 3.2 Width of involvement The task team has used a concept of width of involvement as reflecting the variety of societal actors involved in the foresight programme/project. Relevance and balance are two important factors for inclusion of actors, and thus for the width of the involvement. Wide involvement indicates that everybody that potentially has something to say get a chance to say it. The width of involvement has great impact on the legitimacy of a foresight activity, since narrow involvement will be perceived as being biased. The task team operated with broad categories of actors, e.g. experts, stakeholders, decision-makers and citizens. However, even these rather coarse categories proved rather difficult to handle, because the use of them differed considerably between the respondents. The general praxis, however, was to involve experts, stakeholders and certain decision-makers (public administration and civil servants were included, while politicians were not), while citizens were rarely involved. Involved actors In general, the experts involved were high-level academics predominantly from natural sciences. In Malta experts from other fields of expertise than natural sciences were included in panel discussions to bring creativity and new thinking into the process. In Germany criteria were developed to secure a balanced representation of different disciplinary and professional backgrounds, in order to create heterogeneous and 7

8 thus more innovative groups. In Hungary the respondents took care to include different schools of thoughts in a given field. Involved stakeholders were mostly representatives of industry and business and only to some extend NGO s. Decision-makers involved were mostly public administrators from ministries and public agencies. Politicians were rarely involved. In Denmark civil servants were considered decision-makers and included in the foresight programme, while politicians were not included. In Norway decision-makers were understood as the decision-making authority within the Research Council of Norway. Wider involvement of citizens was rare. Some respondents considered NGO s as representatives of citizens as was the case of Bulgaria. In Norway, citizens were not included and the explanation given was that workshop dialogues and not science-society dialogues were initiated. In Greece participation was open to all, but mostly members of professional associations and businesses showed up frequently. The respondents of the Danish, the Maltese, the UK and the French (Agora) programme report positively on the involvement of citizens at some stage of their foresight programme. In the French Agora citizens were involved through panel discussion, because the programme focused on the formulation of social demands. In Denmark citizens were involved through group interviews to increase the validity of the final foresight results. In Malta a small group of citizens were invited to participate in the creation of scenarios in order to bring creativity to the process. In UK the public was given the possibility to give input in the early stages of the foresight was established, however with moderate success. Several respondents call for the development of better methods that can facilitate involvement of a wider group of societal actors in the foresight processes. To many respondents ensuring wide involvement, when intended, proved more difficult than expected. In Hungary the involvement of non-experts in the programme was considered a major methodological challenge. In Finland the respondents would welcome more active participation particularly from industry. In Greece the deliberations in panels were in principle open for participation, but mainly members of professional associations and businesses showed up frequently. The general impression therefore is that introduction of new instruments/methods in foresight is needed to ensure wider involvement. Autonomy Staying independent and autonomous was a central concern to many respondents. Most often the formal objectives were defined by external sponsors, however. In several countries some or all the topics or themes that were pursued in the foresight were selected by the Parliament or Government. Most foresight activities analysed were embedded in the governmental system. The Dutch, the Danish and UK foresights programmes/projects are framed within the national executive and are obliged to 8

9 work within the Government system, and within the controls, practice and restrictions that this implies. In all three countries, the respondents maintain that autonomy of the foresight institution wasn t challenged. In some cases fear of losing autonomy led to restricted involvement. One example is the German foresight that was financed by public funds, but executed by an independent institute. No politicians were invited to participate, as the foresight institution considered itself to be a neutral consultant for politicians. 3.3 Depth of participation In the analytic strategy, the term depth of participation refers to the level of influence and responsibility given to the actors involved. The figure below illustrates the degree to which actors are allowed power over in the processes. The deeper you go the deeper the participation and the more power the actors are allowed. Action Participation Examples Give power Decision-maker Direct democracy Increasing participation Give influence Stakeholder Negotiation Support articulation Consultant Consensus Conference Go into dialogue Equal discussant Workshops Get feedback A voice Polls Feed Information Audience Pamphlets etc. The Ladder of Participation The general impression from the cases is that responsibility is centred in a small group of participants, and that involvement of a wider group of societal actors is restricted to consultation in the middle stages of the process. 9

