Foresight for shaping national innovation systems in developing economies

The definition of an effective innovation policy is a major challenge in developing countries, a task that has become more complex as increasing attention is being paid in policy issues to inclusive development, raising quite different requirements for what an innovation system should deliver, and how it should therefore be organised. It is argued that foresight is an appropriate instrument to shape innovation systems and support policy making processes, thus, foresight has attracted interest in developing countries. However, the ability to effectively exploit its results is hampered by the limitations of their governance systems to take into account the complexity in the definition of public policies. In such a context, foresight needs to be more thoroughly integrated into the policy making process to be effective. Attempts to engage excluded indigenous or poor peasant, communities in development plans have also been made and in this context, foresight activities in these communities have been conducted, but the consultations have not been strategic and forward-looking enough to connect to policy-making beyond the specific local settings. In this paper, we propose a novel interconnected multilevel approach containing two elements of policy making to support innovation for inclusive development: a) the close interplay between foresight and policy making, and b) the linking of local community-level to national level foresight. Such an approach is well suited for using foresight to inform and guide policy to frame the national innovation system that can attend both economic and social development goals.