Moscow Higher School of Economics (HSE) University, Professor of Innovation and Foresight, Editor of the International Journal "Foresight"
Professor Ozcan Saritas (Ph.D.) is the Head of the International Research Laboratory for Science and Technology Studies (LST) at the National Research University, Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow; Honorary Professor at Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MioIR), The University of Manchester; and Editor-in-chief of “Foresight” - the journal of futures studies, strategic thinking and policy.
His research focuses upon innovation, policy and governance with particular emphasis on socio-economic and technological Foresight. With a PhD in Foresight and Prospective Studies Program at the University of Manchester, Prof. Saritas has extensive work experience with the international organizations including the United Nations (UNIDO, UNCTAD, UNDP), OECD, and the European Commission. He has been involved in large scale national, multinational and corporate research and consultancy projects on sectors including Energy, Climate Change and Renewables, Agriculture and Food, Water Resources and Sustainability, Transportation and Automotive, Information and Communication Technologies among the others.
He has published a number of articles in leading journals in the field; and has delivered keynote speeches in a number of countries across the world. Besides his research and publication activities, Prof. Saritas designs and delivers academic and executive education courses on Foresight, Innovation Management and Strategic Planning. He has recently co-authored a book, entitled “Foresight for Science, Technology and Innovation” published by Springer, which has become one of the key readings in the field.
Presentation Summary
Pandemonics 3.0: From Crisis to Transformation
Prof.Dr. Ozcan Saritas, Prof.Dr. Ian Miles, Dr. Joe Ravetz
While the COVID-19 global pandemic has caused death and disruption around the world, it has also exposed underlying tensions, traumas and conflicts. There are many hard lessons in disaster management, public health, economic recovery and so on – and also many inspirational examples of mutual aid and social cohesion. To make the best of future opportunities, and also to learn from past experience, the practice of Foresight is crucial.
With the pandemic bringing up high levels of uncertainty and controversy, the practice of Foresight was also pushed to respond. An emerging model of Foresight 3.0 looks beyond fixing a problem with forecasting or stress-testing: it asks searching questions about multi-layered ‘grand challenges’ to the system, and then explores the potential to turn crisis into transformation.
In that way we can frame the knowledge of such a pandemic response, as bio-medical with all connnections to social, technical, economic, ecological, political and cultural layers: in other words a Pandemonics 3.0. This wider agenda then looks for ways to turn crisis into transformation, with a ‘collective pandemonic intelligence’ across all parts of society.
In this session for the first Izmir World Pandemic Conference, we discuss the following questions:
1) Did we already predict the pandemic?
2) what did we learn from this?
3) what lies ahead in the future?
4) how to use foresight to turn 'crisis' into 'transformation'
(framed as Pandemonics 3.0)?
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