New Approaches, Tools and Methods for Data Analysis

Scientific research includes studies that develop based on non-static, scientific and socioeconomic developments. These changes have added new fields of study in existing fields as well as creating new fields of science. Other things that are not static in scientific research are methods, approaches and data sources. Especially with the emergence of big data in the last two decades, this change has accelerated; revealed the modern and traditional approach in data analysis. Similar to these developments in science are also experienced in the Foresight field. Depending on socioeconomic changes, Foresight research has begun to expand the subject range and to adapt new methods and sources with technological developments. Following this process of change in Foresight, this research aims to evaluate academic research in the field of Foresight in the context of subject, method and data sources. It is also one of the aims of this research to reveal the regional distribution of Foresight studies by examining them on a country basis. A combination of several methods is used to achieve the purpose of the research, not a single one. Academic papers published by years and regions are examined to show the overall and regional distribution. Forecasting analysis is implemented to reveal the future prospect. To examine topics, methods and data sources, two different methods are adopted; network analysis based on connection of keywords and survey analysis. Network analysis includes current trends, and survey analysis includes expectations for the upcoming period. In order to point out possible future as result of network and survey analysis, scenarios are used. In scenario analysis, two different methods are applied, main and sub-scenarios. The main scenarios contain alternative futures for socioeconomic and scientific developments. Sub-scenarios, on the other hand, reveal the changes that will be experienced in Foresight according to both these developments and network and survey analysis.