Images of the Future, Participatory Foresight and Innovation Culture: Exploring the Potential of Communication via Social Networks to develop Open Innovation Ecosystems

Abstract

Innovation has increasingly become a crucial factor in the development of contemporary societies, to such an extent that Innovation has now come to be regarded as a key issue for the achievement of sustainable economic growth and resilient social welfare systems. Therefore, the phenomenon of Innovation has been extensively analysed during the past century; and analyses have been carried out from a wide range of approaches: Economics, Technical Studies, and Cultural Studies, amongst others. However, practically none of those works tried to deepen the link between Innovation and Foresight (especially with its more integrative approaches: Images of the Future and Participatory Foresight). The aim of this research is to contribute to theoretical development within the cross-disciplinary field of Foresight and Innovation through the analysis of the links existing between these two aspects and the proposal of new ways to approach their study (based on the use of social media communication tools). This doctoral dissertation comprises a total of 5 essays (2 articles, 2 book chapters and 1 paper at an international congress) plus 4 annexes (2 articles, 1 book chapter and 1 paper at a national congress). All these essays and annexes are the result of the work that the candidate carried out as a researcher of FUTURLAB – The Foresight Laboratory (University of Alicante), with the invaluable help of the researchers from the Finland Futures Research Centre (Finland).