Foresight as a Tool of Public Administration in the Field of Science, Technology and Innovation

Given the growing role of technological foresight as a tool for reconciling visions, goals and ways of STI development in an era of rapid technological change and global challenges, the approach to foresight research to select priorities for science and innovation in Ukraine for 2022–2026 has been improved. It takes into account a wide range of national targets for achieving SDGs by 2030. The developed Methodological recommendations provided a thorough analysis of more than 3,000 potentially acceptable technological and innovative proposals. The approach to setting STI priorities is new for Ukraine and involves a consistent process of selecting the top 30 most acceptable proposals in each of the seven thematic areas through five stages of discussions and evaluations. The result was the formation of a database of technology passports and developments on the experts’ proposals, their selection by practitioners, ranking, evaluation in terms of the potential of Ukrainian science and relevance in terms of world science and new technologies using international databases. They are the basis for decisions by the Expert Councils and the High-Level Working Group on key thematic areas and the preparation of a relevant draft government decision. Despite the conditions of quarantine, for the first time more than 2,500 experts from science, business, state and public organizations took part in the discussions, which is the basis for impartial and public decision-making. To strengthen the role of foresight as a tool for public planning and management in the field of STI, it is proposed to develop a STI roadmap as part of a research and innovation strategy for smart specialization (RIS 3) at the national level.