Recognizing that authority, legitimacy and credibility are fundamental to success in technology foresight, this paper employs a number of case studies to examine these issues. A framework of analysis to classify the degree of importance of these three important parameters in different stages of the foresight project is proposed. Lessons from previous foresight research are briefly reviewed to provide background to the case studies. The case studies are drawn from projects of the APEC Center for Technology Foresight at their various stages of operation, and a project on the future directions of the National Science and Technology Development Agency of Thailand, where all the authors work. Constraints in the mandate and resources of the studies are identified and some measures to increase the authority, legitimacy and credibility of foresight studies are proposed.
This paper attempts to illustrate, through a number of case studies, the importance of authority, legitimacy and credibility in various stages of technology foresight. Though authority, legitimacy and credibility are important to all policy research, they are perhaps a special challenge to technology foresight. Foresight is by nature multi-disciplinary, requiring the expertise of disparate groups in order to combine scientific and technological expertise with an understanding of society, economy and environment. It is usually intended to have a major impact, and often includes controversial issues where there are lots of vested interests. This is especially true of priority setting for the allocation of resources, which is a common application of foresight. This section will provide the definition for the terminology, describe the framework of analysis, and give some suggestions on making foresight effective.
The APEC Center for Technology Foresight has adopted the following definition for technology foresight.
"Systematic attempts to look into the longer-term future of science, technology, economy and society, with a view to identifying emerging generic technologies and the underpinning areas of strategic research likely to yield the greatest economic, environmental and social benefits."
Authority, legitimacy and credibility are intrinsically intertwined. Each should be observed and analyzed in relation to the other two, but it can be useful, for the sake of learning from the analysis, to consider them separately.
Authority is linked to the concepts of power and influence. It is the legal right or the ability to control. Authority may be exercised directly, exercised on the behalf of the one's in authority, exercised with the permission of the authority or exercised with the support of someone in authority. For example, in an exercise oriented to priority setting, the authority required to ensure a policy impact may come from the involvement of high-level officials in framing the terms of reference, or enrolling those in a position to influence budgetary and policy-making processes.
The term 'legitimacy' expresses the concepts of genuineness and value. It is often derived from authority but this is not inevitable, and legitimacy deriving only from authority is rarely sufficient. Legitimacy may be built up or lost in the process of foresight depending on the conduct of the project. To enhance legitimacy, you would seek the endorsement of scientists and professional associations, so that the result are taken seriously and respected. The process would need to involve all stakeholders.
Credibility expresses the idea that the research outcomes can be believed; the quality is enough for them to trusted and accepted. For example, if the results seem to challenge conventional wisdom, critics may attack the foresight methodology; therefore, you would need to ensure that the techniques employed were technically rigorous with accurate background data.
For the purpose of this analysis, the degree of these three important parameters has been classified as substantial (high), workable (medium) or insufficient (low). It is helpful to recognize that authority, legitimacy and credibility have 'legal', social / organizational and intellectual elements whose degree of impact may vary in different stages of the foresight process. For example, a technology foresight project may have little legal authority in the pre-foresight stage. By coordinating all the stakeholders to work together in the main foresight stage, it gradually gains legitimacy. Leading researchers provide intellectual authority, which leads to credibility. In the post-foresight stage, a high-ranking official who is directly responsible for the subject and lends it the legal authority may endorse the project.
In each case study, we will try to identify the extent and the type of authority, legitimacy and credibility that can be observed.
After nearly half a century of foresight research, some lessons on how to increase its effectiveness can be learned. A brief review of these may be useful background to the case studies, and the implications that arise for establishing authority, legitimacy and credibility in future studies. Most of these points derive from national studies but they are nevertheless applicable for studies at every level. Assessment of the foresight studies has shown :
It is also worth noting that while measuring foresight program effectiveness is highly desirable, it is extremely difficult to do so. The effects may be felt over several years, and there are a myriad of influences on decision-makers, of which the foresight exercise may be only one part. And there are no guarantees: the best of foresight exercises can be ignored or swept aside; as many harassed civil servants will testify, governments change and policy decisions are not always rational!
