Automating Horizon Scanning using Artificial intelligence (AI)

Stage in GSE Lifecyle

Primary stage : Define/Design

Early identification of emerging technologies and scientific breakthroughs can ensure that policymakers and other decision-makers are prepared to develop policy to foster the take-up of technologies. This early identification can allow organisations to allocate suitable resources to address future technological trends and requirements more efficiently.

However, there are a multitude of approaches that help spot these emerging technologies which tend to be resource intensive. Our team have started to examine the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to automatically identify emerging terminology in a variety of areas. NLP makes use of AI to process and produce useful information from substantial amounts of text data.

We have set-up a cross government interest group, which looks at projects inside and outside of government. Currently we are looking at data and methods for early identification of development in emerging technologies such as:

NLP has already helped us read large amounts of texts and flag key phrases for further investigation by our horizon scanners.

For more information on the interest group please contact us.

Monocular looking at city

An image of a monocular and a city on the horizon.

Team

Emerging Technology (EmTech)

Department(s)

Government Office for Science (GO-Science)

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)

Contact Details

Email : emtech@go-science.gov.uk

Description

GO-Science’s EmTech team seeks to improve Government’s understanding of the technologies of the future. At the intersection of science and policy, the team identifies technologies to support better, more forward-looking decision making at the centre and ensure cross-government EmTech analysis work is more consistent.