Karl-Heinz Leitner is Senior Researcher in the Department of Technology Policy at the Austrian Research Center. He received his PhD in Economics and Social Sciences from the Vienna University, was Visiting Research Scholar at the Copenhagen Business School and teaches at the Technical University of Vienna. His main research interests cover innovation processes in companies, strategic management, research policy and the valuation of intellectual capital. Karl-Heinz Leitner carried out studies dealing with the design of reporting, management accounting and funding systems for research organisations, universities and public bodies. Karl-Heinz Leitner was involved in projects related to the implementation of intellectual capital reporting systems; amongst others for the Austrian Research Centers, the University of Innsbruck and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research. He was involved in international research projects funded by the European Commission and has published in Higher Education, R&D Management, Management Accounting Research und Research Evaluation.

Could you tell me a bit about your background and what you are doing now?
 
I am an innovation researcher dealing with innovation management and innovation policy. I am in the Austrian Research Institute of Technology, working on a couple of research projects. I also co-ordinate the Innovation Futures project,1 which is a blue sky funded project like the iKNOW project. We are dealing mainly with innovation futures and how they will be organized in the next ten to 15 years. Some colleagues of mine have collected some weak signals and uploaded some onto the iKNOW database.
 
Can you envisage any major wild cards, positive or negative, that may occur in the next 20 years? 
 
At policy level we see more defragmentation within the European Commission. We will have more strong national countries within Europe and less power from the Commission, which would have many impacts on the European Research Area, innovation policy etc. We will have a Europe at two speeds – some countries that are speeding up and doing well and others doing less well. That is all related to the future of Europe and a common European Union. You could also see more political problems, debates within Europe on the political agenda and harmonization process. Probably some countries will leave the European Union. They could say that the cost benefit and what they gain are not worth the opportunities and risks. The original idea of the European Research Area will be on ice, as well as how markets are regulated and the common market. That is what I could envisage at the political level. So the lessening power of the European Union in all areas? This could give more power at the regional level. It is what we see to some extent already, but the regions get more autonomy and eventually we see a future Europe as it was 500 years ago, with a lot of small, more independent regions. This could happen on the political level. At the society level, what might be interesting would be any catastrophe related to technology, e.g. a nuclear power plant meltdown.1 http://www.innovation-futures.org/Something could happen, because people and societies always think they can control technology. After such a catastrophe there will be some kind of rethink about basic technology and progress. In Europe, there is a strong belief in making progress, and that researchers and technicians can solve all the problems. If a major catastrophe were to happen, probably people would rethink their attitude and there would be scepticism about technological progress. There will always be questions in society about research and technological progress and funding, but after a catastrophe people would question research and progress and how it is organized. Society always learns and tries to improve systems, as we have seen with diseases such as mad cow disease. But with these systems, after a while you have problems. Managers and the policy makers are learning their lessons, but the systems don’t really change. We see this now with the financial crisis: it really is a crisis, but I am not sure whether policy makers or decision makers have learnt much and are changing their systems. If a catastrophe happened, this could be related to a nuclear power plant problem or human disease, or at present there are weak signals with wheat disease. Or it could be genetic technologies and genetic modifying of plants, animals and humans. It is also interesting to see what is the next step, what the implications are for society and how it thinks about research and technological progress in general. So there will be more scepticism. There are also, of course, a lot of opportunities, but any catastrophe will bring a rethink and will change our thinking about the role of research and how research is organized in the European area. There is also the question of how researchers do not take responsibility for results – it is always the industry or the academic who adopted the idea. This could change generally, and there could be more regulation of the researchers. There are a lot of wild cards related to traffic or other major events, but more important for these systems is what the economy or policy learns. Of course, the financial crisis happened and we can ask what is really changing. An interesting wild card is one that is fundamentally changing systems.I did not systematically scan for weak signals in our project or in other projects, but I am aware of some. This was very narrow and focused on how innovation will be organized in the future. Innovations will be by companies, citizens and academics. Most of the weak signals from our project have been uploaded into your database. We scanned some weak signals and we have already drafted some wishes for innovation. You can download the report about this from innovation-futures.org.
 
How do you think these wild cards and weak signals should be addressed by future research to try and prepare for them or learn more about them?
 
