Toward networked foresight? Exploring the use of futures research in innovation networks

• Although open innovation is a dominant paradigm, the relationship between open innovation and futures research has not been explored.
• There is emerging a kind of future research what is termed in this article ‘networked foresight’.
• The Cyclic Innovation Model is capable of making the link between foresight and open innovation.
• The smaller networks of RWS and EICT concentrate on foresight with a focus on strategic implications and initiation of new business activities.
• The ‘opposition’ role of foresight is strengthened in the large network of the EIT ICT Labs.

Along with the rise of the now popular ‘open’ paradigm in innovation management, networks have become a common approach to practicing innovation. Foresight could potentially greatly benefit from resources that become available when the knowledge base increases through networks. This article seeks to investigate how innovation networks and foresight are related, to what extent networked foresight activities exist and how they are practiced. For the former the Cyclic Innovation Model (CIM) is utilized as analytical framework and applied to three cases. The foresight activities are analyzed in terms of type, scope and role.The cases are a collaboration between government agencies and a research organization and two inter-organizational networks of different size. ‘Networked foresight’ is clearly observable in all three cases. Indeed, a networked approach to foresight seems to strengthen the various roles of foresight. However, the rooting and openness of foresight activities in the three networks varies significantly. The advantages that ‘networked foresight’ entails could be exploited to a much higher degree for the networks themselves, e.g., the broad resource base and the large pool of people with diverse backgrounds that are available. Furthermore, effective instruments for the re-integration of knowledge into the networks’ partner organizations are needed.