JEF in the Media

By: Imen Jeridi Bachellerie

Abstract: As much as potential economic, environmental or social benefits of any scientific field can help foresee its future technology development, prevailing socio-economic factors, like demographic change, labor markets, ecological sustainability, or national security do have an impact on Research and Development (R&D) policies or the level of technological activities being carried on in any country. Similarly, while innovation performance is linked to the state of markets for innovative products and services, innovation strategies of technology-based businesses do not solely focus on furthering the technical potential of their technologies; they also consider long-term socio-economic - national and international - trends in the planning of such strategies and the development of their products. Such mutual influence of socio-economic factors and R&D and Innovation in Science and Technology (S&T) is traditionally well established in the economically and scientifically advanced countries. And it is also more and more visible globally through the R&D activities of multinational private companies (MNCs) exploring new markets. Hence, a majority of S&T foresight studies look from this perspective to examine trends in the possible future development and impact of S&T.

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