Scenarios to explore the futures of the emerging technology of organic and large area electronics
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Scenarios to explore the futures of the emerging technology of organic and large area electronics Alireza Parandian & Arie Rip
Received: 14 January 2013 / Accepted: 2 May 2013 # The Author(s) 2013. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
A. Parandian (*) Business Development, InnovationFab, P.O. Box 9716, 5602 LS Eindhoven, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]
be applied, or only partially. At the same time, actors work with promises (and sometimes concerns), anticipate informally and more analytically, and base investment of resources on what are essentially bets on anticipated socioeconomic returns, as well as on possible actions of other actors [1]. In a sense, they are de facto futures researchers. When professional futures researchers offer their contribution, it is in a world full of anticipations and anticipatory action already, and they have to include this complexity [2]. As part of our approach of constructive technology assessment (CTA) of emerging technologies, we have addressed these challenges (cf. [3, 4]), in particular, by organizing strategy articulation workshops with different relevant actors (stakeholders and third parties), supported by sociotechnical scenarios reflecting the present situation and possible nearterm futures. We were inserting ourselves in the world, at least in workshops with different relevant actors, a microcosmos as it were, to help participants to anticipate and decide through better understanding of ongoing dynamics and insight into the repercussions of possible actions. In this article, we report on the futures research we did for one of the domains we have worked in: organic and large area electronics (OLAE). This is an interesting domain in its own right, but as a case of an emerging technology, it serves to indicate how our approach can be more widely applicable.1 In our approach, we focus on what we call “endogenous futures” to emphasize how future developments are predicated on ongoing dynamics of development and the patterns in them which frame what actors perceive and how they act and interact. This shapes the future, without determining it. New interventions are played out against this background, and reactions and repercussions can be explored in those terms in scenarios, also basing ourselves on general insights
A. Rip Science, Technology and Policy Studies, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]
1 It has actually been developed and applied for other domains by Robinson (cf. [2]), Parandian (cf. [3]), and Te Kulve (cf. [4]).
Abstract Emerging technologies pose challenges for futures research because of their uncertainties combined with promises. Actors are anticipating and acting strategically. Sociotechnical scenarios building on endogenous futures support and enlighten actors. Such scenarios contribute to “strategic intelligence” about the technologies and their embedding in society. Organic and large area electronics promise to substitu
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