This interactive panel on technology assessment (TA) and governance explores best practices worldwide. TA seeks to balance the risks and opportunities of science, technology, and innovation (STI) while safeguarding public values and addressing ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI). However, effective TA also requires a deeper understanding of STI governance. Do adequate institutions exist, do these perform sufficiently, or do they need reform? This panel starts from the assumption that Global TA should expand to include STI governance assessment. The Rathenau Instituut introduces a multi-level governance ecosystem as a way to construct such assessments. This ecosystem encompasses four key domains: science and technology, politics and administration, laws and regulations, and civil society. Through interactive interviews, a panel of experts from Africa (John Ouma-Mugabe), Asia (Ceren Yavuz) and Australia (Peta Ashworth) and the audience will explore the importance of expanding TA to encompass TA and governance, comparing regional approaches, concrete case studies and lessons learned while emphasizing the multi-level nature of STI governance.  

Convenors and their affiliations:

Romy Dekker (Rathenau Instituut), Vincent Lagendijk (Rathenau Instituut) & Rinie van Est (Rathenau Instituut)
With contributions from: John Ouma-Mugabe, Peta Ashworth, and Ceren Yavuz, Karen Howard

The global research ethics process faces challenges due to new technologies, a lack of expertise among ethics reviewers, and the internationalization of research, which raises concerns about unethical practices across jurisdictions. There is also a lack of standardization, complicating the consistent application of ethical guidelines. National and EU policies aim to ensure the highest ethical standards to maintain public trust in scientific research. The Horizon Europe project irecs addresses these challenges by advancing ethics expertise, particularly in emerging technologies like AI in healthcare, extended reality, genome editing, and biobanking. While focusing on Europe, the project takes a global approach to address cross-border impacts. A key session in the project explores challenges faced by researchers and ethics reviewers inside and outside Europe, promoting interdisciplinary dialogue and sharing best practices to tackle issues in research ethics and technology assessment.

Convenors and their affiliations:

Maria Maia (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (KIT-ITAS)

Description:

The research ethics process faces global challenges. Emerging technologies introduce complexities that ethics reviewers may struggle to assess due to a lack of expertise. Increased international research raises concerns about unethical practices being exported across jurisdictions. A lack of standardisation further complicates ethical oversight. Ensuring compliance with high ethical standards is a key aim of national and EU research policies. While research can drive innovation, it also carries risks, making rigorous ethical conduct essential for public trust. irecs tackles these issues by examining global research ethics requirements for new technologies, developing training materials, implementing ongoing training programs, and proposing amendments to the European research ethics process. With a unique combination of expertise, global partners, and European ethics networks, irecs will create sustainable, multi-language training programs. This presentation provides an overview of irecs and its role in strengthening research ethics for emerging technologies.

Authors and their affiliations:

Maria Maia (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis - KIT-ITAS) and Claudia Brändle (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis - KIT-ITAS)

Main Speaker: Maria Maia (Bio)

Description:

We present a training module in AI ethics that we designed for members of Institutional Review Boards (IRB) and Research Ethics Committee (REC) to help them operationalize and assess the complex ethical challenges posed by AI applications in healthcare. Training materials include a checklist organized into eight sections, a brief glossary, and three case studies on AI in healthcare that allow trainees to identify and prioritize ethical issues in practice. We have developed this framework in   the Horizon Europe irecs project and applied it in several training sessions with RECs in France and South Africa, showing its effectiveness in raising competence levels of ethics reviewers in AI ethics.

Authors and their affiliations:

Etienne Aucouturier (CEA), Alexei Grinbaum (CEA)

Main Speaker: Etienne Aucouturier (Bio)

Additional Speaker: Alexei Grinbaum (Bio)

Description:

Research ethics committees play a vital role in addressing ethical concerns surrounding emerging technologies. Predominantly academic, they assess research projects’ ethical dimensions. Ethics review processes are not confined to Western societies but are utilized globally. However, rapid technological advancements and uncertainties in their societal impact pose challenges, particularly due to knowledge gaps in this field. The Horizon Europe project “irecs” tackles this by developing accessible training materials for researchers, ethicists, and reviewers, extending its scope beyond Europe to examine global ethics review frameworks. Key project activities included literature reviews, a survey, and insights from Chinese and African partners. This paper focuses on qualitative research via expert interviews based outside the EU. We aim to understand the availability of guidance documents for ethics reviews, the existence of cultural differences in ethical perspectives, and the capacity-building needs of ethics review bodies. Special attention is given to AI in healthcare, extended reality, genome editing, and biobanking. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of non-European ethics review challenges.

