Foresight: a new approach based on the Z-number cognitive map

Foresight has recently emerged as one of the most attractive and practical fields of study, while being used to draw up a preferable future and formulate appropriate strategies for achieving predetermined goals. The present research aimed at providing a framework for foresight with a primary focus on the role of a cognitive approach and its combination with the concept of fuzzy cognitive map in the environments of uncertainty and ambiguity. The proposed framework consisted of the 3 phases: pre-foresight, foresight, and post-foresight. The main stage (foresight) focused on the role of imagination and intuition in drawing the future in the experts’ minds and depicting their perceptions above perceptions in the form of a fuzzy cognitive map influenced by variables related to the subject under study in order to determine a preferable future. The use of a Z-number concept and integrating it with fuzzy cognitive maps in the foresight-oriented decision-making space, which was mainly saturated with uncertainty and ambiguity, was one of the main strengths of the proposed framework in the current investigation. The present paper focused primarily on the evolution of expert’s knowledge with regard to the topic of foresight. The role of Z-number in various processes, from data collection to illustration, analysis, and aggregation of cognitive maps, was considered for gaining knowledge and understanding into the nature of future. Moreover, an ultimate objective was realized through identifying, aggregating, and selecting the variables from each expert’s perspective and then the relationship between each variable was determined in the main stage of foresight. Finally, the proposed framework was presented and explicated in the form of a case study, which revealed satisfactory results.

Futures literacy in the loop

This article proposes a functional historicist explanation to explicate the core ideas and underlying logic embedded in the futures literacy concept.Futures literacy assumes a capacity to reflect on the past, sense and make sense of the present and use this reflective body of knowledge when anticipating the future.Arguably, futures literacy must be learned, sustained, and regained; it requires a continuous, anticipative, and recursive loop. Recursivity, where an effect in an initial period acts as a cause in the next period, retroacts between the future and present, regaining anticipation. Anticipation has causal effects in the way it structures our images of the future and the avenue we follow when striving to achieve this image. Such a causal structure implies both feedforward and feedback control and is contained in the logic of functional explanations used in sociology.

Data-driven smart eco-cities and sustainable integrated districts: A best-evidence synthesis approach to an extensive literature review

As materializations of trends toward developing and implementing urban socio-technical and enviro-economic experiments for transition, eco-cities have recently received strong government and institutional support in many countries around the world due to their ability to function as an innovative strategic niche where to test and introduce various reforms. There are many models of the eco-city based mainly on either following the principles of urban ecology or combining the strategies of sustainable cities and the solutions of smart cities. The most prominent among these models are sustainable integrated districts and data-driven smart eco-cities. The latter model represents the unprecedented transformative changes the eco-city is currently undergoing in light of the recent paradigm shift in science and technology brought on by big data science and analytics. This is motivated by the growing need to tackle the problematicity surrounding eco-cities in terms of their planning, development, and governance approaches and practices. Employing a combination of both best-evidence synthesis and narrative approaches, this paper provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art and thematic literature review on sustainable integrated districts and data-driven smart eco-cities. The latter new area is a significant gap in and of itself that this paper seeks to fill together with to what extent the integration of eco-urbanism and smart urbanism is addressed in the era of big data, what driving factors are behind it, and what forms and directions it takes. This study reveals that eco-city district developments are increasingly embracing compact city strategies and becoming a common expansion route for growing cities to achieve urban ecology or urban sustainability. It also shows that the new eco-city projects are increasingly capitalizing on data-driven smart technologies to implement environmental, economic, and social reforms. This is being accomplished by combining the strengths of eco-cities and smart cities and harnessing the synergies of their strategies and solutions in ways that enable eco-cities to improve their performance with respect to sustainability as to its tripartite composition. This in turn means that big data technologies will change eco-urbanism in fundamental and irreversible ways in terms of how eco-cities will be monitored, understood, analyzed, planned, designed, and governed. However, smart urbanism poses significant risks and drawbacks that need to be addressed and overcome in order to achieve the desired outcomes of ecological sustainability in its broader sense. One of the key critical questions raised in this regard pertains to the very potentiality of the technocratic governance of data-driven smart eco-cities and the associated negative implications and hidden pitfalls. In addition, by shedding light on the increasing adoption and uptake of big data technologies in eco-urbanism, this study seeks to assist policymakers and planners in assessing the pros and cons of smart urbanism when effectuating ecologically sustainable urban transformations in the era of big data, as well as to stimulate prospective research and further critical debates on this topic.

