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/ The 4th International Seville Conference on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA):12 & 13 May 2011
FTA and Grand Societal Challenges:
Shaping and Driving Structural and Systemic Transformations
Building Anticipatory Intelligence for the Systematic Transformation of Innovation System- Strategic Technology Roadmapping on Personalized Medicine in Taiwan
Authors: / Pwu Tsai, Professor at National Formosa University/ ; Chen-hua Ien, Associate Researcher; Hai-chen Lin, Associate Researcher; Kang Hsieh, Associate Researcher (all at the STPI)Sponsors: / The Science Technology Policy Research and Information Center (STPI), National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL) funded by the National Science Council in Taiwan
Type: / A single-issue, in-house strategic technology roadmap dealing with the future of personalized medicine
Geographic Coverage: / TAIWAN
Scope: / Bio-medical sector, gene-related disease (Alzheimer) / technology overview, scenario for dissemination
Applied Methods: / scenarios, essays, cross-impact analysis, quality-function deployment, relevance trees
Evaluation: Impacts: / The in-house capacity on methodical framework, analytical process and expert engagement is established.
Awareness of current institutional bottlenecks and policy gap is raised with focus group of stakeholders.
Organiser: / The Science & Technology Policy Research Center (STPI)/ Ms. Hei-Jen Lin,
Duration: / Feb~Nov/2010 / Budget: / N/A / Time Horizon: / 2025 / Date of Brief: / Mar/31/2011
Keywords: / personalized medicine, applied genomics, strategic technology roadmap, foresight methods
Purpose
This exercise has the goal to build in-house capacity in thematic technology roadmap of strategic importance. Personalized medicine was chosen as the field for practicing to develop four likely scenarios, mapping onto time horizon of technology development. For developing bio-medical research into a vital industry sector, nine critical domains were identified and strategic issues discussed. Awareness of current institutional bottlenecks was raised with focus group of stakeholders with recommendations to policy priority.
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Background & Context
In 2002 the government of Taiwan launched a multi-year National Science and Technology Program on Genomics with several billions investment after the first human genome mapping was finalized. With the promise of better curing and treatment on disease, many countries dedicated much resources on personalized medicine based on the R&D in applied genomics. For most people in the society, it seems too good to be true- particularly on when the scenario envisioned today could happen as reality.
The methods and practices of technology foresight have been developed more than thirty years. It is, however, a complicate and sometime costly operation that governments in the world would adopt as rationale for allocating R&D investment only recently. Although the government of Taiwan had sponsored few small projects since late 1990s, the capacity is limited as a latecomer.
Facing the ever growing competition in technology development and cooperation in industrial innovation, many governments overhaul its organization and governance structure in dealing with technology and innovation. The trend seems to be centralized governance and delegated organization with more emphasis on the socio-economic accountability. After a decade of planning and negotiation, the government of Taiwan is about to launch a restructured science and technology ministry with explicit foresight mission in its foresight and applied technology division the first time
In line with government restructuring, the Science & Technology Policy Research and Information Center (STPI) of National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL) funded by the government has been preparing for the future challenges as one of the government’s major think tanks.
It is in the abovementioned context that this FTA exercise on personalized medicine was launched and designed as an in-house, expert-driven small capacity-building project with the benchmark against METI’s strategic technology roadmap method.
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FTA Process
The FTA exercise began with assembling a ten-people working group, mostly the STPI research staff led by two external investigators whose disciplinary background covering food and medicine safety, pharmaceuticals, bio-chemistry, bio-engineering, informatics, technology management, public policy and industrial economics.
Prior to investigating personalized medicine, a path-finding exercise was first conducted on Alzheimer disease to increase the team’s understanding and familiarity on genetic diseases and foresight methods in general. A thematic framework of grouping technology/functional issues was developed for later use.
