The German Foresight Study '98 on the global development of science and technology

The German Foresight Study on the global development of science and technology was published in 1998 by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) on behalf of the Federal German Ministry for Education, Research, Science and Technology (BMBF). The study makes use of the Delphi method with a time horizon of 30 years, and is conducted once more in cooperation with the Japanese National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP). 30% of the topics are comparable. Not only emerging technologies, but also 19 megatrends were asked for. The Delphi process is organized with a steering group and expert panels for the preparation of topics, a two-round Delphi with feedback and an implementation phase with workshops. The Delphi process described in this paper is still going on.