Foresight activities in the CO and CRPs - Marie Gasquet

Foresight activities

in the Consortium Office and in the CRPs

Marie de Lattre-Gasquet

CGIAR Consortium Office and Cirad

ISPC, 16 September 2015

Strategic foresight

And

Scientfic foresight


What is foresight?

Anticipation

Appropriation Action

AN ATTITUDE A PROCESS

Alerting: a systemic and multidisciplinary

approach

Participatory, collective work and intelligence to explore together

possible futures

Acting to create the most desirable future.

A help to make choices . ISPC, 16 September 2015

FREEDOM Many possible futures Monitor the realities Look under the radar

POWER No choice

or no more the choice?

Will

WILL

“There is no fair wind for one who knows not whither

he is bound” (Seneca)

The future: something to be created


Levels of granularities of foresights vary

Geograhical

scale

Global

Continent

Sub continent

Country

Local

Fonction Commodities/AFS Science Megatrends Thematic

Feed, transport,, Rubber, cocoa, forest, , Demography, climate scale Land use, energy irrigation

Land use Sénégal Forest Landes Gascogne

The future of food security,

environments and livelihoods in

Eastern Africa

The future of food and farming

Agrimonde GIEC

UNEP emerging environmental issues

Now for the long term

Forêts Bassin du Congo

Perspectives agricoles

Aquatic agricultural systems ?

Global livestock pdtion systems

Filière équine française

The Protein puzzle (NL)

Time

+ 5

+ 100 ISPC, 16 September 2015

Foresight methods vary and evolve

Economy

Environnement Society

Qualitative approach: vision, scenarios with narratives, etc.

Quantitative

approach

Models : BAU,

what if

Modèles, par

ex IMPACT,

GLOBIOM,

MAgPIE,

GTEM, etc.


Strategic foresight: Looking back to imagine future challenges

What changed in the past 20 to 40 years?

What is currently

changing? What could change in the next 20 to 40 years?

Possible futures

Desirable futures

Normative desired future

Breakthroughs

Seeds of change Uncertainties

What is the situation today?

LT tendencies

Bruntland Report

2000 2015 2050

Increasing consciouness that resources are limited

Belief that resources are unlimited.

Systemic approach


Examples of strategic foresight exercices

• Carried out by institutions to define their own strategy or that of their members but can be widely available: – CIRAD 2015 – French Ministry of Agriculture: Agriculture and energy 2030

(2011) – PROSPER: The job of a researcher in French public research

organizations in 2030 (2015). – Global donor platform for rural development : Prospects.

Agriculture and rural development assistance in the post-2015 development framework (2014)

– WEC: World Energy Scenarios. Composing energy futures to 2050 (2013)

– CIRAD and INRA: Agrimonde (2010) – UK Government Office for Science: The Future of Food and

Farming: Challenges and choices for global sustainability (2011)


Examples of strategic foresight questions for the CGIAR

• The CGIAR system in 2035

• National researchers of developing countries and CGIAR researchers in 2030: who will they be? What type of research projects? Which funding? What evaluations? What motivations?.

• Urban and rural relationships: products, labour, markets, infrastructures


Scientific foresight

Source : European Science Foundation (2013): ISPC, 16 September 2015

Goal: To identify research topics with highest knowledge Expectation and transformational / breakthrough potential. Focus: • Promote high-quality research • Promote highest knowledge expectation (revolutionary change, new paradigm) • Develop visions and perspectives for research disciplines, interdisciplinarity, themes, topics. • To improve program design and focus • To improve portfolio • To set priorities, strategies, coordinated action plans

Examples of scientific foresight exercices

• ANR – What research on agricultural soils ? (2013)

• CNRS –Functional Ecology (2012) ; Chemical Ecology (2012); law, ecology and economy of biodiversity (2015)

• ICSU (2012): Scientific Relations Between Academia and Industry.

• US Committee on Key Challenge Areas (2014) - Convergence: Facilitating Transdisciplinary Integration of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering and Beyond

• Buytaert et al. (2014) : Citizen science in hydrology and water resources: opportunities for knowledge generation, ecosystem service management, and sustainable development


Examples of scientific foresight questions for the CGIAR

• ISPC (2013): urbanization and farm size • One Health concept (not only than pathogens

agents) • Sustainable intensification: what does it mean in

terms of scientific approaches? • The use of ICT and GIS in agriculture: assets and

limits. • The role of women in agricultural production and

food commercialization in 2030: consequences for research programs


Foresight activities

in the CO and the CRPs


GCARD 2012: What the CGIAR want to do

Source: GFAR from forward thinking to forward acting http://www.egfar.org/sites/default/files/forward_thinking-forward_acting_final.pdf


CO on-going foresight activities


• MOU between the CGIAR CO and Cirad (8-2013) : to work in a participatory manner to: – Design a process for improving the SRF through the

utilization of results of foresight exercises – Develop a foresight culture and a strategic intelligence

system within the CRPS. – Identify topics of interest for a foresight exercise at CGIAR

consortium level and contribute to the coordination of the foresight exercise(s).

• Actions: – Work in Science Team (contribution to SRF, analysis of

CRPs…) – Foresight briefs – Meetings with CRPs, interactions between “foresighters”

9 Foresight briefs

1. March 2014 : 11 documents presented

2. April 2014 : 8 documents presented

3. May 2014: 11 documents presented

4. June 2014 : Messages from foresight exercises on the general context of AR4D (M. de Lattre-Gasquet, J. Vervoort, J. Ekboir)

5. July 2014 : Messages from foresight exercises on complexity and systems approach in science (M. de Lattre-Gasquet, C. Ballard, J. Vervoort, J. Ekboir)

6. September 2014: Messages from foresight exercises on science (M. de Lattre-Gasquet, C. Ballard, J. Ekboir, J. Vervoort)

7. October 2014: From Open Access to Open Science (M. de Lattre-Gasquet and M.C. Deboin)

8. December 2014 – January 2015: The futures of phosphorus and nitrogen: a reason to think again about agronomy? (M. de Lattre-Gasquet, H. Saint Macary and T. Brunelle)

9. May 2015: Sustainable food and agrifood systems (M. de Lattre-Gasquet and B. Hubert)


Goals and foresight methods in CRPs


Goals • Identify potential opportunities/threats and game changers; • Assess how major drivers will alter AFS in the developing world • Assess future needs of producers and consumers and implications

for innovations. • Assess current and anticipated impact of research • Guide research leaders in investing scarce resources in areas of

great potential • To ensure demand orientation and learning for RBM

Methods: • All CRPs : Modelling (Global Futures and IMPACT model) • CCAFS: Focused on guiding change in decision-making • Fish and livestock: multi-scale approach, plausible development

pathways

To identify and facilitate changes,

and decision making in complex systems

Anticipation Appropriation Action

• Concentrating on the long-term • Revealing uncertainties • Help identifying challenges and

research topics and approaches with breakthrough potentials

• Anticipating development outcomes

• Communication between varied stakeholders

• Empowering smallholders

• Building consensus on a shared vision

• New research priorities and funding

• New policies • Risk management

Foresight is an attitude and a process


Thank you for

your attention
