Australia has a long history of attempts to improve approaches to direction-setting and priority-setting of research and technology. The paper describes the latest national Foresight study carried out by the Australian Science and Technology Council(ASTEC) in 1994/95 looking to the 21st century. At that time ASTEC reported to the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
The study used demand-based approach with an extensive process of scenario building, consultation on preferred futures,identification of new business opportunities, and a number of partnerships with special interest groups looking at five sectors. Key Forces affectingthe future of Australia were identified and used to define a set of policy actions while potential export opportunities were examined.
While the Foresight study was strongly supported by the academic, business and broader community, it did not gain political support due to a change of government.
There have been many attempts in Australia to develop improved approaches to direction and priority-setting for research ( see Martin and Irvine 1989 and Tegart 1997). The two groups active in recent times have been the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Australian Science and Technology Council (ASTEC).
CSIRO developed a national research priority identification mechanism which it has used since 1988 with continued modification. The essential element is the assessment of a range of 16 socio-economic research categories against four criteria:
On the basis of a scoring against these criteria, each research category was assigned an attractiveness and feasibility measure, with a general preferential resourcing flowing to those categories which scored highly on both measures. The acceptance of change of emphasis as a result of the process has been greatly improved as the result of consultation and participation throughout CSIRO .
The mechanism has been adapted and used by other organisations to identify research needs in specific areas such as engineering and nuclear R&D(Tegart 1997).
ASTEC was active over the period 1981 until 1995 with a series of major studies on direction setting, priorities for R&D and major national research facilities. The last exercise was a comprehensive national Foresight exercise over the period 1994-1995 taking a broad view of the role of S&T in the development of Australia in the 21st century.
This complex study aimed to provide an information base to assist government and industry to make better -informed longer-term decisions on the development and application of science and technology (S&T). It examined possible national and global changes to 2010 and Australia's key future needs and opportunities that rely on, or could be significantly affected by, scientific developments and applications of technology.
Using the typology of Martin and Irvine 1989 the ASTEC study can be classed as a long-term, holistic, national-level exercise with emphasis on demand-pull, stressing the functions of direction-setting, anticipatory intelligence and communication and education. Implementation was directed primarily towards Australian Government departments and agencies although industry was encouraged throughout the study to progress the identified opportunities for new business. The approach was built on the view that development of pictures of alternative futures enable the assessment of how well the current S&T system is positioning itself to meet future needs in a variety of external circumstances. From the assessment, critical levers for change can be identified and areas for change identified.
To define the context of for S&T in 2010 ASTEC used the results of many international studies, including technology forecasts, to develop a view of Australia's S&T context and future globally-available technology to 2010. Contact was made with countries active in Foresight and a survey of outputs was commissioned.
To carry out the national study ASTEC used an interactive process of identifying, testing and retesting ideas through extensive consultations with experts in S&T andstakeholders, often in partnership with other organisations.A feature of the study was its involvement of many thousands of people with a broad base of information and opinions. Special features of the ASTEC approach, developed to fit the Australian context, were:
Reference Group-ASTEC established a Reference Group of 30 well-known Australians as the primary advisory body for the study to ensure that the views of key groups from industry, academia and the community were considered. ASTEC also worked closely with the Prime Minister's Science and Engineering Council, involving Ministers, and the Coordination Committee on Science and Technology, involving key officials, to ensure links to government.
Partnership- ASTEC conducted in-depth, specific sector foresighting studies jointly with other groups and organisations. These were individually designed to identify S&T opportunities and requirements to 2010 in the selected sectors and to demonstrate that foresighting is useful to a wide range of groups in their long-term planning. Five Partnerships were established as:
These Partnerships produced a range of insightful reports as inputs to the study.
Overview-This process took a broad approach to both supply and demand issues to 2010 and sought inputs from S&T users, providers and policy advisers from the public and private sectors. It was focussed through the identification of the issues for Australia. Roundtables involving 20 to 50 people in structured groups using scenario techniques discussed the following six Key Issues for Australia to 2010 identified by the Reference Group :
An example of the refinement of issues provided by the Roundtables is that for the first Key Issue of innovation and entrepreneurship as:
Economic Growth Study ( Sheehan et al 1995)-A major study was commissioned on the role of S&T in wealth creation and whether economic growth might be lifted by additional investment in R&D. This concluded that an enhanced, commercially -driven R&D system could give an increment to growth of about 0.7 % per annum.
Independent Studies- Through visits and commissioned studies ASTEC obtained information about the Foresight activities of other countries and about Australia's S&T performance.