Scenario analysis of personalized medicine was then conducted in seven steps. Given the budget and time constraint, no primary investigating method was employed for defining: (1) strategic focus and scope of scenario; (2) critical factors that affect policy decision; (3) key external driving forces behind critical factors. They were from literature survey to review previous foresight and trend analysis in genomics and personalized medicine as well as government policy documents and research papers. Brainstorming sessions were held in debating the findings from literature review and wild cards technique was used to augment the results of primary expert Delphi survey. Fifteen factors of policy decision and twenty driving forces were identified and considered.
The axes of uncertainty were defined by examining the risk and uncertainty of external driving forces. Three axes were identified: the pace of technology development, social acceptance, costs affordability. The opportunity of international cooperation was left out after re-examining the literature review. The results were then subject to the fifth step of cross-impact /structural analysis to check their validity. Four most likely scenarios were developed out of sixteen based on the axis of uncertainty. They were given name as: ‘wonderful world’, ‘more to be done’, ‘fallen behind’, and ‘desired but unpopular’.
Scenarios imaging of the four scenarios was based on ‘essays’ method to link critical factors and driving forces in describing the story. In this sixth steps, each scenario was then checked against literature review and went through brainstorming sessions to further specify expectations or possible phenomena as the desired (or undesired) needs to be met in the future. All these expectations (needs) were then grouped into seven to ten technological or functional categories based on the quality-function deployment (QFD) technique. Finally a workflow-type operating model was constructed by simplifying common categories of the four scenarios as logical function block. Each expectations (needs) were also assessed against its importance and risk to decide its sensitivity to overall priority for monitoring. The results were then reviewed by a nine-people expert panel meeting.
For the purpose of roadmapping over time horizon, two important techniques were employed. One is logically staging the four most likely scenarios based on the S-curve of technology evolution. The other is to consider the four scenario’s strategic implications to industry development based on conventional SWOT analysis that concluded the last step.
The exercise then followed the METI’s strategic technology roadmap method to develop the scenario for dissemination, functional needs/technology overview, and development milestone and details. The results were then reviewed by the final expert panel meeting.
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Output & Impacts
The outputs of this in-house exercise includes: (a) identifying four most likely scenarios and further developed them into a set of operating models within a six-staged industry development framework, namely ‘wonderful world’, ‘more to be done’, ‘fallen behind’, and ‘desired but unpopular’. (b) formulating a strategic technology roadmap over at least 15 years at three levels, namely scenario for dissemination, functional needs/technology overview, and development milestone and details.
They are of national interests in devising future investment strategy in science and technology. The ‘scenario of dissemination’ defines stakeholders’ collaborative roles and timing to become active partner. Technology overview sums up technology needs in all critical domains that could serve as the government’s ‘shopping list’ to encourage and sponsor collaborative R&D between universities and private enterprises. The needs roadmap with technical specifics defined the most likely schedule of critical technologies needed to be realized that can be a reference for understanding industrial dynamics.
As a small, in-house exercise initially aimed for capacity-building, the outputs are satisfactory. First, major techniques of the foresight methods were reviewed and practiced through a working case rather than desktop literature review. For the specific purpose of assessing the viability of industry development, the methods used in this exercise integrated different techniques, stimulating internal examination on their integrity and validity.
Secondly, it brought the practical community at hospital and health research institutes with S&T policy research community through two expert panel meetings on this emerging subject that some of the institutional bottlenecks in Taiwan were discovered for the first time.
However, its impact on the policy-making community and the society is yet to be seen.
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Sources and References
Source:
STPI/NARL (2010), Technology Foresight and Strategic Technology Roadmap: the Case of Personalized Medicine- Final Report (in Chinese), November 20, 2010, Taipei, TAIWAN
References:
Yasunaga, Y., Watanabe, M. and Korenage, M. (2009) Application of technology roadmaps to governmental innovation policy for promoting technology convergence, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 79, pp.61-79
US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, (2008), Priorities for Personalized Medicine, http://medicalcenter.osu.edu/pdfs/cphc/PCA_Science_Tech_White_Paper_PHC.pdf, accessed on 2010/10/19
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