Conceptualization of a new generation of smart energy systems and the transition toward them using anticipatory systems

Emerging energy systems are inherently different from their conventional counter-parts. To address all issues of these systems, comprehensive approaches of transdisciplinary and post-normal sciences are needed. This article tries to re-conceptualize emerging energy systems using Robert Rosen’s theory of anticipatory system and introduces the concept of the anticipatory smart energy system (ASES). Three important features of an ASES are described and socio-technical considerations for realization of these features are discussed. The article also considers realization of such systems under society 5.0 paradigm and spime techno-culture. In ASESs, the identity of users evolves and new identities are created for energy users, based on the production, consumption, storage, and distributed management of energy. An Anticipatory energy system can manage a common pool of prosumaging.

The underlying components of data-driven smart sustainable cities of the future: a case study approach to an applied theoretical framework

The increased pressure on cities has led to a stronger need to build sustainable cities that can last. Planning sustainable cities of the future, educated by the lessons of the past and anticipating the challenges of the future, entails articulating a multi-scalar vision that, by further interplaying with major societal trends and paradigm shifts in science and technology, produce new opportunities towards reaching the goals of sustainability. Enabled by big data science and analytics, the ongoing transformative processes within sustainable cities are motivated by the need to address and overcome the challenges hampering progress towards sustainability. This means that sustainable cities should be understood, analyzed, planned, designed, and managed in new and innovative ways in order to improve and advance their contribution to sustainability. Therefore, sustainable cities are increasingly embracing and leveraging what smart cities have to offer in terms of data-driven technologies and applied solutions so as to optimize, enhance, and maintain their performance and thus achieve the desired outcomes of sustainability—under what has been termed “data-driven smart sustainable cities.” Based on a case study analysis, this paper develops an applied theoretical framework for strategic sustainable urban development planning. This entails identifying and integrating the underlying components of data-driven smart sustainable cities of the future in terms of the dimensions, strategies, and solutions of the leading global paradigms of sustainable urbanism and smart urbanism. The novelty of the proposed framework lies in combining compact urban design strategies, eco-city design strategies and technology solutions; data-driven smart city technologies, competences, and solutions for sustainability; and environmentally data-driven smart sustainable city solutions and strategies. These combined have great potential to improve and advance the contribution of sustainable cities to the goals of sustainability through harnessing its synergistic effects and balancing the integration of its dimensions. The main contribution of this work lies in providing new insights into guiding the development of various types of strategic planning processes of transformative change towards sustainability, as well as to stimulate and inspire future research endeavors in this direction. This study informs policymakers and planners about the opportunity of attaining important advances in sustainability by integrating the established models of sustainable urbanism and the emerging models of smart urbanism thanks to the proven role and untapped potential of data-driven technologies in catalyzing sustainable development and thus boosting sustainability benefits.

The future of polarisation in Europe: relative cosmopolitanism and democracy

One of the central features of our societies is an increasing polarisation between communitarian and cosmopolitan positions. The theoretically sound and differentiated concepts are increasingly being escalated and misused in political practice by authoritarian populists and polarising pushers who try to pull the undecided to their side and tear society apart. Two essential agreements of the post-war period are increasingly being called into question: The European consensus, which considers European unification as an essential achievement and goal of political actors, and the democratic consensus, which states that representative democracy is the undisputed best form of government. In this article, after an introductory definition of polarisation, two future scenarios are developed. In the scenario “Polarised Europe”, polarisation is extrapolated into the future and discussed with its serious consequences for the democratic and European consensus. The second scenario “Democratised Europe” shows how the concept of a relative cosmopolitanism can mitigate polarisation and what steps could possibly be taken to constructively turn it into a more democratic direction.

