Technology foresight for digital manufacturing: Russian case

The technological foresight plays a significant role in promotion of the emerging technologies. The paper investigates technological prospects of priorities implementation indicated in the 'Strategy for the Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation'. More precisely, we examine the advanced digital and intelligent production technologies deployment by applying foresight methods and new solutions such as an advanced text-mining. The main goal of the study is to define a range of the most promising technologies with respect to markets and products within the priority. We identified five large cross-cutting areas manifesting physical and digital convergence. These clusters include computer modelling and flexible manufacturing systems from the production side, and sensor technologies, virtual/augmented reality, the Internet of Things from the IT side. The revealed technological trends correspond to global patterns and unveil a range of sectoral applications. Product development technologies are confessed to be the core of digital manufacturing. During the analysis we uncovered 350 prospective products and services that should be exposed to further expert evaluation. Our results offer a new insight on science and technology policy-making by adjusting technology development across industries. A suggested framework allows expanding current boundaries of forecasting activities at the national level in order to boost Russian scientific performance.