Sectoral innovation foresight: Sector development at the Danish Technical University

In this working paper I will propose a specific integration between the academic areas of foresight and of innovation-system research based on the concept of interactive learning. I will argue that foresight focused on stimulating innovation can use the innovation-system framework as its main theoretical underpinning with benefit.

On the basis of literature reviews of innovation studies and foresight research I identify co-evolving patterns of change over time. These patterns have inspired me to, maybe foolishly, propose the term ‘innovation foresight’ to describe explicit innovation system-based foresight which is helpful to navigate in the great diversity of foresights.

Subsequently, I try to apply the tentative framework in analyzing four cases of ‘sector development strategy’ managed by the Danish Technical University (DTU). I conclude that innovation foresight isn’t practiced at DTU. Instead their activities can better be characterized as science foresight or technology foresight based on the rationale of the linear model of innovation without a systemic understanding of innovation.