The UPRIS foresight exercise built upon the Regional Innovation Strategy (RIS) of the Lower Silesia region in Poland. The foresight complemented RIS with a broader based and longer-term know-how for sustainable regional development. It was a participative process involving panels of experts and regional stakeholders, which were to discuss future challenges facing Lower Silesia and possible options for meeting them. The panels elaborated normative scenarios, which served as a basis for developing an action plan for RIS and a plan for trans-regional cooperation. In this way, a cornerstone was laid down for sound, well informed and future-oriented policy-making in Lower Silesia.