The ongoing German energy transition causes a higher demand for reliable energy storage in the future. This increasing demand for sustainable, cheap, safe and efficient energy storage systems has caused a stronger public debate about the potential benefits of grid battery storage according to sustainability. This circumstance led to the preposition that there is a need for the development of a proper ex-ante assessment strategy to support technology uptake. The developed approach represents a framework for prospective system analysis (PSA) using the heuristics of constructive technology assessment to identify consequences, application possibilities or threats in the technological trajectory of grid battery storage. Within this framework PSA is used to quantitatively assess economic, environmental and social aspects along the entire life cycle of electrochemical energy storage technologies in order to identify hotspots according to sustainability. The Analytic Hierarchic Process (AHP) supports multiple methods in data collection and enables the analyst to combine results from PSA with qualitative actor notions about technology according to the “world” where it is embodied. In this sense AHP enables to achieve an optimum construct of technology from a stakeholder view point. The developed approach represents an efficient research strategy to shape technology in a sustainable way in frame of „Responsible Research and Innovation“.

Healthcare systems are characterized by a rapid technology push and demand. Most decisions taken in this field usually are accompanied by risk and uncertainties. Due to financial constrains (common in every healthcare system), all decision must be made based on evidences of reliable studies. It may be not possible to know the future needs of healthcare systems in general, but it should be possible to foreseen them. This paper aims to shed some light on how prospective analysis can be an adding tool for the decision-making process, by enhancing exploratory and strategic dimension of planning and managing in a sensitive field such as healthcare. In order to provide for a simple overview on foresight exercises applied to health, this paper presents two study-cases that applied different methods. Since different foresight methods were applied, a comparative case-study analysis was applied, taking into consideration the following aspects of the exercise: aim, methodology, stakeholders and outputs. The specific objectives of this report are: to explore the usage of foresight methods applied to healthcare level in two different countries and therefore to understand if there are any similarities in the approach; and based on the analysis results, to develop recommendations for healthcare level decision-making in general. The results of this report can be useful for a better understanding on how foresight methods can be applied in healthcare and their importance. This article can help healthcare professionals, providing them a glimpse of some steps on the use of these foresight methods, so they can be more alert for foresight methodological framework and their practical applications. The knowledge on how to apply foresight methodology can be a differential and potential asset of a well-organized and informed institution, as well as an asset for a shared and participative strategic planning.

In this work we propose the use of Social Network Analysis to understand the positioning of the concept of Open Innovation in the literature, offering thereby a complementary approach to existing literature review up to now. The main motivation of this network analysis is to contribute to the understanding of the concept of Open Innovation, with its spread to different areas of knowledge over the years and its relationship with other concepts in the literature. Some 403 articles published in the database of the Science Direct during the years 2003 to 2011 were analyzed. The data was collected separately by year, considering the following information: journals in which the articles were published; countries of origin of the articles’ authors, keywords of these articles and year of publication. The results reveal the intense growth of the use of the words "Open Innovation" in articles from different areas of knowledge, as well as its increasing interconnection with other concepts, allowing the understanding of its diffusion in the literature.

The ideas of ‘responsible development’ in the scientific-technological advance and of ‘responsible innovation’ in the field of new products, services and systems have been discussed for some years now with increasing intensity (Siune et al. 2009) and led to the phrase of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ (RRI). The postulate of responsible innovation adds explicit ethical reflection to Technology Assessment (TA) and science, technology and society (STS) studies and includes all of them into integrative approaches to shaping technology and innovation. Responsible innovation brings together TA with its experiences on assessment procedures, actor involvement, foresight and evaluation with ethics, in particular under the framework of responsibility, and also builds on the body of knowledge about R&D and innovation processes provided by STS and STIS studies (science, technology, innovation and society). Ethical reflection and technology assessment are increasingly taken up as integrative part of R&Dprogrammes (Siune et al. 2009). Science institutions, including research funding agencies, have started taking a pro-active role in promoting integrative research and development. Thus, the governance of science and of R&D processes is changing which opens up new possibilities and opportunities for involving new actors and new types of reflection. In this paper I want to demonstrate at a more conceptual level that Responsible Innovation can build on experiences and knowledge provided by the three mentioned fields of research: ethics, technology assessment, and STS respective STIS studies. To this end I will start by a brief analysis of the thematic dimensions included in the notion of responsibility and the respective disciplinary approaches to explore and investigate them (Sec. 2). The field of technology assessment is then introduced as a major origin of the Responsible Innovation movement including already some of the main ideas behind Responsible Innovation (Sec. 3). Based on the TA tradition Responsible Innovation may be characterized as a broadened extension of technology assessment complemented by ethics and STS (Sec. 4). As an illustration, the field of Synthetic Biology is introduced (Sec. 5).

