FNR Foresight

Publication of Foresight Final Report

The Foresight Final report is now available for download .

The Foresight report presents a detailed account of the results of the discussions and analysis conducted in the frame of the exercise. The report was formally discussed and approved by the Board of Administrators and the Scientific Council of the FNR and was presented to the Minister and the State Secretary of Culture, Higher Education, and Research on the 18th of June 2007.

Next steps:

The report will be presented in a publicly held conference in November.

The intentions of the Ministry of Culture, Higher Education, and Research is to use the FNR advice as a basis for its decisions on the funding for the future research directions and the governance of the research centres (through performance contracts etc). The Ministry will accompany the decision making process with consultation of various other Ministries.

Launch event and Stakeholder meeting

The FNR will hold the Launch Event presenting the results obtained during phase I of the Foresight exercise and to give details on the objectives and various steps of phase II on Monday 16th of October 2006, 16:00 at the Chamber of Commerce (room C2), 7 rue Alcide de Gaspéri, in Luxembourg-Kirchberg. Everyone is welcome to attend the event.
(The Report and the presentations of the event are now available in the Publications section of this site)

July Update

The 1st phase of the FNR Foresight is coming to an end and we are very pleased with the results and looking forward to the 2nd phase.

Thus, during the Exploratory Workshop on 19 May 2006, 120 Luxembourg researchers discussed various scenarios for the future orientation of Luxembourg research and FNR research programmes. The six following fields of research were identified as interesting for Luxembourg: ICT; Physical Sciences and Engineering; Life Sciences; Environmental Sciences; Economy, Law and Finance; and Social Sciences and Humanities.

Mai update

Since our last newsletter in March, a lot has been going on in the Foresight exercise!

The Young Researchers Workshops took place on 7th and 8th of March with around 100 young scientists from Luxembourg and abroad discussing future research priorities for Luxembourg. It was quite interesting to see that the response of the young researchers was in fact ambivalent: it was the first time that their opinion on research priorities was asked and although they seemed happy about this they also felt uncomfortable with this task. Additionally, a lot of constraints of the current Luxembourg research environment – going well beyond mere research priorities – were discussed. The general feeling was that a Foresight culture needs to be installed in Luxembourg to keep the dialogue ongoing between all the actors involved in research matters.

The Questionnaire is online

The FNR has now published the online questionnaire related to the Foresight exercise.
The general purpose of the questionnaire is to collect your ideas for future research axes in the public sector, identify objectives and targets of public sector research and assess support instruments to support the future research priorities.

Progress Report

Since the launch event on the 20th of January, the Foresight exercise has progressed as planned. We are still in the diagnosis phase collecting data to set the background.

More than 60 interviews have been conducted by the advisors of CM International in January and February with representatives from private and public research as well as representatives from the relevant ministries and the parliament. Discussion topics were the current situation of Luxembourg research as well as future orientations of public research.

FNR Young Researchers Workshops (7+8 March 2006)

What is it about?

In the framework of its FNR Foresight exercise, the National Research Fund Luxembourg (FNR) organises five Young Researchers Workshops on 7 and 8 March 2006 in the Chamber of Commerce in Luxembourg-Kirchberg. The objective of these workshops is to give voice to young researchers, to collect their views on research activities in Luxembourg and their expectations for the future.
Workshop participants will be split up into domain work groups but will also have the opportunity to discuss research activities with their colleagues from other disciplines.

FNR Foresight Launch Event (20 janvier 2006)

Le 20 janvier dernier, le Fonds national de la recherche (FNR) lançait officiellement son exercice de prospective « FNR Foresight » lors d’une séance d’information et d’échange dans les locaux de la Chambre de Commerce à Luxembourg-Kirchberg, en présence de nombreux chercheurs luxembourgeois et d’experts internationaux.