Long-term cost-effectiveness of interventions for loss of electricity/industry compared to artificial general intelligence safety

Extreme solar storms, high-altitude electromagnetic pulses, and coordinated cyber attacks could disrupt regional/global electricity. Since electricity basically drives industry, industrial civilization could collapse without it. This could cause anthropological civilization (cities) to collapse, from which humanity might not recover, having long-term consequences. Previous work analyzed technical solutions to save nearly everyone despite industrial loss globally, including transition to animals powering farming and transportation. The present work estimates cost-effectiveness for the long-term future with a Monte Carlo (probabilistic) model. Model 1, partly based on a poll of Effective Altruism conference participants, finds a confidence that industrial loss preparation is more cost-effective than artificial general intelligence safety of ~ 88% and ~ 99+% for the 30 millionth dollar spent on industrial loss interventions and the margin now, respectively. Model 2 populated by one of the authors produces ~ 50% and ~ 99% confidence, respectively. These confidences are likely to be reduced by model and theory uncertainty, but the conclusion of industrial loss interventions being more cost-effective was robust to changing the most important 4–7 variables simultaneously to their pessimistic ends. Both cause areas save expected lives cheaply in the present generation and funding to preparation for industrial loss is particularly urgent.

Emergent technologies, divergent frames: differences in regulator vs. developer views on innovation

Technology innovation is inherently uncertain. The risk–benefit divide for such innovation is a classical debate within scholarly literature and is often framed on a monetary scale where innovation approval is granted if benefit outweighs risk. However, such discussion leaves out a critical yet subjective vein of discussion within the innovation evaluation process — stakeholder context. Specifically, regulators and technology developers are often described as having respective motivations that are often at odds with one another. In theory, efforts towards balancing risk and benefit for technology evaluation should be driven by relatively efficient, inexpensive, robust methods, and processes. In practice, however, technology evaluation is often expensive, slow, and often of questionable quality for new and emerging technologies. Literature often frames the innovation-regulation tradeoff as a zero-sum game driven by regulators and developers that are inherently at odds with one another. However, we argue that such a relationship is actually worse than zero-sum and is a classic framing problem as described by Kahneman and Tversky. Specifically, the divergent frames adopted by regulators and technology developers, respectively, can drastically affect their perception of risk and tolerance for further development and commercialization of a given technology. There are known and natural solutions to such problems that can smooth the path towards realizing the societal potential of emerging technologies.

Anticipatory governance for newcomers: lessons learned from the UK, the Netherlands, Finland, and Korea

Anticipatory governance (AG) is defined as a “system of systems” that employs foresight to create future plans and execute relevant actions. Recently, various frameworks of AG have been introduced, but there is little practical information available for newcomers on how to do this. This research conducted a framework-based comparative country analysis to provide lessons learned for newcomers in the sphere of foresight-linked AG. By evaluating the AG levels of Finland, the UK, the Netherlands, and Korea, we found that the consequences of foresight-linked AGs were different in each country. At the same time, we also identified a common denominator, namely, future receptivity, a “human or people” capacity to accept and understand the value of foresight. Instead of temporary system changes or organizational modifications, future receptivity is an underlying element for newcomers to overcome lingering short-termism and facilitate the coordination of stakeholders concerning foresight. In conclusion, we suggest ways to promote future receptivity for newcomers. First, the government should educate and train the public and government officials to promote future literacy and future proficiency. Second, the government should provide a process for public participation such as nationwide networking that enables the public to influence their diverse future images over foresight outcomes.

Limits and benefits of participatory agenda setting for research and innovation

Current governance of science, technology and innovation (STI) faces tough challenges to meet demands arising from complex issues such as societal challenges or targets, e.g. the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. For decades, scholars and civil society institutions have called for increased public participation in STI, and political institutions have been taking up the request to integrate engagement activities into their decision-making processes, at least in the form of consultations. Moving engagement in research and development further upstream makes early interventions and social shaping of technologies and innovation possible. Since research has also faced repeated requests towards taking on more responsibility for solving societal problems, engagement processes thus help in shaping research. Here, the earliest point for possible engagement can be found within the constituting phase of research agendas as topics, general lines of enquiry and targets are shaped in this phase. These are the boundaries in between which researchers later navigate. This article serves as introduction to this journal’s topical collection on participatory agenda setting for research and innovation (PASE). It provides a review of the literature on theory and practice of PASE activities, summarises the topical collection’s contributions regarding current international cases and analyses respective PASE limits and benefits, thereby promoting its conceptual and practical understanding.