Strategic Foresight Group participated in National Research University’s Higher School of Economics’ annual research conference on ‘Foresight and STI Policy: Cooperation, Coordination and Challenges in Foresight’ in Moscow on 6-7 November 2014. Senior Programme Manager Anumita Raj attended and presented a talk with an international perspective on ‘New Water Services and Products’.

The aim of the conference was to investigate how the practice of foresight could be used more widely by policymakers as they seek responses to the significant challenges of the coming years. The organizers sought to invite input from experts from different fields and countries to examine various foresight experiences in order to facilitate the achievement of this aim. Conference participants were representatives of leading research centers, international companies and universities from Russia, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Finland, Hungary, Austria, Belarus and Japan.

On the first day of the conference, attendees participated in panels and sessions on international institutional issues in the field of technology foresight, the methodology and organization of corporate Foresight and setting a new agenda for Science, Technology and Innovation, or STI, policy. Various international experts presented case studies on the use of foresight in their individual countries’ STI policy formulation. Some of the presenters included Dr. Leonid Gokhberg, First Vice-Rector of the Higher School of Economics, Dr. Attila Havas, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Kuniko Urashima, Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy from Japan, Prof. Ian Miles, Head of HSE ISSEK Research Laboratory for Economics of Innovation and also Professor at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at the University of Manchester, Dr. Marcio de Miranda Santos, Executive Director for the Centre for Strategic Studies and Management in Brazil, Dr. Juha Kaskinen, Director at the Finland Futures Research Centre in Turku School of Economics from Finland. Wolfgang Polt, Director of the Institute of Economic and Innovation Research at Joanneum Research from Austria, Prof. Nicholas Vonoratas and Prof. Elias Carayannis from George Washington University.  

The second day of the conference saw two different roundtables run simultaneously on the use of foresight in two different and vital sectors. The topics for the roundtables were ‘Sustainable Development of Health, Medicine and Biotechnology Clusters: The Role and Instruments of Foresight’ and ‘Global Trends in the Water Sector’. Senior Programme Manager Anumita Raj presented her talk at the latter roundtable where global water trends, sustainability of water supply systems, water use by households and industry and new water services and products. The discussion centered on various topics related to water use including climate change, transboundary water resources, water pricing, groundwater pollution and water policy. Speakers included Yury Golubkov, Director at the Department for Science and Technology Policy and Modernization at the Renova Group, Dr. Mikhail Kozeltsev, Senior Research Fellow at HSE’s Institute of Natural Resource Economics and Environmental Policy and Key Expert and Regional Coordinator at ‘ClimaEast’ project, Sergey Sivaev, Managing Director of the Federal Project Finance Centre at the Vnesheconombank Group and Professor at HSE’s Graduate School of Urban Studies and Planning, Anastasia Likhacheva, HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs and Junior Research Fellow at HSE’s CCEIS Ibero-American Department, Prof. Daniel Sklarew, George Mason University and Associate Director at Potomac Env. Research and Education Center, Valentin Bordeniuc, Head of Project Implementation Unit for the ‘Water Utilities and Development Program’ at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development from Moldova and Lubov Hertman, Senior Researcher at the Central Research Institute for Complex Use of Water Resources in Belarus.