From the consultations and studies ASTEC identified four Key Forces which will change the lives of Australians over the years to come. They are:
Although these are relatively independent and can be treated as distinct they are interlinked. For example IC&T can also be considered an enabler of global integration and it is their interaction that is shaping the global knowledge economy. The first three are strongly impacting on the present and are expected to grow in significance in the coming years. The fourth covering genetics and technology is rapidly gathering force. These Key Forces relate closely to those identified in the first UK Foresight study.
ASTEC considered these in detail and identified a number of areas for action for each one as:
ASTEC noted that the importance of S&T will grow over the next decades and people at all levels and occupations will be required to make decisions about scientific knowledge and technological applications in their everyday lives. S&T experts must be prepared to answer these community needs and adapt to working in new ways to meet national goals of a creative, productive, inclusive and ecologically sustainable Australia into the 21st century.
ASTEC grouped potential export opportunities for Australian industry, which could emerge over the next decades, into four broad and overlapping categories of:
These were explored by ASTEC in some detail in the final report (ASTEC1997).
Benefits from the study fall under two basic headings: process, from the testing of Foresight in S&T planning in government and industry and product, from a strategy based set of tactical S&T policy recommendations, primarily for the Australian Government.
The process revealed many strengths. Because of the highly consultative nature of the study it was possible to address many difficult issues that Australia faces in keeping pace with change, both in the S&T community and in society as a whole. Thus issues such as fostering attitudinal change in Australian society and increasing industry's commitment to R&D as part of achieving competitiveness were freely debated.
A product has been a better appreciation of the interrelationship between science, technology and the economy in the Australian context. The reality is that Australia is a small player and that the contribution to pure science on a world scale is of the order of two per cent. The implications of this need to be taken into account in optimising the Australian S&T efforts and in developing a skills base. There is no doubt that planning R&D is controversial but it is an issue that must be faced by smaller countries.
The study has highlighted the need for international cooperation to maintain access to the world knowledge base; traditional links have been to Europe and North America but there is clearly a need to build links to the emerging science bases of East and North Asia. There appears to be a remarkable complementarity between the science bases of the latter and Australia. Thus Australia's strengths- biology, medicine, earth and environmental sciences- are those in which Asia is weakest, while in those where Australia is less specialised- physics, chemistry, mathematics and engineering -are the central focus of the emerging system in those countries.
An important lesson from the ASTEC study is the importance of the political environment in which national Foresight is carried out. A comparison with the UK study highlights this rather graphically.
In the UK the first Foresight study was commenced under a Conservative Government and reported on just at a change of power to a Labour Government. The bipartisan support was so strong that the incoming Government promptly commenced a second study albeit one with some modifications to include more social issues as well as technology.
In Australia the study was commenced under a Labor Government and completed just before a change of power to a Liberal Government which had not been involved and which had a strong ideology of commitment to economic rationalism and the role of market forces. Thus the results of the study were not taken up by the new Government and it cannot be claimed, as in the UK study, that 'the Foresight process has become embedded within science policy thinking across the political spectrum' or that 'the public and private sectors are at last working together'.
Thus although the value of the ASTEC study has been widely acknowledged, both nationally and internationally, the direct policy outcomes have been limited. Some of the opportunities for action identified by ASTEC have implemented or examined in a low key manner within Government departments and agencies at the meso- and micro-level, and the private sector has pursued some of the export opportunities identified in the study. Some of the Partnership groups have continued because the participants recognised the value of the process and other groups have taken up Foresight techniques.
Despite the weak political support interest in priority-setting has continued against a background of resource constraints particularly for basic science. Thus in 1997, partly in response to the ASTEC report, the Chief Scientist was tasked to report on gaps and overlaps in publicly funded S&T and recommend ways of identifying national priorities for S&T. The Chief Scientist advocated a comprehensive approach to priority setting starting with a clearly articulated preferred vision for Australia. In particular 'ASTEC should develop the priority identification process further' (Stocker 1997).
Ironically this recommendation coincided with the rapid decline of the power of ASTEC which was closed down in1998. Its role has been partially taken over by the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council which is politically more visible (at least on the two occasions a year that it meets) but which has few resources to carry out activities!
Based on the Australian experience the importance of top-level support in Government for national Foresight studies cannot be over-emphasised!
ASTEC 1997 " Developing long-term strategies for science and technology in Australia- findings of the study: matching science and technology to future needs 2010", AGPS Canberra, pp 375.