Horizon scanning (HS) or horizon scan is a method from
futures studies
Futures studies, futures research, futurism or futurology is the systematic, interdisciplinary and holistic study of social and technological advancement, and other environmental trends, often for the purpose of exploring how people will li ...
, sometimes regarded as a part of
foresight. It is the early detection and assessment of
emerging technologies
Emerging technologies are technologies whose development, practical applications, or both are still largely unrealized. These technologies are generally new but also include older technologies finding new applications. Emerging technologies ar ...
or threats for mainly
policy makers
Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organ ...
in a domain of choice.
Such domains include agriculture, environmental studies,
health care,
[ ]biosecurity
Biosecurity refers to measures aimed at preventing the introduction and/or spread of harmful organisms (e.g. viruses, bacteria, etc.) to animals and plants in order to minimize the risk of transmission of infectious disease. In agriculture, thes ...
,[ and ]food safety
Food safety (or food hygiene) is used as a scientific method/discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent food-borne illness. The occurrence of two or more cases of a similar illness resulting from t ...
.
Some sources mention HS as an alternative name for environmental scanning
Market environment and business environment are marketing terms that refer to factors and forces that affect a firm's ability to build and maintain successful customer relationships. The business environment has been defined as "the totality of ph ...
(ES), or view HS as a subset of ES, or at least suggest ES to have a similar goal to HS. In summary, ES has key differences to HS. ES is rather concerned to provide industry specific information for short-term decision making in a competitive environment.
Etymology
One of the first usages of the term ''horizon scanning'' as related to futures studies appeared in 1995 in a paper discussing trends in information technology
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...
and forecasting the year 2005. Then, ''horizon scanning'' was used to name detection and early evaluation of health care technologies in a European workshop in September 1997, whose participants were 27 policy makers and researchers from 12 countries. This workshop was organized as a part of the European health technology assessment
Health technology assessment (HTA) is a multidisciplinary process that uses systematic and explicit methods to evaluate the properties and effects of a health technology. Health technology is conceived as any intervention (test, device, medici ...
project (HTA).[ Policy makers and planners of health services were the main target groups for knowledge produced by horizon scanning.][
]
Phases and techniques
A 2013 systematic study of 23 formally established health technology HS programs from different countries identified following common phases in a horizon scanning process:
*Identify the users of the HS products.
*Estimate the time available for the HS effort.
*Conduct HS, and identify emerging technologies that potentially affect targeted domain.
*Filter the identified technologies by applying criteria for determining the relevance of the technologies to the HS effort.
*Prioritize the technologies that have passed through the filtering process by applying criteria based on stakeholders’ requirements and needs.
* Assess technologies of high priority for the stakeholders, and predict their potential impacts targeted domain.
*Use peer review to check for quality of the HS process and products.
*Disseminate the HS products to the relevant audiences in a timely fashion.
*Update the HS products on a regular basis or when a significant development occurs related to the technology.
Horizon scanning shares common methods with future-oriented technology analysis
Future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) is a collective term from futures studies for analyzing future technology and its consequences. It includes technology intelligence, technology forecasting, technology roadmapping, technology assessment, a ...
. Horizon scanning includes following techniques:[
]
Governmental bodies
UK
In order to centralize horizon scanning, UK has founded the English Horizon Scanning Centre (HSC) in 2005. The Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...
's Horizon Scanning Secretariat and the Government Office for Science
The Government Office for Science is an science advisory group that is part of the British government. The organisation advises the UK Government on policy and decision-making based on science and long-term thinking. It is led by the Chief Scient ...
's Horizon Scanning Centre were combined to the Horizon Scanning Programme team in 2014.
Germany
Umweltbundesamt
The Umweltbundesamt (; UBA, ) is the ''German Environment Agency''. Together with the Bundesamt für Naturschutz, the Bundesamt für kerntechnische Entsorgungssicherheit and the Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz, it operates under the jurisdiction ...
applies horizon scanning since 2012 along with trend analysis
Trend analysis is the widespread practice of collecting information and attempting to spot a pattern. In some fields of study, the term has more formally defined meanings.
