Are you a newcomer to horizon scanning? A few decision points and methodological reflections on the process

In this short methodological paper, we introduce four issues regarding the process of a horizon scanning exercise. During our horizon scanning project about the future of higher education, we met with several methodological challenges that influenced the data gathering and analysis of our research. The four issues were as follows: (1) finding the right template of data gathering, (2) identifying the right focus of our exercise, (3) the effect of the chosen target group on the process, and (4) the issue of blind spots of the analyzed discourse. By making our research dilemmas and our answers transparent, we would like to highlight how these issues and our decisions shaped the process and the output. In this manner, we demonstrate the iterative aspect of data-gathering and analysis phases in horizon scanning processes. By discussing these four challenges, we also attempt to emphasize that methodological decisions mutually affect each other and in turn the process itself. Furthermore, this way we could provide methodological insights for researchers who encounter similar decision points during their horizon scanning.