The projects of the APEC Center have been described fully in other publications and can be consulted on the web site of the Center (http://www.apectf.nstda.or.th). Therefore this paper offers only a brief description.
The Center's research projects attempted to involve experts from all the APEC member economies in regional foresight projects on:
In the first 2 studies, the outline methods were an Issues Paper, followed by a Scenario workshop, then a 2 round Delphi, concluding with the final analysis and report. In the 3rd study, there was no Delphi but instead a much more substantial individual research effort involving literature review and consultation with experts by post and through visits with experts in the region. The 4th study (which is not yet complete at time of writing) began with a Discussion Paper (rather than an Issues Paper) which was circulated widely and thus there was a much longer planning phase, during which time the project made contact with other key agencies in this field. Project goals and processes were then settled by the key organizers after several months of planning.
In each case, the tangible outputs of the study were publications: short summaries of the project and its policy recommendations, and longer volumes which described the project more fully and gave the detailed output of the research and/or Delphi process. The Center then needed to do extensive follow up around the region, to ensure that these documents were being read and were influencing those with the power to make decisions. The experts involved in the studies were important allies in this task.
In each study, the Center was a 'third party', international body with no immediate authority, legitimacy or credibility from the perspective of the experts and policy makers in each topic. Within APEC itself, the Center had some authority, legitimacy and credibility through its links with the Industrial Science and Technology Working Group. However, the APEC bureaucracy has no decision-making system that would implement the kind of policy outcomes that our foresight projects might recommend. Unlike say, the European Union, there is no APEC parliament, and APEC itself can only influence rather than enact any recommendations arising from the foresight work. Thus these three essential parameters were indeed a challenge for the APEC Center for Technology Foresight! In addition, with limited resources, it was extremely difficult to engage all the stakeholders sufficiently, given the practical difficulties of dealing with such a large and diverse region
In these circumstances, it was inevitable that authority was unlikely to be substantial but the challenge was to raise it to workable levels. At pre-foresight stage, developing links with key institutions in each member economy was valuable. At the post foresight stage, the Center planned to use the APEC structures to draw project outcomes to the attention of Ministers and Leaders but, as in any large bureaucracy, it takes time to move up the levels. For multi-country foresight, achieving authority can be a lengthy process.
Legitimacy is equally a challenge for a third party international body. It was made workable by the links with experts and institutions that have a strong national, if not international, reputation. As we discovered in the Megacities project, key institutions may exist beyond our usual framework, such as the World Health Organisation or the World Bank, but to ignore their experience would certainly have reduced the legitimacy of the study.
Credibility in terms of the foresight process is perhaps the dimension that can reach substantial levels in a technology foresight center, since this is the focus of the Center's expertise. Yet even here, credibility takes time to build up, through demonstrating that the special challenges of adapting existing foresight methodologies to multi-national level have been tackled rigorously and creatively. There is no doubt that as the studies progressed, their methodologies became increasingly sophisticated, aimed at maximizing the value of the outcomes within the constraints of the setting.
As with all foresight projects, the involvement of the right experts played a key role in boosting legitimacy and credibility. This can even influence the level of authority; an expert in the water study acted as a kind of 'champion' for the study, promoting it within his economy to the extent that it was accepted by those with power.
To summarize, in these multi-country studies, authority, legitimacy and credibility were derived from:
The case of National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) provides an opportunity to observe and analyze authority, legitimacy, and credibility in an intra-organizational foresight process. As indicated above, each of these key elements can be classified into three types: legal, social/organizational and intellectual. And there may be three levels: substantial (high), workable (medium), and insufficient (low). It is worth noting that these comments are offered by the internal consultants, raising the issue of objectivity. However, the experiences of internal consultants conducting organizational foresight, despite its obvious subjectivity, can be useful if they are to be shared as lessons among foresight practitioners.
The National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), established in 1991, is a publicly funded autonomous organization affiliated to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment. NSTDA consists of the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC), the National Material and Metal Technology Center (MTEC), the National Electronic and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC), and a Central Office. NSTDA's Board of Directors, chaired by the Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, governs and directs its policy and management. The Executive Director is responsible for overall operation of the agency. Employing almost 1000 staff, NSTDA's wide range of activities covers R&D, technical services and standard testing, human resource development, hi-tech business development, rural and social development, and national policy research and planning regarding science and technology development.