Authors and their affiliations:

Claudia Brändle (Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis - ITAS, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology - KIT), Maria Maia (Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis - ITAS, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology  -KIT)

Main Speaker: Claudia Brändle

Description:

The Horizon Europe project irecs has launched a significant initiative to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing within the research ethics community: the irecs Research Ethics Cluster, which brings together representatives from irecs and other relevant projects and networks to discuss findings, share experiences, and collectively address ethical challenges in research. This platform for dialogue and exchange offers an opportunity to learn from each other, to test and revise project results and outputs throughout all their stages, and hence to contribute to the sustainability of the participating projects. This cooperation provides a solid base for synergies that can be maintained after the end of the projects and creates a broader group of stakeholders focusing on research ethics that could exceed the lifetime of the projects. The international perspective of irecs is enhanced via the involvement of international partners and the production of outputs applicable to European and non-European contexts and environments. This includes recommendations for addressing ethical challenges in technology research and ethics review processes outside the EU, which are also applicable to TA design and processes.

Authors and their affiliations:

Eleni Spyrakou (National Technical University of Athens)

Main Speaker: Eleni Spyrakou (Bio)

Description:

This session aims to outline an interdisciplinary proposal to assess the impact of new digital technologies on the person. The objective is to establish a theoretical framework that will inform the decision-making processes throughout the development of new digital products about the potential impacts on human beings. The applied methodology could be considered as a translation of dimensional analysis into the world of the humanities. To this end, the assessment is carried out based on dividing, classifying, identifying, and describing the fundamental dimensions and characteristics of the person and the digital technology to be evaluated. To conduct the analysis, the starting point is the description of the person offered by the Philosophical Anthropology. This discipline serves as an invaluable aid in delineating the most pivotal elements to be examined. In particular, this framework uses the personalistic approach, which is closely linked to humanism. This line of thought divides the self into four dimensions: three internals (physical, intellectual and conscience) plus a fourth external or relational, through which the person relates to the environment and to other people.

Authors and their affiliations:

Jose M. Bolufer (Universidad Villanueva Madrid)

Main Speaker: Jose M. Bolufer (Bio)

Description:

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought profound transformations to society, reshaping communication, creativity, and security. Among these advancements, deepfake technologies have emerged as a particularly disruptive force. Leveraging AI-driven image and video synthesis, deepfakes have unlocked unprecedented opportunities for innovation in entertainment, education, and accessibility, while simultaneously presenting significant challenges related to misinformation, privacy violations, and trust erosion. This presentation examines the dual-edged nature of deepfake technologies, emphasizing their potential and risks within societal contexts. The societal implications extend beyond technological capabilities into the ethical, regulatory, and cultural domains. Ultimately, the presentation aims to provoke a broader discussion on how society can harness the transformative potential of deepfake technologies while minimizing their adverse effects. This analysis invites conference participants to reflect on the pivotal role of interdisciplinary collaboration in addressing the complex challenges posed by deepfakes and AI technologies at large.

Authors and their affiliations:

Lenka Hebáková and Ondřej Pokorný (TC Prague)

Main Speaker: Lenka Hebáková (Bio)

Description:

The concepts of future skills, futures literacy, transformative skills, and transformation literacy capture abilities needed to manage global transformation processes. Developing strategies to foster these competencies among decision-makers is crucial for technology assessment (TA). This paper aims to understand the characteristics of these skills, analyze their similarities and differences, provide recommendations on their interpretation and explore their roles in TA. Our analysis, based on a literature review and an expert workshop, suggests future skills will focus on adapting to expected futures, influenced by business stakeholders. Transformative skills and transformation literacy, rooted in education, address normative foundations like sustainable development. Futures literacy enables understanding and shaping diverse futures, serving as a bridge between future skills and transformation literacy. We propose integrating these concepts and exploring their roles in TA globally.

