Analysis Of Foreign Experience In Formation And Development Of Territorial Government Foresight Researches

The article is reviewing the experience of foreign countries, mostly highly developed ones, in carrying out foresight researches. The emphasis is placed on the studies considering the issues of territorial governance at different levels: national and regional. As the foreign researches reveal, the foresight methods have proven to be effective tools for prioritizing, originally in science and technology, and subsequently, in a wider range of socioeconomic development issues particularly in regions. Today foresight is increasingly used as a system tool for the future forming that takes into account possible changes in all spheres of social activity: science and technology, economy and territorial government of various levels, education, defense and others. Today there are sufficient fundamental foreign researches and materials which allow to assess and summarize the experience of foresight application for territorial government. The analysis of foreign experience reveals particular current trends and some sets of methods which are inherent and distinguish not only certain countries, but also continents. The article analyzes foresight elaboration trends in some highly developed countries. And first of all, of course, we are talking about European expertise because Ukraine has chosen the way of European integration. Europe has one of the richest foresight research database in the world. The European Commission has supported foresight activities in governing (management, monitoring activity), publishing of reference books, holding of conferences, etc. This helps to carry out and successfully implement various projects on Pan-European, country or regional levels. So, it can give great opportunity for regional foresight studies in the process of decentralization in Ukraine. In the article we examine and analize some territorial foresight experience in such countries as France, Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Finland, the US and Russia.