Science Foresight Project Databases

Two databases are available to search:

1. Highly co-cited papers

   Using ISI'sŪ 1999 Research Fronts database, 481 highly co-cited papers in unique ISIŪ research fronts were objectively selected using the methodology given in the Final Report - Annex A: Method for selecting highly co-cited papers.

   One author from each paper was contacted and invited to participate in the Science Foresight Project. In addition, he/she was asked to help us contact co-authors of the paper so they could be invited to participate in the project too. An Internet and web-based questionnaire, that took less than one-person year to develop and administer, was used to collect the predictions.

   With the permission of ISI (Dr. H. Small, letter of Jan 29, 2002), the bibliographic details of the highly co-cited papers used in this project can be listed or search by author name, journal name, title and cluster name. Note that while only the first author's name is given in the listing any author's name listed on the paper can be used in the search.

2. Predictions

   Authors from the highly co-cited papers were asked to provide two short term and one long term prediction. A short term prediction is one that could emerge within the next five years (2001 - 2006) and a long term prediction is one that might emerge within five to ten years (2006 - 2011).

   Authors from 114 papers (23.7%) responded, identifying a total of 190 short-term and 111 long-term predicted emerging developments.

   A simple process was used to report the predictions in the final report. Short excerpts from each prediction were used as the summary, and each prediction was classified into one of ten emerging development categories:

   Atomic & Stellar Matter	Theoretical and experimental advances that lead to a deeper understanding of the structure, behaviour and dynamics of atomic and stellar matter.
   Biology & Biosphere	Theoretical and experimental advances that lead to a deeper understanding of the structure, behaviour and dynamics of biological, ecological and environmental systems.
   Biomedical & Clinical	Theoretical and experimental advances that lead to advances in medicine and medical devices.
   Chemical & Materials	Theoretical and experimental advances that lead to a deeper understanding of the structure, behaviour, dynamics and synthesis of chemicals and materials.
   Computers & Robotics	Theoretical and experimental advances that lead to novel robotic and computing devices, systems and networks excluding devices, systems and networks built on optical and quantum principles.
   Genomics & Proteomics	Theoretical and experimental advances derived from the investigation of gene expression and protein genomics.
   Mathematical & Computational	Advances in such things as modelling and numerical analysis through the development of mathematical and computational methods.
   Molecular Matter	Theoretical and experimental advances that lead to a deeper understanding of the structure, behaviour and dynamics of molecular matter.
   Nano Science & Technology	Theoretical and experimental advances that lead to a deeper understanding of the construction, use and control of nano-scale devices.
   Optical & Quantum	Theoretical and experimental advances that lead to the construction and control of devices and systems based on optical and quantum processes e.g. optical and quantum computers.

   The short and long term predictions can be explored by emerging development category and the original detailed predictions can be searched for phrases. The output from each search gives the identification numbers (ID) of the expert who made the predictions, the summaries of each prediction and the original details of each prediction. Only the prediction summaries are provided in the final report.