Authors and their affiliations:

Steffen Bauer (Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis ITAS / KIT), Constanze Scherz (Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis ITAS / KIT), Marius Albiez (Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis ITAS / KIT) 

Main Speaker: Steffen Bauer (Bio)

Description:

This paper examines the governance of health technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic and reflects on three interrelated challenges for achieving systemic resilience: problems of scale, trust and politics. The paper focuses on digital surveillance technologies and vaccines, two cornerstones in the efforts to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2 around the globe. Tracing apps were introduced in many countries, but their effectiveness was constrained by issues of data privacy, insufficient interoperability and digital inequalities. At the same time, a global research race enabled the development of different vaccines with unprecedented speed, building on innovative biotechnologies. We conclude that governance and assessment should be built around strong international coordination and cooperation without limiting local experimental learning and innovation. Furthermore, public trust should be considered a necessary condition for the success of any technological innovation in the health context. As trust in policymakers, academia, and industry is strongly context-specific, global governance should also be sensitive to the diversity of social and cultural contexts.

Authors and their affiliations:

Marko Monteiro (University of Campinas), Florian Roth (Zurich University of Applied Sciences), Clare Shelley-Egan (Delft University)

Main Speaker: Marko Monteiro (Bio)

Methods play a key role in technology assessment (TA). Knowledge about the consequences and risks of technology needs to be generated, discussed, evaluated and communicated. It is often argued that TA is an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary field of research and therefore methods are taken from each of the source disciplines. In contrast, it is claimed that TA already has its own canon of methods, which allows it to generate and process problem-oriented knowledge in a transparent and scientifically sound way. In practice, TA draws on a variety of knowledge-generating, collaborative and interventionist methods, and new ones are steadily being added to the list: multi-stage participation processes provide future scenarios, new technology trends are examined with the support of artificial intelligence, qualitative approaches are combined with life cycle analyses, technical development options are tested in real laboratories, and technology futures are modelled with computer models. New approaches to communicating TA-relevant knowledge in public outreach and policy advice are also emerging.

Convenors and their affiliations:

Michael Ornetzeder, Mahshid Sotoudeh, Walter Peissl (all ITA/OeAW)

Description:

Not only is generative AI (genAI) a subject of research in the TA-community, it also becomes more and more a tool in our daily practice. In our European and international TA networks, activities have started around the use of genAI. At the core of these discussions is the question: To what extent can the use of genAI complement TA practice in a meaningful way and if so, under which conditions? First, we will give a brief summary of the state of the literature and discussions within the TA community on the potential of Digital Science for TA, and more specifically of genAI. Second, we will focus on the activities of the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB) in this area and present the solutions we have tested as well as ideal-typical use cases for scientific policy advice and the challenges we were confronted with. Finally, we will broaden the perspective and discuss avenues for further methodological developments and collaboration within the community around Digital Science in TA. The aim is to exchange experiences with TA-practitioners and reflect on our practice regarding the potential of genAI as an emerging application field.

Authors and their affiliations:

Pauline Riousset (Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag)

Main Speaker: Pauline Riousset (Bio)

Description:

Technology assessment (TA) is inherently dependent on an integrative method design. Integrative design means developing customized methods from an existing repertoire or new ones that best meet the TA research tasks. This addresses quality and feasibility in equal measure. The hallmarks of a TA perspective are the focus on side effects, the dominance of ignorance and (prospective) uncertainty, TA analysis as the identification and specification of evidence, and the evaluation and design of both side and main effects. Challenges to the integration of methods are the fundamental problems of uncertainty and scope for interpretation in every assessment of future consequences. On this basis, the following necessity can be formulated: To adequately identify and analyze technology impacts – and, based on this, to evaluate and shape them – integrative methods are needed to best capture the complexity, uncertainty, and ambivalence associated with technology impacts. The presentation discusses both objectives and their conflicting relationship using quality criteria, e.g. objectivity, reliability, and validity, based on exemplary TA methods.

Authors and their affiliations:

Dirk Scheer (ITAS-KIT)

Main Speaker: Dirk Scheer (Bio)

Description:

"Mind scripting is a collective method of deconstruction that aims to make visible the norms and values that are co-produced in the design and use of (digital) technologies. It focuses on the implicit normativity of technological micro-practices and brings them into conversation with the broader political implications of neoliberal society-technology relations. This presentation will introduce the aims, research methodology, and applications of the method in Technology Assessment and Science and Technology Studies. We will present our research on algorithmic systems for welfare fraud detection as an example: Algorithmic fraud detection has become a widespread practice across Europe. It is raising concerns and causing legal action from civil society organisations who claim that biased, non-transparent, automated decision-making affects citizens' social rights. A mind scripting workshop with caseworkers using an algorithm to detect welfare fraud shows that participants mobilise high values of safeguarding the welfare state while discussing the workings of the system. However, the actual practices they describe are also linked to a managerialism informed by algorithmic practices of surveillance, profiling, and targeting."

