Überblick
"(...) This is the final deliverable of the "Mapping Foresight? work package of the European Foresight Monitoring Network (EFMN) - a Europe-wide network inspired and financed by the European Commission within the framework of the Foresight Knowledge Sharing Platform implemented under the Research Framework Programme (FP7). This report is the result of the first large international effort aimed at understanding the nature of foresight practices in Europe and other world regions, including Latin America, North America, Asia and Oceania. The large number of foresight exercises mapped between 2004 and 2008 (over 2 000 initiatives) is clear evidence of the rising of the "foresight wave?. This is mainly because foresight has become more than just a tool to support policy or strategy development in Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI). Our results show that the scope of foresight, as practised in the early years of the twenty-first century, involves a wider range of objectives, including: analysis of the future potential of STI, promoting network building, priority setting for STI, supporting methodology and capacity building, and generating shared visions towards, for example, a strong European Research Area. The report shows that "multi-scope foresight? is not a European phenomenon but a global one. It also shows that foresight practice is not a matter of fashion but instead a systematic effort to promote effective processes to proactively think about the future. (...)"