Abstract
Identifying a need to systematically monitor emerging technologies and identify socio-technical disruptions, the Systems Analysis Studies Research Task Group 123 (SAS-123) was created. During its three-year mandate (subsequently extended by one year), the study attracted steady participation from nine NATO Nations, Allied Command Transformation, Sweden and, in a first for the STO, Singapore. The Task Group had two main objectives:
• Develop criteria to evaluate and analyze the simultaneous interactions between two variables, namely, scenarios of the future and Socio-Technical Systems (STS); and
• Assess the ability of these interacting variables to cause disruptions within the defence and security sectors.
In response to these objectives, the SAS-123 team developed the method entitled “Futures Assessed alongside socio-Technical Evolutions (FATE)”.
This Final Report encapsulates the FATE Method and provides a companion ‘Facilitators Guide’ to assist in the employment of the method. It provides an introduction to the background and development of the FATE Method in accordance with the Program of Work approved by the Systems Analysis and Studies Panel.
The Task Group conducted a Literature Search in order to prepare a theoretical foundation for the assessment of STS against scenarios of the future. Very little was found within current research that simultaneously considered these two interacting variables although there are a wide range of methods, usually associated with foresight studies, that do individually consider each variable. These searches are presented graphically in Chapter 2. After considering the many existing methods, the Task Group settled on the theoretical foundation of the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) most recently described by Frank W. Geels.
The MLP can best be understood as a nest hierarchy, which views technological transitions as non-linear processes that result from the interplay of developments at three socio-technical analytical levels:
• Niches – the locus for radical innovations;
• Regimes – the locus of established practices and associated rules that stabilize existing systems; and
• Landscape – an exogenous socio-technical system within which niches and regimes interact.
This hierarchy has within current literature been used to retrospectively describe how technologies have transitioned from niches to become dominant across landscapes facilitated by changes within the existing regimes. The FATE Method provides a mechanism to prospectively explore these technological transitions.
Within FATE, technologies and/or socio-economic issues are examined as part of an STS in terms of both what is known today and as an extrapolation into the future. The use of a scenario agnostic Baseline STS provides an understanding of how the technology, and the system within which it resides, appears today. The Baseline STS is then analyzed in the context of possible futures producing Futuristic STS. This future visualization of the STS enables an understanding of how the STS might evolve given the many social factors that might have a bearing on the adoption of a technology in the future. The insights that are derived from the exploration of this Futuristic STS, in the form of drivers and resistors, are then assessed for possible impacts on Defence and Security.
This FATE Method was developed iteratively through presentation at a number of academic events and the conduct of trials in several defence settings. The method provides a tool to assess the inevitable uncertainty regarding likely social changes that influence the development and uptake of technologies in an emerging complex future. It could allow defence and security organizations to make better informed decisions about longer-term plans and strategies that will have to be, to the extent possible, future-proofed.