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A growing number of people are now entering the ‘elderly’ age category in Japan; this raises the likelihood of more persons with dementia, as the probability of becoming cognitively impaired increases with age. There is an increasing need for caregivers who are well trained and experienced and who can pay special attention to the needs of people with dementia. Technology can play an important role in helping such people and their caregivers. A lack of mutual understanding between caregivers and researchers regarding the appropriate uses of assistive technologies is another problem. We have described the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT), especially assistive technologies, and social issues as a first step towards developing a technology roadmap.

Technology roadmapping has become an important foresight tool for science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy and technology strategy development. There are, however, challenges in translating evidence from foresight into the strategies of STI agencies and the planning of research & technology development (RTD) organizations. While the foresight evaluation literature identifies methodological issues related to evidence granularity, scope, and stakeholder confidence, there is limited guidance on how to ensure roadmapping outputs are strategically relevant, appropriately detailed, and credible. This paper highlights the potential of using structured visual roadmapping frameworks to anticipate potential strategic foresight evidence failures and using the adaptive and iterative nature of roadmapping processes to address them. In this paper, we distinguish between: the roadmapping framework ‘canvas’; the foresight evidence captured on the canvas; the process of generating the evidence; and any final strategic plan developed using that evidence (with goals, milestones, actions, etc). We investigate efforts to use the roadmapping canvas as a research tool and diagnostic to explore emerging technology trajectories and innovation ‘pathways’. We demonstrate that key patterns of evidence distribution on the roadmapping canvas have the potential to reveal where further evidence may need to be gathered, or where further triangulation of stakeholder perspectives may be required. We argue that by adaptively addressing these patterns at key stages within the roadmapping process (and appropriately re-scoping, re-prioritizing, and re-focusing foresight effort and resources), the granularity, coverage, and consensus of the roadmapping evidence can be greatly enhanced. We conclude the paper by summarizing a set of novel principles for adaptive agile roadmapping, reflecting on the implications for foresight more generally, and outlining a future research agenda to test and refine this approach to agile foresight.

Two decades ago the thirtieth-anniversary special issue of Technological Forecasting and Social Change correctly anticipated the widespread adoption of technology and strategic roadmapping at firm, sectoral and national levels. In this article, we explore the evolution of roadmapping studies since that time. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach (i.e. topic modelling, genealogical analysis, content analysis and interviews), we reveal the development of seven distinctive ‘schools of thought’: the Cambridge practical school, the Seoul school, the Portland and Bangkok schools, the Cambridge phenomenological school, the Beijing school and the Moscow school. We show that the schools differ in terms of (a) the research orientation, whether it be solution- or theory-oriented; (b) the research methods and data sources being used; and (c) the nature of contributions that each school seeks to achieve. The different areas of emphasis associated with each school are not competing but complementary, and together they develop the eclectic body of knowledge on roadmapping.

Technology roadmapping has an established and proven track record for helping organizations with their strategy, long-term planning, innovation and foresight activities. Technology Forecasting & Social Change has played a leading role in disseminating research on roadmapping and, so, for its 50th anniversary issue, this paper provides a historical account of the emergence of roadmapping from the practices developed and deployed by technological-based organizations. Motorola, BP, Philips, EIRMA, Lucent Technologies and the Semiconductor Industry Association have all made significant contributions leading to the modern form that embodies a temporal, multi-layered, systems-based approach underpinned by the ‘market-product-technology’ structure (i.e. why-what-how). However, the industrial roots of technology roadmapping can be traced back to an earlier period, which is, as of yet, unacknowledged in the technology and innovation management literature. There is the overlooked or, perhaps, forgotten history where organizations such as NASA, Boeing, GE, Lockheed, USAF, Rockwell International and the U.S. Department of Energy initiated and advanced the practice of roadmapping – through this publication, their contributions will now be given the credit they so rightfully deserve.

Radically innovative products and services are frequently developed and commercialized by new ventures. In this context, entrepreneurs may face the challenge of coordinating a complex network of actors in the presence of individual and collective uncertainties. Previous literature on entrepreneurship has focused on how entrepreneurs manage individual uncertainties (those that affect a single firm) rather than collective uncertainties that also affect members of the innovation ecosystem, which in turn may fundamentally affect the survival and growth of new ventures. Drawing on five longitudinal, inductive, in-depth case studies of start-ups and their innovation ecosystems, we find that current approaches for coping with individual uncertainties do not consider the impacts of uncertainties and actions on the innovation ecosystem partners. In that sense, entrepreneurs themselves may contribute to the propagation of uncertainties in the innovation ecosystem. We also identify processes by which entrepreneurs manage collective uncertainties in the innovation ecosystem, i.e., perceiving collective uncertainties, bridging uncertainties, conducting collective learning experiments and building a common template. This study improves understanding of how entrepreneurs act in uncertain environments.

When roadmapping is being introduced into an organisation, there are a number of ‘reference’ processes which can be consulted to help ease the barriers to implementation. However, it is critical to recognise that such reference processes offer a baseline design and careful consideration should be given to how they could be adopted for use within a specific organisational setting. Through a research engagement with the LEGO Group, this paper captures and reports on the process journey (including the problems faced by the users and lessons learned) in customising a reference process and the deployment of the adapted approach.

In technology-intensive sectors, strategic planning requires relevant and timely information about new/emerging technologies – this is a critical input. Therefore, technology intelligence activities should be directed to capture and deliver pertinent technological information. However, there is a distinct lack of tools for helping organizations to determine what constitutes useful/appropriate information for their needs. To address this issue, an ‘information needs’ template has been developed to support the process of eliciting and articulating meaningful search queries to guide those who will conduct and provide the necessary intelligence. The use of the template also acts as a means of priming the technology intelligence as it identifies and points to potentially useful sources of knowledge. It covers the spectrum of sources from leveraging internal information, through spanning organizational boundaries to access external sources across the specific industry and neighboring industries, to more distant fields of knowledge. Additionally, the template has sections for distinguishing ‘who to watch’ versus ‘who to talk to’. The deployment of the template can be integrated with roadmapping, using the roadmap landscape to feed hotspots/themes/gaps/white spaces into the template, which are then unpacked to determine the information needs of the organization.

This paper describes the conditions that influence technology acquisition through collaboration. From the analysis of semi-structured interviews and 11 case studies, we developed a technology acquisition framework that stresses the supplier involvement in the process and the factors that influence the outcomes. On the basis of this framework, we provide practical insights for suppliers to support their customers in order to raise the probability of success in collaborative projects. Our results suggest that effective acquisition of technology by means of collaboration is achieved by the combination of three conditions: effective partnership management, effective execution of the co-development project and effective transference of the technology to the recipient system in the acquiring firm.