Development of the information system for the foresight process support

The information system for the foresight process support is developed, that includes a number of new approaches, models and methods of solving foresight problems regarding the identification of promising directions of development. Methods of aggregating heterogeneous information using situational theory and semantic networks are created; a technique for studying the defined fields of industry and enterprises, on-line oriented questionnaires, recommendations for assembling expert groups that meet formal requirements, are developed. Approaches based on the general system theory and artificial intelligence for creating automated tools of the foresight process support in on-line mode are suggested for the first time. They allow to reduce the financial and time expenses for conducting expertise and open new possibilities for the Information platform of scenario analysis. Combining frames and semantic networks has the advantages of describing objects, processes, situations and scenarios in a network with temporal and spatial dimensions and presenting them in a form of an integral structure – frame.

An approach to modeling the future scenarios based on situational calculus is created, as well as a technique and software for building and studying morphological models of objects, processes and phenomena. This allows to consider a multitude of different object variations simultaneously and to present a complex object in an intuitive, convenient way. The developed mathematical and methodological support of morphological analysis method allows to create a model of the object in research, based on its structure; to analyze the probabilities of its various configurations or individual characteristics, considering its structure; to observe the object’s behavior when locking one or more of its characteristics; to rank the elements of strategies within a multitude of possible realizations of the object in research; to assess the risks for the object, presented by a morphological table.

Practical achievements include the creation of the information platform for scenario analysis as a basic tool set of the foresight process; a knowledge base with accumulated trends, descriptions and scenarios of development for the prominent local and global technologies and their interdependencies with the social, economic and ecological factors in the framework of integral indices of the sustainable development theory; the methodology and software for a Foresight centre and the strategy of its support.

The implementation of the developed information system for the foresight process support allows to construct, comprehensively analyze and support the development scenarios on the scale of fields and regions, large enterprises and cities, the state in whole in the framework of sustainable development.

The created tool set was used to develop the informational-analytic instruments for the research service as a part of an integrated informational-analytic system “Electronic Parliament” that provide analytic support for the legislative process of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.