Future-Oriented Researches and Its Roles in STI Policy Making

For decades, in public and private organizations, systematic plans for the future are being conducted at sectoral, regional and national levels, and in various realms of science, technology, innovation, culture, environment, etc., and, of course, the context and vision of these programs have been focused on the field of science and technology. Futures research are now an approach to public policy and private decision making in the policies of science and technology, and in many cases respond to the strategic questions of science and society in a long-term perspective. In order to improve the relationship between research in the field of the futures and policy-making, it should be explored the possibility of linking this research with policy analysis through the typology of uncertainties in order to determine what kind of future research should be undertaken? This paper introduces four levels of uncertainty including Level 1, futurology (deterministic Future), Level 2, forecasting (probable futures), Level 3, foresight (plausible futures) and Level 4, futures studies (possible futures) In the following, their definitions and logic of how to allocate methods to each of them, are described. Also, by centering on the policy cycle as the basis of the policy process, the future-oriented functions of each stage are presented, as well as the examples of methods that can be used at each stage of the policy cycle. This paper tries to introduce future-oriented research into the policy STI policy.