Although trend analysis is often used to predict future events, it could be ...
.
Sweden
Swedish Defence Research Agency
The Swedish Defence Research Agency ( sv, Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut, FOI; literal translation: ''Total Defence Research Institute'') is a government agency in Sweden for defence research.
FOI has its headquarters in Kista (Stockholm). ...
has developed a software tool named HSTOOL for HS of scientific literature in 2019. The scientific literature is searched, clustered in groups that correspond to subject subfields and evaluated based on the bibliometric
Bibliometrics is the use of statistical methods to analyse books, articles and other publications, especially in regard with scientific contents. Bibliometric methods are frequently used in the field of library and information science. Biblio ...
numbers. The clustering is performed using Gibbs sampling
In statistics, Gibbs sampling or a Gibbs sampler is a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for obtaining a sequence of observations which are approximated from a specified multivariate probability distribution, when direct sampling is dif ...
Dirichlet multinomial mixture model algorithm. The citation statistics are provided derived from Thomson Reuters' Web of Science.
European Union
European commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
developed the Transport Research and Innovation Monitoring and Information System (TRIMIS) in 2017, an open-access transport information system supporting the implementation of the seven Strategic Transport Research and Innovation Agenda (STRIA) roadmaps. In 2021, a horizon scanning module was added to TRIMIS. This horizon scanning framework developed by Joint Research Centre
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission's science and knowledge service which employs scientists to carry out research in order to provide independent scientific advice and support to European Union (EU) policy. The JRC is ...
within TRIMIS uses news media, scientific publication sources, patent data sources, EU funding datasets and other sources as basis for text mining.
Joint Research Centre
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission's science and knowledge service which employs scientists to carry out research in order to provide independent scientific advice and support to European Union (EU) policy. The JRC is ...
's "Tool for Innovation Monitoring" augments horizon scanning with text mining
Text mining, also referred to as ''text data mining'', similar to text analytics, is the process of deriving high-quality information from text. It involves "the discovery by computer of new, previously unknown information, by automatically extract ...
of available literature. This tool is developed in 2020. Among the used data sources are Scopus
Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...
, PATSTAT and Cordis The Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) is the European Commission's primary public repository and portal to disseminate information on all European Union (EU) funded research projects and their results in the broadest se ...
.
USA
In 2010, The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ; pronounced "ark" by initiates and often "A-H-R-Q" by the public) is one of twelve agencies within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The agency is headquartered i ...
(AHRQ) established the first publicly funded Healthcare Horizon Scanning program of the US.
Russia
In the Russian Federation, horizon scanning is performed by Higher School of Economics
HSE University (russian: link=no, «Высшая школа экономики», ВШЭ), officially the National Research University Higher School of Economics (russian: link=no, Национальный исследовательский ун ...
and financed by Ministry of Education and Science. In 2012, Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
stated that " Foresight exercise for Russia’s science and technology towards 2030 is due to be completed. It highlights specific ways to both revitalize traditional sectors and penetrate into new high-tech markets…". Russian horizon scanning team consisted of 15–20 members and conducted an online survey of 2000 experts.
See also
* Futurology
Futures studies, futures research, futurism or futurology is the systematic, interdisciplinary and holistic study of social and technological advancement, and other environmental trends, often for the purpose of exploring how people will li ...
* Risk analysis
* Scientific lacuna
Scientific lacuna describes an area of science that has not been studied but has the potential to be studied scientifically. Often, this may be the case because it falls between different areas of sciences, such that it doesn't fall into a single s ...
* Technology assessment
Technology assessment (TA, German: , French: ) is a scientific, interactive, and communicative process that aims to contribute to the formation of public and political opinion on societal aspects of science and technology. This is a means of as ...
* Technology scouting
Technology scouting is an element of technology management in which
:(1) emerging technologies are identified,
:(2) technology related information is channeled into an organization, and
:(3) supports the acquisition of technologies.
It is a sta ...
* William J. Sutherland
References
{{Emerging technologies, topics=yes
Futures techniques
Policy