10 Distribution of responsibilities Most of the foresight programmes analysed were structured around a core group of key actors with the responsibility for choosing topics, writing scenarios and giving recommendations, while other actors were invited at specific points to provide information needed or to give their opinion. In some cases a working group, a panel or a steering group had main responsibility; in others an internal management team had complete control over the process, delegating only little or no responsibility regarding the overall steering of the projects to other actors. In the French FutuRIS programme responsibility was concentrated within a small management team, which, although consulting other actors, had full control of the programme at all stages. In the Maltese and Bulgarian cases much responsibility was placed in the panels. In Norway a small project group consisting of both members from the Research Council of Norway and external expertise had the responsibility of steering the process. Different actors were invited to participate in workshops, but the steering group was not committed to use this input. An issue is the tension between insiders and outsiders. In some cases, outsiders to the process accused the whole foresight programme of being biased because only a small group of actors were involved. In Norway the respondents didn t experience such tensions, because the core group made sure that the results from one workshop were debated in subsequent ones. In the Czech foresight experts who were not included in the core group were very critical of the legitimacy of the project itself, but according to the respondents the problem was solved through an open discussion and providing explanation where possible. Even where responsibility of steering the process was distributed to a group of actors external to the executing foresight agency (e.g. a steering group such as in Norway, Turkey, the Netherlands and Denmark) a management team still retained final responsibility over carrying out the actual process (arranging meetings, locating actors, selecting input to workshops and so on). Although an important actor in its own right, the role of the management team hasn t received much attention in the benchmarking material. Involvement at different stages of the foresight process In general, respondents report that while the middle stage of the process tends to be rather inclusive, this is not the case with the early and later phases of the foresight processes. While a wide variety of societal actors were generally involved in workshop discussions (e.g. invited to give their opinion or to comment on selected topics), few were involved in the initial stages when objectives of the foresight programme was set and topics picked, and few were involved in the final stages when conclusions and policy recommendations were made. In general, initial theme and topic selection was restricted to a small group of actors. In Denmark a stakeholder consultation round in the initial phase of the programme helped to get an overview of the current status of the field of nanotechnology. A similar process was initiated in the 1

11 Netherlands case, in which students were involved to deliver ideas for a more sustainable and increased use of the North Sea. In Norway, a kick-off meeting, with the purpose to bring out all conflicts (in the field of aquaculture industry) was organised. The consulting in Denmark, Netherlands and Norway was done after the overall themes and objectives of the programme were selected. The general impression is that a small group of key stakeholders, experts and decision-makers appointed the involved participants in the foresight programmes. The selection tends to be based on an assessment of the degree to which they found that the involved actors had knowledge or influence on the field in question. In some countries open calls or co-nomination processes were used to select actors for workshop etc. This was for example the case in Germany and Greece. However, in Greece only few other than professional associations and businesses showed up frequently. Drafting conclusions tended to involve only few key experts and stakeholders. In many cases the management team drafted the conclusions. In some cases, such as the Finnish and the Swedish foresight, drafting conclusions was beyond the scope of the foresight process and the open-ended results were left to be interpreted by stakeholders and decision-makers. Citizens were not given responsibilities in the process of drafting conclusions in any of the sixteen cases. Citizens, if involved at all, were not considered a partner in the innovation process. Top-down and bottom-up processes To many respondents foresight represents a challenge to the general top-down structure of policy-making. Introducing foresight in a mainly centralised political system is held by several of the respondents to support a move from top-down procedures to bottom-up processes. The UK foresight programme aims to create commitment among politicians to raise funds for R&D and to devise policies that are more long term, holistic and coordinated. In the Netherlands, so-called design groups consisting of a diverse range of participants including lay persons were established to deliver bottom-up input to the political establishment. In Norway, the purpose with the foresight activities was to establish an alternative channel of input to research and innovation strategies. Several respondents reported that they wish and aim for making foresight more of a bottom-up exercise but the methodological means for doing so are somewhat lacking. The Greek foresight programme had a strong emphasis on how to better involve a wide range of societal actors, but only succeeded in involving professional associations and business representatives. 3.4 Motivations for dialogues The respondents were asked in the benchmarking exercise to reflect on their reasoning behind engaging in participatory activities. A noteworthy difference was found between the respondents views on the effects and importance of science-society dialogues. 1