We think the more weak signals we scan, the more we produce and the more creative we are in thinking about what could happen. This is important, but more important for futurists is to understand what the decision makers are doing with this information. Future researchers are not so interested in this question, because they want to provoke and create. But I think the community should better understand what happens with this information. Policy makers at the European level will read some of these wild cards, but probably for many of them there will be no response, action or preparation for some of these futures, because they think that is too far away, or not realistic whatsoever. We need to understand better why this is, and why society and policy makers and decision makers ignore the findings of futurists. You could of course spend another three years developing and detecting new wild cards and weak signals, but I think we should spend as many resources and efforts trying to understand how much this information is used by the stakeholders. You can produce very nice reports, policy newsletters and policy briefs, but what is the role of this documentation? We should think about whether producing such briefs is the right media or form of media communication, or whether producing a movie or an event or a workshop may have a higher impact. We should reflect on this and think how to communicate our results.
 
And maybe follow the uptake, to see how it is taken up by policy makers and how it is used.
 
How it is to be adopted and how these weak signals and wild card stories and policy briefs can have an impact; how to communicate such information and visions. This should be on the research agenda. The Commission probably also think that if we scan enough and develop enough and prepare enough briefs, then we are prepared for the future. But maybe we need to prepare now for the future and understand what role these foresight projects can have. We also need more critical reflection within the community.
 
So do you think this is an ongoing debate within the foresight community?
 
The debate has just started, but I don’t think we are really debating about this. It should become a debate and be on the agenda for the future.
 
Returning to the wild cards and weak signals about the defragmentation of the EU and the nuclear power plant meltdown, which kind of line of research should be given top priority in Europe?  Should we focus on these wild cards or anything else that you think is urgent?
 
I think energy is a pressing issue. Energy has so many impacts, e.g. how you heat your house, how you propel your cars. The whole energy debate and different forms of energy should have a high priority.
 
What would you like to see the research focus on in the energy field?
 
New sustainable energies and how current systems can be transformed and changed. There is a lot of inertia in the system not to change, with good reasons. So we have to offer these big companies alternative solutions that can be business alternatives.
 
The iKNOW project has defined a wild card as a low likelihood but high impact and surprising event. Is this a definition that you would agree with or would you add or subtract from that?
 
No, for me that is a practical working definition.
 
We have defined weak signals as observable changes and current trends or a state of affairs. Some particularly important weak signals could be precursor events or indicators that make a wild card more probable or even inevitable. Do you think this is a good working definition for a weak signal?
 
This does not convince me immediately. I don’t have a better definition. It is very broad. If you relate weak signals just to wild cards, for instance with the volcanic eruption and ashes, were the weak signals their fault? You are focusing too much on the link with the wild cards, but weak signals can also become a major trend not necessarily related to a wild card type event. So this definition is not convincing me at the moment. Something is missing.
 
You think that weak signals could just as well stand alone?
 
Yes. You can make the link to wild cards, but it can also stand alone. We have discussed this, because we also scan for weak signals and we needed a definition of a weak signal. We defined it more specifically for our purpose, because we see it as indicating a change in an innovation pattern, whereas you were talking about changes in economy, society, policy and technology. Observing changes in current trends you could be more specific - is it any field?  You are dealing with the whole universe.
 
Have you done any previous foresight studies using wild cards and weak signals and are there any lessons you could share with us from that study?
 
No. My colleagues have done projects about this, but I have not.What are the best methods to identify wild cards and weak signals?  I would probably talk to futurists who are writing books about the future, and writers of science fiction books or Hollywood films. Of course the internet is a good source, and social websites are good for issues. Also probably other future studies which have been prepared or developed by companies. They do not publish their reports, but they would also be of interest – internal reports by Shell or BP, etc. Many interest groups, societies, associations and NGOs have study groups and strategies, goals and values. You would probably find some goals and strategies which are visionary about changing the world or the industry or attitudes, etc.
 
So reports or publications from people that might be looking towards the future?
 
Not necessarily just organizations looking to the future, but also ones that want to change the future, such as Greenpeace. What are their dreams, strategies and values?What are these organizations aiming for?Some of the ideas may become reality one day. There are many lobbyists who have a specific idea and are trying to protect their groups, societies or industries, but it is also interesting to know what they stand for and what their ambitions and beliefs are, because on the one hand we are very conservative, and on the other we are provoking ideologist ideas.
 
Is there anything you would like to add?
 
My most important point is what is done with the information and how to help policy makers and decision makers to prioritize. For us, the connection of these signals and wild cards is not enough. We need to look at how we are using this information and how can it be used. We have to take the next step – what does it really mean and how to help decision makers. It is difficult for them to prioritize, as there are many weak signals and wild cards. It is important to help and support them in the next process, i.e. how to select and how to prioritize. Society will not be prepared for all of your wild cards and I don’t know how you will guide this decision-making process.