Authors and their affiliations:

Doris Allhutter (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Astrid Mager (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Main Speaker: Doris Allhutter (Bio)

Additional Speaker: Astrid Mager (Bio)

Description:

Technology assessment (TA) has become a broad field, encompassing different approaches, aiming at different goals and applying a surprising variety of methods. Constructive technology assessment (CTA) aims to broaden and enrich the knowledge and value base of ongoing technological innovation processes by stimulating social learning and experimentation. This paper presents a method for supporting second-order learning in urban innovation processes. The method proposes a procedure in which critical reflection takes place in a three-role constellation – insider, outsider and facilitator - based on practical experience. The method was tested in cooperation with practitioners in Austria, Belgium and Sweden using the example of Positive Energy Districts. The results show that the method allowed to identify key issues, potential risks and alternative solutions that are both context-specific and generally relevant for the development of Positive Energy Districts. The presentation will discuss ways to further improve the methodology and how it can be applied to other issues and socio-economic contexts.

Authors and their affiliations:

Michael Ornetzeder (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Main Speaker: Michael Ornetzeder (Bio)

Description:

This paper examines technology assessment (TA) practices related to nanotechnology development in health and agriculture as emerging policy issues in Argentina and Brazil. It outlines three key scenarios: the local regulatory frameworks and TA processes in medical and agricultural assessments, represented by ANMAT-SENASA in Argentina and ANVISA in Brazil; the role of ISO technical standards through national standardization bodies (IRAM and ABNT); and technical-environmental cooperation within the Mercosur-EU Free Trade Agreement. The study identifies institutional barriers within national policy frameworks that hinder the implementation of interdisciplinary strategies in TA, addressing gaps in areas such as Environment Health and Safety (EHS). It also examines the potential and limitations of transnational networking among TA practitioners in the context of international guidelines such as from OECD, EFSA/ ECHA, ISO, and others.  Finally, the paper assesses the effectiveness of integrating global, local, and regional TA activities in enhancing the scope and impact of technology assessment efforts in these countries.

Authors and their affiliations:

Mauricio Berger (CONICET CITECDE UNRN)

Main Speaker: Mauricio Berger (Bio)

Description:

Health Technology Assessment (HTA) in Brazil, conducted by the national agency Conitec, mediates between foreign evidence and assessments by international agencies on the one hand, and the capacities of the Brazilian Public Health System (SUS) and local contexts and values on the other. Conitec is responsible for guiding decision-making regarding free universal access to health technologies through the SUS. The agency is linked to international HTA networks that facilitate collaboration among HTA agencies; reduce duplication of efforts; develop methodologies and guidelines; and promote education and advocacy on HTA. An ethnography on public participation in Conitec’s assessments of drugs for rare diseases points to the specificities of the Brazilian process and helps to reflect on the dynamics of global inequalities and technology dependence involved. The country's system of centralized purchasing of health technologies, the constitutional right to health, and budgetary constraints, coupled with international patent law, market monopolies and the pricing policies of the pharmaceutical companies, are all elements that shape HTA locally. And global TA needs to take this into account.

Authors and their affiliations:

Lucas Nishida (Universidade Estadual de Campinas), Marko Monteiro (Universidade Estadual de Campinas)

Main Speaker: Lucas Nishida (Bio)

Description:

Although technology assessment (TA) was practiced in Canada during the 1980s, it largely disappeared after the dissolution of the Science Council in 1993. However, recent advancements, particularly in Artificial Intelligence, highlight the need to revitalize TA efforts. As part of the Participatory Toward Anticipatory (PtA) project, this paper examines the historical and current contexts of TA in Canada to envision its future trajectory. It first reviews Canada’s TA legacy and the challenges that led to its decline, particularly in decision-making structures. It then explores the fragmented landscape of current TA-like activities, emphasizing health technology assessment (HTA) and strategic foresight as key approaches. Finally, drawing on the work of scholars Peter H. Jones and Alexander N. Christakis, this paper advocates for participatory TA (pTA) as a pathway for renewal, introducing the PtA process as a policy innovation to bridge the gap between technologists and society.