12 Some respondents hold that wide involvement and dialogue is beneficial to the acceptance and relevance of results and that participation should be seen as a prerequisite for obtaining socially legitimate and robust results. Others hold that involvement should be restricted to mainly key experts and stakeholders in order not to jeopardize the prime objective of their foresight processes, namely supporting the policy making processes. In general, involvement of a wide variety of actors and their participation throughout the foresight process was perceived as both complicated and difficult to manage by the respondents. By some respondents narrow involvement of a few key actors was favoured in order to obtain clearcut results, which, it was felt, could easier be passed on to decision-makers, policy-makers and other interest groups. It was feared that involvement of citizens would confuse the foresight process making it difficult to achieve the goal of solid, useful result, which could be used as policy recommendations. This was the case in Sweden, where fast results were urgently needed due to time pressure, the risk of provoking irrelevant debate was therefore considered higher than the potential benefits. In the Turkish case the management seems to have opted for a fairly broad involvement in order to influence the decision-makers/politicians. It seems, however, that the pressure (from the management groups) to come up with consensus like in prioritizing technology activity fields have been quite strong, leading to limited depth of participation, in terms of responsibility over the process. Other respondents on the other hand recognized the involvement of a broad variety of societal actors as a means for creating socially robust and legitimate results. In Greece, Denmark, Malta, UK, the French Agora and the Netherlands foresight programmes it was felt that the involvement of citizens would ensure the legitimacy and validity of the foresight processes. Despite not having a great influence on the actual process of selecting projects, the motivation of the UK initial consultation round was to ensure transparency and possibly inclusion in the process of topic selection. In Malta, wide involvement, although difficult to manage and challenging for the achievement of consensus, was held to be a source of legitimacy of the foresight process. The respondents of the Danish foresight project reflect that the participatory processes also function as an effective communication and implementation tool making policy-makers acknowledge the foresight processes and taking their results into considerations. In the Netherlands interdependence is maintained by having different sector councils perform foresight exercises, thereby safeguarding the uptake of different views in foresight projects. The respondents of the French Agora project pointed to their agenda to initiate public debate. It was felt that integrating citizens into the foresight process would result in public debate. Therefore a large variety of actors including stakeholders and citizens were involved in the debate on the future of ministerial research strategy. 1

13 4. Recommendations for Foresight: Improving science-society dialogue The social dialogue in foresight can be and ought to be considerably strengthened. The nine options presented below make up a direction for methodological development towards a thinking and praxis of foresight, which is profoundly more inclusive. It is recommended that foresight practitioners actively expand their methodology in this direction in order to increase the societal relevance, quality, and legitimacy of foresight. The nine options are ordered in a sequence beginning with the conceptual issues and ending with the practical implications. The recommendation is presented as nine options in order to signal the need for considering what the new methodological direction would mean in each case. There may be other options and opportunities for some foresight programmes. The final option, the development of a common foresight language, is recommended for the broader foresight community and has a specific European meaning. Option #1: See foresight as science-society dialogue Most respondents of the foresight programmes and projects analyzed do not characterize the included participatory activities as science-society dialogues. Further, most respondents do not try to define sciencesociety dialogue. Many respondents also state that practising science-society dialogues is not among the objectives of their programme. Several do, however, make the observation that participation and involvement of different actors are key characteristics of any foresight project and theirs as well. When experts, stakeholders and decision-makers are involved in the foresight process, the knowledge, assumptions, values, wishes and visions of these people are activated and included and mutuallearning processes initiated. Such processes are therefore in effect science-society dialogues. This observation should, however, not put foresight practitioners at rest, thinking that since they are already making science-society dialogue - although they didn t think so - they do not have to pursue this issue any further. The conclusion ought to be the opposite: Recognizing foresight dialogues to be science-society dialogues should lead to more methodological focus on the aspect of inclusion, and attention to the democratic dimensions of foresight should be triggered. This will result in a broader span of societal groups being invited into the dialogue processes in foresight. Option #2: Go for socially robust results Science-society dialogues are essential to the achievement of socially robust results. And this again influences the impact of foresight, since solutions made in cooperation with those affected have a bigger chance of being implemented. There might be a trade-off between short- and longer-term efficiency of foresight exercises with respect to an elite- or a public involvement strategy. In the short run, a closed elite based process may be efficient and quick but in the longer term, it will end up detached from the needs or values of the target 1

