Shaping Future - Adapting design know-how to reorient innovation towards public preferences

Public acceptance is vital to innovation. By synchronising long-term research trajectories with public preferences, we can ensure the viability of scientific and technological advances. This synchronisation requires a systematic method that can enable people both to think in terms of societal and technological co-evolution and to anticipate their future needs and wants. To this end, Shaping Future has developed an original participatory foresight methodology that is centred on design know-how and promotes innovative forms of preference articulation. This paper presents the approaches and findings that guided the project and its results, including the developed methodology. Implications for prospective research conclude.