6^th European Technology Assessment Conference (ETAC6)
Vienna & hybrid on June 2-4, 2025

Technology Assessment goes Global

Hosted by the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the globalTA network

CALL FOR PAPERS, SESSIONS, AND POSTERS is closed!

This conference will gather technology assessment (TA) practitioners and other experts from around the globe who are interested in TA and comparable advisory activities targeting technology policy. For this first global TA conference, we understand TA to be research-based and interdisciplinary, aiming to inform decision-makers and the general public in a non-partisan, multi-perspective, and independent manner on the societal implications of current socio-technical developments. Comparable activities can be attuned to their respective cultural, societal, and political context and do not necessarily use the term TA.

Overall, we seek to share different approaches that have developed worldwide to better manage new technologies' intended and unintended societal and other impacts. We seek fruitful inspiration for TA beyond its US and European roots and traditions just as much as we hope to inspire like-minded practitioners worldwide.

Against this backdrop, the conference will showcase TA work & address the following questions:

I. How can TA and comparable activities and institutions be strengthened worldwide?

• What forms of TA and TA-like activities are institutionalised in each country?
• How do national socio-political environments resonate with TA and comparable institutions and activities? What is good advisory practice, and how does quality assurance work in different socio-political environments?
• What inter- and transdisciplinary training strategies for TA are available in each country?
• What topics (technologies and issues) do TA(-like) institutions around the globe focus on?
• What kind of supra-national networking among TA practitioners and institutions seems feasible and fruitful?

II. Could there be a global TA unit or organisation?

• Are there already cases of global bodies that cover TA (for instance, with global organisations like WHO, UNESCO, UNCTAD, IPCC, OECD, etc.)?
• Should we strengthen TA with such established global organisations?
• Are there global initiatives beyond the TA landscape encompassing TA-like perspectives and practices, like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)?
• How can TA support SDGs with a global scope, such as climate protection (SDG 13) and peace (SDG 16)?
• If there was a global TA organisation in its own right, how could it work, and how should it link to decision-making bodies?

III. What are the principles of good practice for global TA projects?

• How much ‘global’ (and how much ‘local’ or ‘regional’) is there in contemporary ‘national’ TA projects and TA-like activities
• What competencies, resources, methods, and approaches foster TA's local/regional/national and transnational/global scope?
• What are good examples of TA projects or TA-like activities with a global scope?
• Are there themes not covered well enough due to a lack of trans-national TA activities and projects, e.g., climate change or space technology?
• What could be the future of the globalTA network?

Call: We cordially invite project papers that report on distinct TA or TA-like activities as well as discussion papers that directly address one or more of the above overarching questions. We also invite complete sessions of project papers addressing a joint theme (technology or issue) as well as sessions of discussion papers addressing the same overarching question. If you want to present your work and/or institution in more general terms, you are invited to submit a poster.

Paper, session, and poster proposals  (the latter including a set of paper proposals) should be submitted by 11 December 2024. 

Abstracts for papers or posters should not be longer than one page. In case of a session proposal, please submit in one file a one-page description of the session and one additional page per paper. For each proposal, there is one corresponding author; co-authors are enlisted in the abstract.

The Conference Advisory Board will assess all submissions; invitations will be issued in January 2025.

The programme and conference registration form will be available here from February 2025.

Conference fees:
Early-bird: 190 € (OECD countries), 90 € (non-OECD countries) until 15 March 2025
Regular: 240 € (OECD countries), 140 € (non-OECD countries) until 15 May 2025
The fee includes catering during the conference and the conference dinner.
In the case of online participation, the above sums are reduced by 30 €.

The conference format will combine plenary lectures and panels, parallel sessions with paper presentations, poster exhibitions, and social events to allow for formal and informal exchange.

Conference Venue: The conference will be held in Vienna, Austria (Europe), at the main campus of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. All plenaries and most sessions will be conducted in a hybrid format to foster a worldwide reach and active remote participation.

Members of the Conference Advisory Board: Peta Ashworth (Australia), Julia Hahn (Germany), Karen Howard (USA), Raimundo Roberts (Chile), Douglas Robinson (OECD), Krishna Ravi Srinivas (India), Mahlet Teshome (Ethiopia)

Local Organising Team: Karen Kastenhofer, Michael Nentwich, Michael Ornetzeder, Thomas Bayer, Barbara Saringer-Bory

Contact the conference team via E-mail: globalta.ita(at)oeaw.ac.at.