Authors and their affiliations:

Su Lynn Myat (Ontario College of Arts and Design - OCAD - University)

Main Speaker: Su Lynn Myat

Description:

How can the integrity and authority of scientific policy advice be ensured in an increasingly polarized and post-factual political environment? Based on interviews and observations during my research stay in Washington, D.C. last year, this presentation reflects on policy advice concerning science and technology for the federal government of the United States. First, I outline the institutional advisory landscape spanning both legislative and executive branches: GAO-STAA and CRS serving Congress, OSTP and PCAST advising the executive branch, and NASEM providing advice to both. While science policy has traditionally enjoyed bipartisan cooperation, advisory institutions now face challenges from budget cuts and polarization. I discuss key strategies these institutions employ to ensure integrity: institutional independence; scientific rigor; precise language and boundary work; consensus-building; and transparency practices. While the main research relates to the Biden administration, the presentation also attempts an outside reflection of the changes and challenges in advisory institutions and processes, observable in the early months of Trump's second term.

Authors and their affiliations:

Anja Bauer (Department of Society, Knowledge and Politics, University of Klagenfurt)

Main Speaker: Anja Bauer (Bio)

The global research ethics process faces challenges due to new technologies, a lack of expertise among ethics reviewers, and the internationalization of research, which raises concerns about unethical practices across jurisdictions. There is also a lack of standardization, complicating the consistent application of ethical guidelines. National and EU policies aim to ensure the highest ethical standards to maintain public trust in scientific research. The Horizon Europe project irecs addresses these challenges by advancing ethics expertise, particularly in emerging technologies like AI in healthcare, extended reality, genome editing, and biobanking. While focusing on Europe, the project takes a global approach to address cross-border impacts. A key session in the project explores challenges faced by researchers and ethics reviewers inside and outside Europe, promoting interdisciplinary dialogue and sharing best practices to tackle issues in research ethics and technology assessment.

Convenors and their affiliations:

Maria Maia (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (KIT-ITAS)

Description:

The ethics review process is crucial for integrating ethical considerations into emerging technology development. Research Ethics Committees (RECs) conduct ex-ante reviews to ensure compliance but often lack expertise in addressing novel ethical challenges beyond biomedical research. Understanding REC members’ training needs is essential. This article presents findings from a pan-European survey of REC members and ethics experts. The online survey, using closed and open-ended questions, identified training gaps and prioritized areas of need, assessing expertise levels and perspectives on procedural vs. substantive ethical issues. The 261 respondents ranked technologies and application areas by training demand. Key findings highlight a preference for training on broad technology families over specific cases. AI in healthcare and ICT-biomedicine intersections emerged as priority areas, reflecting ethical concerns in these fields. The study advocates capacity-building initiatives and a broader ethical governance framework to strengthen RECs’ role in responsible research and innovation.

Authors and their affiliations:

Bernd Carsten STAHL (School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, UK), Etienne AUCOUTURIER (Laboratoire de recherche sur les sciences de la matière (LARSIM), Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - CEA-Saclay, France), Jurate LEKSTUTIENE (European Network of Research Ethics Committees, Germany; Vilnius University, Lithuania), Tom LINDEMANN (Luxembourg Agency for Research Integrity - LARI, Luxembourg), Maria MAIA (Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analyses - ITAS, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology - KIT), Ana MARUŠIĆ (University of Split School of Medicine, Croatia), Antonija MIJATOVIĆ (University of Split School of Medicine, Croatia), Elahe Naserianhanzaei (Trilateral Research, UK), George OGOH (School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, UK), Anais RESSEGUIER (Trilateral Research, Ireland), Eleni SPYRAKOU (National Technical University of Athens, Greece)

Main Speaker: George Ogoh (Bio)

Description:

In this presentation, I discuss the growing tension between global AI ethics and local practices. I argue that seemingly universal principles such as privacy, accountability, and transparency need to be scrutinized by considering the role cultural and social diversity around the globe play in the context of AI. Drawing on examples of a large-scale, global qualitative study on digital/ AI ethics, I introduce the notion of “situated ethics” by focusing on local contexts, concerns, and lived experiences. I elaborate how supposedly universal principles are filled with varying, context-specific meanings, and argue that these situated, local perspectives matter substantially when considering how ethical AI principles can be translated into concrete AI policy. Strengthening more inclusive processes of AI policy-making by taking situated approaches under consideration allows for a more nuanced and more contextually relevant ethics-in-practice. To conclude, I discuss how co-design and community-driven processes could help to avoid top-down approaches to digital ethics, while staying committed to universal human rights to fight power abuse and discrimination in the name of cultural values.

