Foresight support systems to facilitate regional innovations: A conceptualization case for a German logistics cluster

We present the conceptualization of a foresight support system (FSS), which is designed to implement a continuous and embedded foresight process among partners of a business cluster. We argue that engaging in foresight (1) enables clusters and organizations to face discontinuous change, (2) avoids lock-in of business clusters by networking and knowledge exploitation and that (3) collaborative foresight can support such networking. As systemic instruments that connect stakeholders and support continuous foresight processes, FSSs are especially suited to achieve these results. We present five basic premises to conceptualize an FSS and concretize them by a requirement analysis for an FSS funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the course of Germany's Leading-Edge Cluster Logistics. The requirements lead to the conceptualization of a foresight database, a digital future workshop application, and a prediction market application integrated in a futures platform. All applications are interlinked to support users through a guided, web-based, multi-method foresight process. The implementation of the FSS in business clusters and insights acquired during the three-year project are discussed. Overall, we present insights on how regionally implemented foresight contributes to regional innovation systems and thereby contribute to the emerging research stream on FSS.