A new methodology for regional foresight
Abstract
Regional foresight is receiving increasing attention and interest from public policy makers and other regional stakeholders. Until recently, regional foresight has been implemented in most cases as a scaling down of national studies, by applying approaches and methods of national foresight to specific regional themes. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the new regional foresight methodology that the authors have developed when carrying out the RISE (Research, Innovation, Economical Development) project under the sponsorship of the government of the Lombardy Region. This methodology basically aggregates and integrates a set of indicators (qualitative and quantitative) defined in order to evaluate the attractiveness of a technology for the long term competitiveness of the main sectors of the regional manufacturing industry and the feasibility for the regional technical and scientific system to develop this technology. In this way, it is possible to provide a sound basis for S&T policy making.