Authors and their affiliations:

Astrid Mager (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Main Speaker: Astrid Mager (Bio)

Description:

This paper describes our learning journey in an effort to develop an ethical impact assessment framework for an AI-powered disinformation detection system, drawing on established AI ethical principles embodied, e.g., in the EU’s AI Act. A key challenge in such an effort is the translation of high-level ethical principles such as fairness, transparency, and accountability into actionable practices that can guide the design, development, and deployment of AI systems. Our paper specifically explores the process of designing and applying ethical impact assessment tools in a transdisciplinary context. We have employed workshops, interviews, and a literature study to create an array of technology assessment tools. In a two-year learning period ripe with expected and unexpected problems, we have explored different forms of cooperation with researchers, software developers, and stakeholders. Focusing on the ethical impact assessment process, we aim to fill a gap in the literature where practical guidance on developing and implementing such assessments is still scarce.

Authors and their affiliations:

Pia Weinlinger, Peter Biegelbauer, Rodrigo Conde-Jimenez (all AIT Austrian Institute of Technology)

Main Speaker: Pia Weinlinger

Description:

Recommender systems provide information about products and services. This decision-support is all the more useful, the broader the range of available options is and the better the recommendations can be tailored to individual needs. At the same time, the use of AI-supported recommender systems raises important questions. What criteria are used to evaluate the actors and offers involved, and does the provision of recommendations lead to disadvantages for some stakeholder groups? A range of computational methods have been proposed to identify and mitigate fairness problems in recommender systems. Nevertheless, the definition of fairness itself is a multi-stakeholder issue that must be negotiated between the groups involved. This study addresses this problem using route choice recommendations for cycling tourists as a use case. The aim of the project is to assess the socio-economic implications of AI-based recommender systems focusing on opportunities for regional value creation and sustainable development. We address conceptual challenges of interdisciplinary TA at the intersection between computer science and STS-informed approaches.

Authors and their affiliations:

Bernhard Wieser (TU-Graz), Anna Schreuer (TU-Graz), Peter Müllner (TU-Graz), Simone Kopeinik (KNOW-Center), Dominik Kowald (KNOW-Center)

Main Speaker: Bernhard Wieser (Bio)

Description:

Awareness of technology assessment (TA) and its practice in the developing world is rare. On the other hand, the importance of science, technology and innovation (STI) for     sustainable development and the urgency to identify technologies that fulfil the needs of developing countries, have brought TA in the forefront of global discussions. The United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has undertaken a pilot project in South Africa, Zambia and the Seychelles on “TA in the energy and agricultural sectors“. In order to aid the implementation of TA in the select African countries, UNCTAD developed a step-by-step methodology guide with the help of the authors of this paper. The methodology divides the TA process into six steps: governance and steering, priority setting, framing project questions, setting project goals, project implementation and quality control. We examine the nuances that the TA methodology went through in the effort to adapt it to the needs of developing countries. We discuss lessons learned from the application of the methodology in the UNCTAD TA project, with attention to particularly problematic steps. Finally, we provide input as to the aspects of the methodology that require improvement in order to work at the global level.

Authors and their affiliations:

Miltos Ladikas (ITAS), Andreas Stamm (IDOS)

Main Speaker: Miltos Ladikas (Bio)

Additional Speaker: Andreas Stamm (Bio)

Description:

Citizen participation in general – and citizens assemblies in particular – are part of the so-called “deliberative wave” in the process of finding foothold in multi-national and global governance structures. This paper shares experiences from the past decade with negotiating a policy impact space for citizen participation processes and initiatives, from the national to the EU and global level. Nationally, learnings from the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA) point to strategies for impact that can potentially inform those of other types of technology assessment (TA). In the EU, citizen participation has migrated from the sandbox of R&I to a tentative institutionalization in mainstream policy-making in the shape of the European Citizens’ Panels. Globally, the World Wide Views projects and the Global Assembly have both experimented with impacting UN Climate COPs. Other processes have been underway but have not materialized, yet. This paper argues for the inclusion of citizen participation in a Global TA infrastructure and reflects on the relevance of past experiences with citizen participation for the role of other TA practices at the global level.

