Profile and Trends of FTA and Foresight

This chapter presents the profile and trends of the academic discipline of Future-oriented Technology Assessment (FTA) and its approaches. This chapter presents the profile and trends of the academic discipline of FTA and its approaches. This is achieved through analyses of the development, focus and scientific impact of FTA. As such, this chapter contributes to the discussion on the conceptual development and academic positioning of FTA (or Foresight). The chapter is based on bibliometric analyses of the special issues of five international journals published after the FTA conferences in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2011: Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Futures, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, Science and Public Policy, and Foresight. Methodologically, the paper draws on the principles of Elsevier’s Scopus and Thompson Reuter’s Web of Science. The chapter concludes that the field of FTA seems to have remained remarkably stable over the last decade. As an academic field, FTA has targeted a small number of journals for its publications, which has helped to further define and focus the field. Finally, the chapter concludes that publications in special issues of international journals resulting from the FTA conferences have a similar level of quality and scientific impact as articles published in standard issues of these journals