As part of the consortium led by the Austrian Institute of Technology, IFI supports the European Commission by providing “foresight on demand” services in science, technology, research and innovation policy.
DG Research and Innovation has set-up a “Foresight-On-Demand” (FOD) mechanism to respond to the demand for quick inputs to policy-making, drawn on the best available foresight knowledge. FOD is aimed at offering Commission services with timely and effective support related to crisis situations, emerging risks, and policy challenges. The FOD services will include scanning and synthesis of foresight literature and data sources including horizon scanning, rapid foresight data collection and analysis, scenario building, and combinations of the above. Within this framework, IFI is providing foresight support among others to the Mission Boards, European Environmental Agency and the Commission Scientific Advisory Mechanism and SAPEA.
Gonzalo Figuera Díez-Picazo, SM in Technology and Policy (MIT), Engineer École Centrale Paris, Industrial Engineer UPM (Madrid), is an experienced business leader, consultant and entrepreneur, specialized in innovation-based organizations and digital transformation.
David Cano holds MSc in Mechanical Engineering, post graduate studies in Management of Innovation and Technology Policy and Executive MBA program at IESE. He David has an extensive experience in management, development and operation of the innovation process primarily on industrial, ICT and healthcare sectors. Trained in general management and innovation in international centres of excellence, highlights his experience identifying business opportunities, feasibility analysis, fundraising both national and European level and its later product/service commercialization. Passionate about teaching, participates in various related innovation management and entrepreneurship program with a clear market orientation what motivates him to establish his own star-up company in the medical sector.
Ray Garcia is the managing director of Buoyant Capital, a global peer advisory think-tank addressing the growth challenges of small to medium sized enterprises. The firm coordinates its team of experts to help its clients improve competitiveness through talent management, global market expansion partnership access, technology asset management, capital investment and restructuring. Buoyant Capital was founded in 2000 in New York City and has helped launch several start-up companies and works as an advisor to company founders, CEO’s, and their investors. Ray has over 20 years of experience as a technology entrepreneur, as company CTO co-founder, for four venture-backed companies. Since 2015 he is serving as a business expert to EU Commission Horizon 2020 SME innovation instrument where he is evaluating commercialization grant proposals of technology ventures and coaching company executives who have received grant funding.
Mr Jari Kaivo-oja is an expert in the field of foresight and innovation management. He is Research Director at Finland Futures Research Centre, at TSE of University of Turku. He is adjunct professor at the University of Helsinki (Faculty of Science) and at the University of Lapland (Faculty of Social Sciences). He has worked in various foresight research projects for the European Commission (FP 6, FP 7, and Horizon 2020), European Parliament, European Foundation, Nordic Innovation Centre, Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation and the Academy of Finland. He is respected research fellow in European science forums, being among other things, Skłodowska-Curie science program´s evaluator in 2016 and evaluator of various EU research programmes.