Authors and their affiliations:

Bjørn Bedsted (Democracy x)

Main Speaker: Bjørn Bedsted (Bio)

Description:

To infer action guidance from the ever-increasing literature on possible climate response options such as mitigation, adaptation, carbon dioxide removal or solar radiation management, a number of assessment frameworks have been put forward. They aim to create transparency by collecting and organizing the issues one must look at in order to evaluate potential responses to climate change. In this presentation we argue that existing assessment frameworks, including recent work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), fail to clearly separate between assessing climate change response options regarding their feasibility (what can be done) and their desirability (what would be better/worse to do). We show that existing assessments deal with the feasibility-desirability-distinction in three different but equally problematic ways, and sketch a way forward by providing four recommendations. We understand assessing climate change response options as a TA-like activity. The presentation aims to contribute towards good practice for global TA projects by explicitly distinguishing between feasibility and desirability assessments.

Authors and their affiliations:

Voget-Kleschin, Lieske (Kiel University, Germany); Tank, Lukas (Kiel University, Germany); Baatz, Christian (Kiel University, Germany)

Main Speaker: Voget-Kleschin, Lieske (Bio)

Description:

The effects of climate change, which at this point can no longer beavoided, require an increased adaptability of people. It is inevitable that new or adapted technologies will be used for this purpose. Not enough research  has been done on such technologies. Specifically, the focus is on data and AI-based technologies in the context of climate analysis and early warning systems, in addition to other technical measures supposed to increase resilience to the impact of climate change. The article is dedicated to the following research questions: 1: Which technologies are (potentially) available to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related disasters, with special regard to Sustainable Development Goal 13.1? Which methods are suitable for identifying the risks and evaluating the opportunities associated with these technologies? 2: Which methods are suitable for evaluating the socio-economic impacts? 3: How should the methods be applied and adapted to promote target achievement and an interdisciplinary and global approach? The research questions are answered on the basis of literature research and subsequent technology and method mapping.

Authors and their affiliations:

Roßkogler Susanne (Montanuniversität Leoben)

Main Speaker: Susanne Roßkogler

Methods play a key role in technology assessment (TA). Knowledge about the consequences and risks of technology needs to be generated, discussed, evaluated and communicated. It is often argued that TA is an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary field of research and therefore methods are taken from each of the source disciplines. In contrast, it is claimed that TA already has its own canon of methods, which allows it to generate and process problem-oriented knowledge in a transparent and scientifically sound way. In practice, TA draws on a variety of knowledge-generating, collaborative and interventionist methods, and new ones are steadily being added to the list: multi-stage participation processes provide future scenarios, new technology trends are examined with the support of artificial intelligence, qualitative approaches are combined with life cycle analyses, technical development options are tested in real laboratories, and technology futures are modelled with computer models. New approaches to communicating TA-relevant knowledge in public outreach and policy advice are also emerging.

Convenors and their affiliations:

Michael Ornetzeder, Mahshid Sotoudeh, Walter Peissl (all ITA/OeAW)

Description:

This contribution discusses a mixed-method scenario process that combines Delphi-based expert surveys with participatory elements to produce exploratory scenarios for policy orientation. The approach was utilised in an interdisciplinary research project, engaging experts from various research and development fields to generate four scenarios representing the extreme ends of plausible futures for augmented reality use in public spaces over the next decade and its societal impacts. The method includes the following steps: (a) an online survey to identify influencing factors, (b) analysis of the collected driving and constraining factors, grouping them into 34 influencing factors as a foundation for (c) a second online survey to assess impact certainty, expert ranking, and influence matrix, (d) identification of key shaping factors, (e) construction of mini scenarios and aggregation into four scenarios, and (f) a third survey for expert validation. The method was also adapted and applied within a transdisciplinary research project exploring regional food supply, generating three exploratory scenarios specifically promoting regional diets.

