Exploring the Potential for Foresight and Forward-Looking Activity in Horizon 2020

This paper focuses on the range of roles which foresight needs to undertake in supporting the design and implementation of the next Framework Programme, Horizon 2020. The context within which the Programme was designed and launched, within and outside the European Union, is disruptive and complex, requiring iterations of the programme to cater for the economic and financial crisis. The Programme now commands an even larger scale of resources and is focused on new more strategic approaches in terms of complex and long-term planning of different sub-programmes and sub-programmes, prioritisation of societal challenges and focus areas, smart specialisation, as well as integrated approaches linking challenges and programmes. A distinction is made between the strategic, instrumental and operational role of foresight in innovation policy design and implementation and how this is reflected in Horizon 2020. The paper reviews past and ongoing use of foresight in research and innovation policy at European level and in member states which reflects a level of convergence which Horizon 2020 can capitalise on.