SLIS faculty member, Katy Börner gave an invited talk for the 3rd Annual iFQ Conference held in Bonn, Germany. The Conference theme was "Foresight - Between Science and Fiction." The Conference was held on December 11-12, 2008 at the Center of Advanced European Studies and Research (Caesar).
Börner's talk on the Places & Spaces: Mapping Science exhibit and related research was a part of Session III - "International trends in science policy and foresight strategies." The exhibit will be displayed at caesar from December 11-19, then will go to the Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance (also in Bonn) as a permanent archive.
Excerpts from the Conference Program:
• "Places & Spaces: Mapping Science is meant to inspire cross-disciplinary discussion on how to best track and communicate human activity and scientific progress on a global scale. It has two components: the physical part supports the close inspection of high quality reproductions of maps for display at conferences and education centers; the online counterpart (http://scimaps.org) provides links to a selected series of maps and their makers along with detailed explanations of how these maps work. The exhibit is a 10-year effort. Each year, 10 new maps are added resulting in 100 maps total in 2014."
• Foresight - Between Science and Fiction - iFQ Conference 2008
"Global warming, questions of national security, genetic engineering, medical innovations and efficient use of energy resources are today only the most apparent examples of how research systems around the world face the challenge of growing public and political concerns...
With the conference we would like to address this diversity of foresight activities by concentrating on the multitude of players and areas of application involved. Attention will focus on the question of how the complex set of relationships between players in the innovation process is interconnected and eventually yield innovation.
In the first part, we will discuss the process of innovation by borrowing from science fiction: Whether or not modern societies are ever able to arrive at the technological level of Star Trek Universe innovations and futures will nevertheless often have been inspired by visions and utopia...
Closing with a critical reflection on the prediction constructed by foresight and observed technological and social developments; we would like to contribute here by discussing how instruments of foresight should continue to be developed, how evaluations should be carried out, and how the process of innovation might best be fine tuned."
Posted December 11, 2008