Authors and their affiliations:

Niklas Gudowsky-Blatakẽs (Institute of Technology Assessment, Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Main Speaker: Niklas Gudowsky-Blatakẽs (Bio)

Description:

Techno-Anthropological technology assessment (T-ATA) is an imaginary framework and an eclectic and pragmatic approach to technology assessment. It is the suggestion that we should tinker with and assemble different approaches on how to assess technologies in order to create appropriate technological solutions. Inspired by Heidegger, I will also draw on French philosophers from the 1960s such as Claude Levy-Strauss and Guy Debord, introducing their paradoxical structural and situationist approaches to the world and reality. Hybrid imaginary T-ATA builds on Grunwald’s hermeneutic TA, which is central and crucial in any sort of TA. At the same time, I stress the importance of situated normative, political, and ethical approaches, because world and reality   need technological solutions that consider a better world and a better life for humans and non-humans. Hybrid imagination is a way of framing the world through and with technology, and actively addressing the technological problems and challenges that we as collective humanity are facing. We need to evoke forces and capacities that through hybrid imaginary approaches are qualified, endorsed, and enacted.

Authors and their affiliations:

Lars Benedikt Botin (Aalborg University, Denmark)

Main Speaker: Lars Benedikt Botin

Description:

In real-world laboratories (RwL), co-creation among different stakeholders shapes decision-making and transformative processes, offering valuable insights for participatory technology assessment (pTA) regarding norms, hierarchies, communication, and participation. Transformation arising from real-world laboratories encompasses physical, cultural, regulatory and procedural changes with the objective of addressing challenges such as climate change and urbanization. The co-creative approach strongly demands for collaboration among science, policy, business, education and civil society through shared experimentation and reflection. However, challenges arise from hierarchies and communication. Beyond evaluating technology's opportunities and risks, pTA assesses ethical implications and desired futures while facing similar challenges of hierarchies and communication as RwL. This proposal discusses a participation framework highlighting RwL-pTA parallels and approaches to address them, based on two Swiss case studies.

Authors and their affiliations:

Clemens Mader (OST - Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences), Sonia Lippe (OST - Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences), Claudia Brönimann (OST - Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences)

Main Speaker: Clemens Mader (Bio)

Description:

Advanced nuclear energy technologies, such as small modular reactors (SMRs), are gaining global attention as a reliable source of carbon-free electricity while addressing key challenges related to waste, proliferation, cost, and risk in traditional nuclear power plants. However, political debates on SMRs often overlook their broader potential societal impacts –particularly in terms of equity – and fail to emphasize the need for early policy interventions to prevent unintended consequences. To support anticipatory governance frameworks that prioritize the public good, we assess the social, geopolitical, economic, ethical, and equity dimensions of advanced nuclear reactors using the analogical case study (ACS) method. Inspired by Guston and Sarewitz’s (2002)  real-time technology assessment framework and further developed by Parthasarathy at the University of Michigan, the ACS method analyzes historical case studies of technology in society to forecast the societal implications of advanced nuclear energy and other emerging technologies, ultimately shaping research, advocacy, and policy agendas.  

Authors and their affiliations:

Denia Djokić (University of Michigan), Shobita Parthasarathy (University of Michigan), Molly Kleinman (University of Michigan), Nora Lewis (University of Michigan), Michael Redmond (University of Michigan), Txai Sibley (University of Michigan), Nicholas Stubblefield (University of Michigan) 

Main Speaker: Denia Djokić (Bio)

A global TA should consider extending to other TA-like practices that seek to raising knowledge, forming opinions, and initiating action on evidence-based matters within politics, developed by countries (or local organizations) to address global concerns that affect any country, no matter how far south of the North Pole it may be, mainly related to the consequences of climate change, new technologies, globalization and overpopulation. Southern countries, generalized as ‘non-European, non-North American’, are dealing with global concerns, developing TA-like responses from different perspectives, many of them. Examples of these are described, highlighting similar perspectives from societies that have not been generators of technologies or have not benefited from their implementation. Questions remain: Do all TA-like activities meet with TA standards? Can a Global TA improve local legislation and democracies? More collaboration is needed. Like globalTA or INGSA networks, connecting with local networks could accelerate better TA, sharing knowledge based on a problem-oriented, adding value to legislators and politics. Just as a global TA needs to be nurtured by diversity, local TA needs support to establish and sustain itself, to deal with global challenges.

Raimundo Roberts Molina (Bio)