This essay examines the issues that the ongoing revolution in biosciences and biotechnology pose to social science. A convenient frame for examining these issues is the framework of “thematic priorities” established by the British funding agency for social science, the Economic and Social...

New technologies are posing new challenges to social science. Their very novelty also challenges the established methods that social research institutions have used to define their priorities. The UK’s Economic and Social research Council (ESRC) confronted these challenges, in part, by...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge intensive business services, or KIBS for short. KIBS are one of the fastest growing areas of the European economy, and are increasingly important contributors to the performance of the sectors who are their clients....

Purpose – This paper aims to depict foresight programmes as extended service encounters between foresight practitioners, sponsors, and other stakeholders. The implications of this perspective for evaluating the outcomes of such programmes are to be explored. Design/methodology/approach – The...

Purpose – The current paper aims to present the Scan‐4‐Light study, which was conducted for the systematic scanning and analysis of the Searchlight newsletters as a rapidly growing collection of articles on trends and topics in development and poverty. Design/methodology/approach – Built...

Purpose – This essay aims to introduce horizon scanning as an approach fundamental to most foresight studies. Design/methodology/approach – The essay combines a general review of the topic with an overview of a range of horizon‐scanning approaches that are in use in the UK health system....

The future is often portrayed as rational, logical, and informed by the continuing achievements of the scientific and technological revolution. In similar ways, our own time was seen as marked by such advances by futurists of earlier decades. But at the end of the twentieth century, resistance...