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Innovation in horizon scanning for the social sector
Edited by Claudia Juech and Evan S. Michelson
1. Introduction
This paper presents the methodology and results of an exploratory scanning project, namely "Scan-4-Light". The project analyzed a set of newsletters produced by a network of forward-looking organizations known as the Searchlight function, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.
The Searchlight newsletters are a rapidly growing collection of articles on trends and topics in international development that are of importance to the Rockefeller Foundation's research partners in various regions of the world. The newsletters provide information and analysis through the lens of those working on the ground, and provide forward-looking perspectives on important topics and challenges.
The Manchester approach, Scan-4-Light, is one of four scanning approaches developed by a set of Rockefeller Foundation grantees who were commissioned to bring their own methodological approaches and analysis of the Searchlight newsletters. The study presented in this paper covers the methodology, process and findings of the Scan-4-Light analytical scanning approach. Scan-4-Light aimed at using an overview of contents of all the Searchlight newsletters and identifying key and common themes on socio-economic development and emerging developmental issues. In this respect, the present study is an effort to develop a holistic and cross-cutting view of the Searchlight newsletters.
The Scan-4-Light methodology involved a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques such as horizon scanning ([6] Miles and Saritas, 2012), network analysis ([10] Nugroho and Saritas, 2009), and evolutionary scenarios ([14] Saritas and Nugroho, 2012) combined with expert analysis to provide an interpretative and narrative depth. The internal analysis of the Searchlight newsletters against each other is complemented by an external analysis, comparing the newsletters against an external source of data, which is in this case the Millennium Project's "State of the Future" study. The scanning work indicates the countries, developmental issues and keywords that appear with the greatest frequency.
The study is conducted at the global, continental, international, national, thematic and case levels. This method of analysis allows exploring the way specific issues are discussed in various countries and regions by revealing interesting trends and raising challenging questions. The use of the methodology is demonstrated with cases, which is intended to illustrate the potential of this approach. In depth analysis of specific themes like...