This paper outlines new perspectives for data‐supported foresight by combining participatory expert‐based futures dialogues with the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in what we call the hybrid AI‐expert‐based foresight approach. To this end, we present a framework of five typical steps in a fully fledged foresight process ranging from scoping to strategizing and show how AI can be integrated into each of the steps to enable the hybrid AI‐expert foresight approach. Building on this, we present experiences gained from two recent research projects of TNO and Fraunhofer ISI that deal with aspects of the hybrid AI‐expert foresight approach and give insights into the opportunities and challenges of the new perspectives for data‐supported foresight that this approach enables. Finally, we summarize open questions and challenges for future research.

The successful and fast development and deployment of renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction technologies is a continuing and structural challenge. The deployment of these technologies is slowed down and sometimes even stalled due to societal challenges like public resistance, lack of appropriate policy and regulations, unsolid business cases and uncertainty concerning the impact on the environment. In this paper we elaborate on societal aspects that influence technology development and deployment and introduce the societal embeddedness level (SEL) framework. Building upon the technology readiness level (TRL), the SEL framework enables the assessment of the current level of societal embeddedness of energy technologies in order to identify the societal aspects which need to be taken into account to accelerate deployment of energy technologies. The SEL framework takes into account four societal dimensions (impact on the environment, stakeholder involvement, policy and regulations, and market and financial resources) and four stages of technology development (exploration, development, demonstration and deployment) that are linked to the TRL. The SEL framework has been elaborated for CCS technologies and is being applied to the monitoring of geological CO₂ storage by the ACT II project DigiMon (Digital Monitoring of CO₂ storage projects). DigiMon is an ACT second call project, funded by the national funding agencies in the period September 2019–August 2022.

Although studies on ethnicity-of-interviewer effects demonstrate that the interviewer’s ethnic background influences respondents’ answers, they often do not take the multifaceted nature and context-dependency of ethnic identifications into account. We aim to contribute to the literature in two respects. First, we discern two aspects of ethnic identification—defining oneself as being ethnic and expressing feelings of belonging to ethnic groups—of which the latter is expected to be more sensitive to interviewer effects. Second, we compare three, instead of two, interview situations—being interviewed by (a) a majority member, (b) a co-ethnic, and (c) a non-co-ethnic minority member—as to empirically scrutinize the scope of interviewer effects while disentangling whether they are cross-ethnically accommodating (respondents stress their similarities with the non-co-ethnic interviewer) or ethnically affirming (respondents emphasize their own ethnic identity). Our hypotheses are tested on a sample of 225 Surinamese, Turkish, and Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands. As expected, no interviewer effects occur regarding being ethnic. Regarding feeling ethnic, however, respondents’ identifications in the interviewer situation with a majority member vis-à-vis those in both other situations reveal an accommodating interviewer effect.

Firm survival or reproduction does not occur as a matter of course. Especially under circumstances in which uncertainty and equivocality prevail is firm reproduction potentially problematic. Uncertainty prevails when there is insufficient or inadequate information to assess a situation, equivocality when the information available is multiinterpretable. Firm routines, social networks in a firm, and an organization’s identity can explain how a firm reproduces. We offer suggestions as to which of these will contribute to firm reproduction under what circumstances.