TECHNOLOGY-FORECASTING IN JAPAN

Japan has been one of the major countries which has carried out compre hensive technological forecasting exercises at various levels. Systema tic future-oriented thinking helps the government, industry associatio ns and firms to initiate technology development efforts in a coherent way. Governmental action is currently aimed at information exchange be tween research institutions and industry associations through autonomo us networks in the identified areas, for rapid diffusion of innovation s in high a technology. The Japanese are planning to sustain their tec hnological superiority in photonics, nanotechnology, lasers, robots an d fuzzy logic.