The political landscape is in turmoil, the earth is reaching the limits of its resources: humanity today is confronted with significant change and unrest. What do decision-makers need most in this situation? And what skills do advisory bodies need to have in order to deal with uncertainty, crises and growing complexity?

These important questions havel been discussed at the conference of the Technology Assessment Network, which includes researchers and institutions from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The network is celebrating its 20th anniversary with this 11th edition of the NTA conferences.

ITA showed strong presence

At the occasion of this anniversary, the ITA contributes on various levels: Karen Kastenhofer, who is also a member of the conference's scientific advisory board, moderated a panel on the advisory needs of politics in times of polycrises. In her lecture, she analysed quality standards of scientific policy advice. Alexander Bogner moderated a panel on the topic of quality assurance in policy-advising technology assessment, in which ITA director Michael Nentwich also participated, alongside the heads of ITAS and TAB. Bogner held a lecture on quality assurance in policy advice.

Michael Nentwich and colleagues from Germany also organised a workshop on the use of generative AI in policy advice. Furthermore, Michael Ornetzeder from ITA talked about his experiences at the international level as a member of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC). Rafaela Cavalcanti de Alcântara, a doctoral student at ITA, presented results from the ongoing AutoWelf and Prodigees projects, André Gazsó reported on 17 years of NanoTrust and Mahshid Sotoudeh, Saskia Favreuille and Ulrike Bechtold talked about their policy advice experiences in the area of food redistribution. Finally, representatives of ITA moderated a total of six sessions and keynotes.

The meeting was organised by the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in cooperation with the ITA, the Fraunhofer ISI, the IQIB in Bad Neuenahr and TA-Swiss.