“Theory and Practice” of TA, which is referred to in the title of this journal “TATuP”, is usually addressed as a question of TA research. But science is more than research: the field of teaching requires just as much attention, both practically and theoretically. Therefore, a mere collection of individual teaching experiences and best practice examples does not provide a strong enough basis to discuss questions of TA teaching, these must also be embedded in a theoretical context and discussed in their relation to research. In this special issue, we aim to contribute to a combination of theoretical and practical approaches to the relation of TA and “Bildung”.

The present work deals with the use of innovation indicators in the decision-making process. It intends to contribute to the discussion on the construction, use and analysis of indicator systems and also to evaluate its weight on decision-making in innovation. The goal is to help understand how innovation indicators can influence technology policy and through it, society at large. This work will start by analysing the use of indicators (their problems and consistency) and other sources of information that contribute to build the opinions of innovation decision makers. This will be followed by a survey and interviews with main innovation actors. The results will shed light on the impact of the use of indicators by the innovation community – both in terms of technology policy and in the social sphere. Proposals and implications for the future will be advanced, hopefully adding new contributions to the governance of the science, technology and innovation field.

This paper has its starting point in the background analysis of the Lithuanian energy sector after closing down the only Lithuanian nuclear power plant in 2010. Based on the hypothesis that one of the main governance failures in this sector leading to weak industry level strategies is the lack of participatory debate and sufficient linkages between the different actors involved in the dynamic of the energy sector in Lithuania, this paper proposes industry level foresight as an instrument of long term planning. Foresight exercises could become an important instrument for reorienting energy sector policy, building new networks and linkages among the different actors, bringing new stakeholders into the strategic debate, exploring future opportunities State investment (including R&D), etc. The primary objective of this paper is therefore the design of a foresight exercise on energy sector with the aim of producing a long term strategy for this sector. The secondary objective is to address a topic on how to select foresight methods at industry level. The argument is that a better understanding of the fundamental attributes of foresight methods and their linkages to the core phases of a foresight process can provide useful insights as to how the selection of methods is carried out. The method applied in this paper is dual: firstly, the synthesis of the academic literature on the selection of foresight methods is carried out; secondly, the comparative case study analysis of three foresight cases in the Baltic Sea Region (Poland, Finland and Russia) is applied. Case study analysis allows to explore the usage of foresight methods at industry level in the Baltic Sea Region and to understand if there are any similarities in the approach, also to explore success factors and weaknesses. The analysis in this paper is comprised of four main parts. The first part provides a background analysis on the energy sector in Lithuania and justification for the foresight exercise. Second part describes the underlying frameworks and definitions in the field of foresight research. The third part develops a comparative analysis of case studies of industry level foresight. The third part provides recommendations for energy sector foresight methodology in Lithuania. The paper combines concepts and frameworks from literature (such as the Foresight Process and the Foresight Diamond) with comparative practical case study analysis. The results can be utilised by lecturers and students to describe and understand better the use of foresight methods at industry level, and by practitioners of foresight to better inform decisions during the design of more coherent methodological frameworks; as well as by the energy sector stakeholders in Lithuania and other countries.