Piloting an interactive horizon scanning of the forest bioeconomy in Finland: Collected signals of change and participants' experiences

Data from: Mauno, T., Pelli, P., Bengston, D.N., Pykäläinen, J. & Hujala, T. 2025. Interactive Horizon Scanning of the Forest Bioeconomy with a Nested Business Environment Framework. Futures & Foresight Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/ffo2.70015 This study piloted interactive horizon scanning to test how future signals information can be collected and processed in collaboration with forest bioeconomy stakeholders. In interaction with a diverse group of Finnish forest bioeconomy stakeholders (n=10), this exploratory, one-time horizon scanning exercise collected and interpreted signals of change that may have an impact on the forest bioeconomy. This horizon scanning campaign followed the typical steps of the scanning process: The process first included pre-scanning (with a research group consisting of 7 researchers), recruiting and training a team of scanners, followed by scanning and collecting signals of change online. An onsite signal interpretation workshop was then held, followed by a follow-up survey on participation and the analysis of the collected data. Padlet (Padlet.com) was used as the database for this horizon scanning exercise. The online horizon scanning of this study lasted nine weeks from January 2024 to March 2024 (Jan 8, 2024 – Mar 13, 2024). During that time, participants had the opportunity to save their own scanning hits and comment on and like each other's posts. During nine weeks, a total of 10 horizon scanners participated in Padlet's activities: 42 scanning hits were saved, 29 comments were identified, and 47 likes (reactions) were given to the scanning hits. After the online horizon scanning, an onsite signal interpretation workshop was organized for participants, which was followed by a follow-up survey on participation. This dataset includes: (i) Collected signals of change (including pre-scanning data) (ii) anonymized expertise matrix (participating stakeholders), and (iii) anonymized follow-up survey data (participants' experiences of the pilot interactive horizon scan). Analyzed data from the workshop are available from the article’s supplementary material. For more information, please contact the corresponding author (data controller): Tuomas Mauno (University of Eastern Finland), [e-mail]