The world is entering an era of “wildcards” where certainty is becoming a luxury, so science-based foresight is becoming increasingly important. How will the future be predicted in the next 10 years, said Alexander Chulok
About the expert: Alexander Chulok, Ph.D. in Economics, Director of the Center for Scientific and Technological Forecasting, Institute for Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
From November 9 to 13, 2020, the X annual International Scientific Conference “Foresight and Science, Technology and Innovation Policy” will be held with the participation of specialists from more than 20 countries, which is recognized by the OECD as one of the world’s largest scientific events in this field. The organizer is the Institute for Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.
— What’s new in the field of futures research?
— Now we are witnessing their fundamental transformation, which is associated with several trends. First, scientific and methodological tools have developed greatly: in the middle of the last century, research was carried out mainly by two classical methods – mathematical models and expert surveys. In the first case, you need to be able to discern the prospects of the future behind the numbers, in the second, you need to find out from the experts that uncodified knowledge that only they possess.
These methods have their serious limitations. So, mathematical methods cannot take into account the whole variety of reality and are forced to go to the future through a large number of basic premises, and experts cannot know everything. Moreover, knowledge about the future is becoming more and more interdisciplinary – there is an intersection of many disciplines (biology, IT, space, new materials, and so on). At the same time, experts, for the most part, are narrowly focused: the higher the level of professionalism, the tougher the specialization is felt, and it is very difficult to find a person who is deeply versed in everything.
Today, these classical methods are complemented by hybrid research tools, the power of the methods themselves is growing, which provides a new round in the study of the future: big data, artificial intelligence technologies, neural networks, mathematical analysis, etc. At our conference, several special reports from top international specialists from the OECD, the European Union, the BRICS countries and our own.
What role does our country play here?
– I must say that our country, and this is very pleasant, is one of the trend makers in the field of future research. We have our own significant developments in the field of strategic analytics and foresight. The Russian system iFORA (Intelligent Foresight Analytics), which already includes more than 400 million documents, has reached a serious international level, entering the top 5 similar international systems. At the same time, work with experts is transferred to more complex formats that take into account the capabilities of IT applications and their features.
I would say that in terms of tools, we are now on the verge of a new technological revolution, namely in the field of working with the future. There are many opportunities here for everyone, from S&T and innovation policy makers and companies interested in developing the right strategies, to society, that is, all of us.
Part of the sections of the upcoming conference will be devoted to this, for example, within the framework of the Foresight 3.0 panel, and our colleagues from the OECD will talk about the Metaverse scripting system.
— What else causes the transformation of knowledge about the future?
– The second important trend is the growth in demand from the population, business and the state. We are moving from a rather linear demand for data quality and scientific validity, typical of the early 2010s, to a more demanding and complex request. Now the wording “according to expert assessments” does not work – you always need to show where certain results are taken from, how validated they are, what tools were used, what factors were taken into account, and so on.
In addition, “our clients” are becoming more and more educated, and more and more decision makers are among them. For example, company leaders are increasingly immersed in the topic of future research, the same applies to officials, especially their “young layer”.
We increasingly see how foresight customers themselves take part in all sessions, delve into semantic maps built on the basis of big data analysis, look for the answer to the “what if” question within predictive scenarios, and even want to see thousands and millions of metadata that have been processed by iFORA – so that later our own specialists can build various dashboards.
At the junction of this supply and demand, in 2020 we approached a new fundamental wave in the field of futures research – an increase in its uncertainty, which requires the use of special methods, such as foresight, which, by the way, celebrates its 70th anniversary this year (the first serious Foresight studies were carried out by the American RAND Corporation back in the 1950s).
Thus, the third group of important trends that we observe in studies of the future is related to the multidirectional nature of the object of study – the future itself is becoming more variant.
If earlier, in the middle of the last century, the oil crisis became a textbook shock that was included in numerous textbooks and business cases, then the history of several months of 2020 has already beaten it in the uncertainty rating in terms of both natural disasters and political shocks.
What does this mean in terms of working with the future?
— This means that you need to better describe scenario forks. It is necessary not to assume one baseline scenario, but to substantiate the validity of the choice with two others (usually conservative and optimistic), but consider various alternatives: institutional, technological, associated with the development of value chains, and so on.
The future is becoming more uncertain, and in order to work better with it, special tools are needed to structure this uncertainty, to break it into blocks. For example, methods for identifying so-called weak signals and “wild cards” are now very helpful. We will also talk about these methods, about the so-called disruptive innovations and future trends at the conference, bringing together world-famous futurologists and leading foresighters from Austria, Hungary, Finland, and the USA.
“Joker” – an event with low probability, but large-scale effects.
Disruptive innovation – those that radically change either technical and economic characteristics or consumer properties, and thus can quickly destroy existing business models (the term was first used by Joseph Schumpeter)
– Can the situation with COVID-19 be classified as a “joker”?
– Although some experts on the future say that “we warned”, I think that yes, it can be attributed. Together with COVID-19, we are entering the era of “wildcards”, when everything will be uncertain. Its consequences are yet to be fully understood: the so-called low-level contact economy, the transformation of value chains, security issues, where COVID-19 acted as a trigger: not only epidemiological, but also food and cybersecurity.
But we must not forget that there are many other “jokers” that are not yet included in the zone of active discourse. For example, events related to climate change. We still have not realized them, but for our country they can turn into a strong change in the agro-climatic map, while agriculture is one of the supporting sectors and drivers of the country’s growth.
At the same time, “jokers” do not necessarily carry only negative. Thus, according to a recent survey by the Association of Managers, for about 20% of companies (more than 200 respondents), the period of COVID-19 was characterized by growth. Thus, the “joker” can also be positive, but you need to be able to identify them and be ready for them.
— What other important topics will the conference cover?
– This is a “green” topic – it is now already penetrating the decision-making system: from European Commission politicians who have taken the “green” topic as the banner of economic recovery, to financial institutions paying more and more attention to “green” tools and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance).
The conference will present a special report on bioeconomy 2.0, which, according to the most conservative estimates, is estimated at $8 trillion by 2025. Agree, our country with its reserves of natural resources and its opportunities not to participate in the division of this pie would be simply historically wrong.
It is very important that we put forward the environmental agenda, because there is a great division of schools in this topic, sometimes even opposing ones. Despite the elaboration and growing popularity of this topic, there is no consensus. It’s good when there are different points of view and schools, but they need a platform for discussion.
Therefore, the fourth horizontal theme of the conference, related to man, nature and ecology, connects Russia to the global process. Discussing the “green” topic at such a high level and with such a representativeness of countries, reports and opinions, we, as they say, remain in the trend.
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