Emering generic technologies seen set to make a revahtionary impact on the economy and society. However, success in developing such technologies depends uon advances in science. Confrnted with increasing global economic competition, policy-makers and scientists are grappling with the problem of how to select themost promising research areas and emerging technologies on which to target resources and, hence, derwe the greatest benefits. This bapaer analyzes the experiences of Japan, the US, the Netherlands, Gennany, Australia, New Zealarul and the UK in using foresight to help in selecting and exploiting research that is likely to yeld longer-term economic and severl bendfits. It puts forward a model of the foresight process for identifing research areas and technoloies of strategic importance, and also analyzes why some foresight exercises have proved more successful than other. It concludes by drawing an analogy between models of innovation and foresight.