An integrated approach for the evaluation of national Foresight: The Russian case

As the need for anticipatory strategic decision-making increases at all levels of governance, there are growing demands for high quality and relevant contributions from Foresight exercises. In this regard, identification of strong and weak aspects of Foresight design and implementation, a quality of outputs and a degree of impact as well as learning from this practice is of great importance. Strong evaluation procedures contribute to further Foresight development and its effectiveness. Literature analysis reveals the diversity of different approaches and criteria for Foresight evaluation at the national level however its basic principles are not yet consolidated and spread for use. The purpose of this paper is to start such consolidation through the development of an integrated approach for ex-post national Foresight evaluation. The proposed methodology was tested in the Russian National Foresight 2030 and the article presents and analyzes the results. Further ways of developing this approach are suggested. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.