Assessing and Improving the Coverage of a Strategic Research Agenda: A Design Theory Approach

Abstract : Strategic Research Agendas (SRA) bring to the research community a prospective and collective vision of a sector and are intended to provide directions for future research efforts. However, some promising innovative areas are not always foreseen in those documents, which raises the question of the relevance and adequacy of their coverage. While engineering design is often considered to translate SRA guidelines into product development, we believe it can also be of great help regarding the design of an SRA. In this paper, we will first address how to assess the scope of an SRA through a framework based on C-K theory, before exploring how to extend it, if need be. To answer those questions, we will examine a high-quality roadmap: the Electronic Components and Systems Strategic Research Agenda (ECS SRA). Our resulting method will provide us the means to assess SRA coverage and to ensure that interesting research areas are not forgotten unintentionally, in order to allow to a further enrichment of the document if needed.