In mid-1998, NSTDA's second Executive Director took office after over 10 years as the first director of NECTEC plus two terms presidency of a highly prestigious university in applied sciences and engineering. Amidst the country's economic crisis, general public and the government increasingly demanded public organizations to enhance their performance and to be more accountable to the public needs. NSTDA was no exception. In order to shape a fresh direction for the agency, the new executive director, in late 1998, consulted with his top staff on ways in which the agency could look into the future and draw some immediate strategic actions to pursue for a few years to come. NSTDA's newly established policy research unit was assigned to carry out the first round of a NSTDA foresight project in cooperation with other existing units, e.g. planning and policy divisions of the Central Office and the three national centers. Scenario planning was employed in an executive workshop held in December 1998. The result of scenario planning was then disseminated among NSTDA's executives and relevant staff. Taking the scenarios forward, the second and third executive workshops were organized in January and March 1999 to conduct SWOT and Stakeholder analyses in pursuit of the agency's strategies. This marked the end of the first round of this 'intra-organizational' foresight project.
In the pre-foresight stage, the Executive Director initiated the project, with the advice of the Director of the above-mentioned policy research unit. This Director was also the Co-Director of APEC Center for Technology Foresight. Based on his experience as a policy advisor, he was sufficiently trusted to conduct the organizational foresight process along with his staff from the policy research unit. It should be noted that although the policy research unit had no authority in NSTDA's organizational planning, its mandate to pursue the assignment came from the Executive Director who was in charge of the agency. This lent substantial 'legal' legitimacy to the unit. In planning and organizing the foresight process, the policy research unit sought the support of people from planning divisions across the agency, which helped to improve its social/organizational legitimacy and made the pre-foresight stage more workable. Apart from relying on the expertise of their Director, intellectual credibility was enhanced by consultation with a number of frequently cited books on scenario planning and the development of a clear and understandable manual for the scenario workshop. Despite the workable level of the policy research unit's legitimacy as the foresight organizers, the authority of the Executive Director remained crucial in the first stage and was sought in making official invitation to senior staff to join the workshop.
In running the scenario workshop, the organizers spoke with workable authority about the objective, process, and expected results. They derived confidence from a series of dry runs and intellectual credibility from developing a detailed workshop manual. In addition to this careful preparation, the organizers' social legitimacy in the workshop was boosted by the fact that the audience was receptive and participative. Group facilitators (organizers) were prepared not to dominate but to let the process flow flexibly within the time schedule. In the breakout sessions, group members elected their chairs and secretaries. Group atmosphere was reasonably amicable. In the process, three future scenarios of NSTDA were drafted and concluded.
After the workshop, a Proceedings document was produced containing details of discussions and the three NSTDA scenarios and this was disseminated among all participants. The Proceedings gained sufficient social credibility due to the legitimate and trusted foresight process. 'Legal' legitimacy of the foresight results was increased when they were presented to members of NSTDA's board. Given the three scenarios, NSTDA's management committee decided to go forward with a second workshop in order to translate the scenarios into strategies and immediate actions to follow. Drawing on substantial credibility from planning and organizing the first workshop, the policy research unit was again assigned to hold responsibility for the second and third workshop, with legitimacy conferred by the Executive Director.
It is already well recognized that authority, legitimacy, credibility are fundamental to the success of foresight. Measures to achieve authority, legitimacy and credibility must be built in from the earliest planning stages of the project. The ways of achieving them will vary in each study, and it is important to remember that they are not static dimensions. They can be boosted during the course of the study, from workable to substantial levels, and need to be monitored to ensure that they do not drop to insufficient levels. Analysis of real foresight studies indicates that foresight is an art as much as a science. It is essential to evaluate previous studies and to learn from experience to maximize chances of success - but even the most careful planning cannot determine exactly what will happen during the project, and organizers must be open to opportunities to increase authority, legitimacy, and credibility as the study progresses. It follows that the best way of learning about foresight is to do it - the tacit knowledge built through experience, and the willingness to seize opportunities during the study, can make the difference between substantial or minor impact.