Abstract
As the scale of research and development (R&D) increases, countries and companies are consistently establishing R&D directions to meet strategic goals and market demands as well as roadmaps to increase efficiency through concentration and selection. However, establishing an effective roadmap and discovering promising technologies are challenging under the current numerous technological possibilities and uncertainties. The importance of discovering promising technologies to secure future technological competitiveness is recognized worldwide, and Europe, the United States, and Japan are establishing processes to identify promising future technologies and support related R&D. Methods for discovering promising future technologies can be classified into future social needs analysis, forecasting, surveys, use of expert opinions, and data analysis. We describe the types and limitations of technology roadmaps and investigate the status of domestic and foreign organizations using weak signal search through quantitative data analysis.