1. Second International Seville Seminar on Future-Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA): Impacts on policy and decision making 28th- 29th September 2006 Use of the Internet for Future Oriented Technology Analysis Telli van der Lei and Scott Cunningham Delft University of Technology

2. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis Introduction FTA processes include stakeholder identification and involvement We introduce Web mining as a potential method to accomplish this We present a Nanotechnology example We evaluate the web crawler on the quality criteria by Schomberg et Al. (2005) Discussion and ideas for further research

3. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis Stakeholder identification and involvement identification Need to know who the stakeholders are for policies and FTA processes involvement Lot of FTA process need a clear view of the stakeholders and/or expert opinion Need to know which stakeholders are affected by policy

4. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis Innovation networks identification hard: innovation literature / grey literature Need for tools to support creation of innovation networks involvement Communities on the Internet Need to enable existing coordination mechanisms

5. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis Web mining may identify stakeholder network Web crawlers

6. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis Functioning of crawler Nanotechnology example Parameters (1,2,2) – one iteration and two returns for forward and backward linkages.

7. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis Nanotechnology case study Web portals: nano.gov and nanoforum.org Nanotecnology has potential for the future as R&D expenditure is rising and scientific literature is increasing Nano.gov and nanoforum.org are initiatives of the US government and the European union. These websites are set up to be brokers of the nanotechnology community. Applied WebCrawler to find the nanotechnology network for parameters (4,4,4) Webcrawler is initiated at top two hits: nano.gov and zyvex.com

8. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis The nanotechnology network Nano.gov lies in the centre of the network Nanoforum.org lies in the periphery of the network Complete network

9. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis Network periphery Contains six distinct groups of related pages These groups are linked to each other only through the core The nanotechnology network

10. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis Quality of internet mining for FTA Fitness for purpose (Schomberg et al. 2005) Adequacy/applicability Relevance Adaptability/flexibility Transformation/encoding

11. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis Quality of internet mining for FTA Transparency (Schomberg et al. 2005) Models documentation Sources of information Arbitrariness – scientific set-ups

12. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis Quality of internet mining for FTA Legitimacy (Schomberg et al. 2005) Collegial consensus

13. Use of the internet for Future-Oriented Technology Analysis Conclusions Use of the internet for FTA Advantages - High ecological validity - Just in time analysis - Enablement of decision makers Disadvantages - Google bombing - Short shelf life of analysis - No theory in innovation networks and a lack of clear measurement of for example collaboration - Networks are multi dimensional