14 groups. A broader dialogue, on the other hand, may seem cumbersome and time and resource consuming in the short run, but in a longer-term perspective it will prove effective because the receptivity of the target groups is higher. Option #3: Strengthen autonomy by involvement Autonomy of a foresight programme allows for making safe environments in which the involvement of various societal actors can take place. In return, an open and transparent process will contribute to keeping biased powers away from dictating the agendas. Giving away power to a broadly composed set of participants can strengthen the autonomy of a foresight programme. Broader participation can eliminate the risk of what has been termed as lobbycracy in panel processes; it introduces social transparency and negotiation processes not only about the outcome, but also about the process of the foresight exercise, and processual consensus can be established. In other words if the foresight programme can establish the safe surroundings by being free of external powers, the participation of a broad set of actors can ensure an egalitarian process, which again will manifest the autonomy of the programme. Option #4: Beyond the elite and bottom-up Most foresight processes are centred around a small fraction of resource persons, mainly from academia and industry. The relation to the broader public becomes analytical since the public is an object for investigation. Foresight could also take an active approach in which the public investigates: Build the process upon the resources of the public, and draw in academia and stakeholders as needed. The potential gains of such an approach are plural: The stakeholders would have to play with open cards because they would need to convince the representatives of the public about the relevance of their interests; academia would have to explain themselves better; the process would be distant from the vested interests and thus would gain credibility; the demand-side would be represented by the representatives of the public, since they also act as voters and consumers. Option #5: Broad definition of societal actors The use of participatory methods is widespread in the foresight exercises examined in the Work Paper, and practically all respondents value these processes. There is a strong tendency in the programmes analyzed to focus on involvement of key stakeholders, civil servants and high-level experts, while politicians, certain stakeholder groups and especially citizens tend not to be included. Different societal groups do not speak univocally. A scientist does not only play the role of being expert, but also plays a social role as relatively privileged and as an interest part in science policy. Not all organised stakeholders are able to or willing to represent the broader public. Not all stakeholders have the 1

15 power to ensure their own inclusion in the process. Attention should therefore be given to the involvement of representatives of the public, affected groups and individuals, independent actors who can balance out biases and counteract lobbyism. Knowledge and values can always be contested and supplemented, thus addressing issues of inequality and uncertainty when mapping out policy options for the future. Pay greater attention to the identification and involvement of a broad variety of societal actors including affected groups, citizens and politicians. Option #6: Delegate responsibility to the actors A prevalent way of structuring a foresight programme is to nominate a small group of core participants - most often a working group or a panel who is left with the primary responsibility for selecting topics for discussion, making scenarios and selecting policy recommendation, thus keeping the most essential dialogue within this group. A much larger group of different societal actors are often invited through workshops and other events to comment on the work of the core group and come up with new ideas. In such a set-up the broader set of stakeholders are given the restricted responsibility of giving input and feedback. One important problem of this approach lies in the ownership, which is limited to the panel. If ownership to the process and the results of foresights are to be spread out among the actors, then there is a need to distribute responsibility for the process and the results as well. Option #7: Participation in all phases The use of participatory instruments is generally concentrated around the central phases of foresight activities. Workshops with structured brainstorms and vision-building workshops are examples of this. Only seldom are participation at the problem/project definition phase and the recommendation phase seen. This is as seen from a science-society dialogue point of view contradictory, since most practitioners would agree that the initial and the final phases of the foresights are very important phases. There seems to be a need for utilizing methods, which can open up the early and late stages for participation to a wider group of actors, allowing them to influence the choice of topics, the objectives of the activity, and the filtering of recommendations. Increased participation in the early stages would support a move towards demand-driven definitions of foresight exercises. Deeper participation late in the process would increase the credibility of the recommendations. Option #8: Expand the toolbox Establishing a more diverse and consequent praxis of including science-society dialogue into the foresight process will demand an expansion of the toolbox. Mainly new procedures for inclusion of societal groups, such as consumers, citizens, politicians and young people, will be needed. 1

16 The difficulties of getting into contact with wider social groups and include them as active partners throughout the foresight process can to some extent be seen as due to a lack of methodological tools in foresight. Such consultation procedures have been developed in other policy analysis areas, but still make up a potentially profitable, yet largely unexplored field for foresight. Option #9: Develop a common European foresight language The foresight programmes and projects analysed were mostly carried out at the national level. This of course both explains and contributes to the problem of a common European language of foresight. Many conceptual disparities and large differences in definitions were found among the respondents of the foresight programmes in ForSociety. Central to this task, of course, is the huge divergence of ways of understanding and defining science-society dialogue. More effort is needed to develop a common foresight language. 5. Concluding remarks Foresight is defined by its forward-looking perspective and its participatory approach. However, the general understanding of participation in foresight is somewhat narrow, when viewed from the standpoints of the populations and actors that will be affected by the policies developed in foresight. It does not need to be like that. Foresight has a good starting point in the general professional assumption that involvement, participation and dialogue with society, are fundamentally good for both principle and functional reasons. The weakness seems to be both cognitive and practical: A broader understanding of participation and a methodology that reflects this understanding. The intention of this position paper has been to encourage and inspire the foresight community to engage into new adventures of broader dialogue. The working group wishes the community good luck with any initiative in that direction. 1