But how can policymakers be advised in the best possible way, what can science do in such complex situations? In the KIRAS project "Epistemic security – on scientific expertise in chronic crises", Alexander Bogner and his team from the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences analyzed how scientific policy advice can be designed and what resources are needed to promote trust and create transparency. To this end, previous experiences in Austria, Germany and the UK were compared.

According to the researchers, it is particularly important not to make political decisions entirely dependent on science and to also involve the population.

Download ITA Dossier No. 74, "What does good policy advice look like in times of crisis?" (PDF, 2 pages)

In this context, the Austrian Parliament's Advisory Council for Foresight and Technology Assessment has commissioned the Institute of Technology Assessment at the Austrian Academy of Sciences to study the potential impact of new AI applications on society, politics and democracy. The MPs want to know how democracy can deal with the new possibilities arising from the applications of generative AI and how such manipulations can be recognised in the first place.

The short study commissioned by Parliament will discuss topics such as digital sovereignty, hybrid threats, AI cybercrime and options for dealing with AI. At the request of MPs, the study will address the problematic aspects of deep fakes for individuals, including possibly discrediting or even blackmailing political officeholders. However, the study will look at the risks for political opinion-forming and public discourse and discuss possible opportunities and visions for democracy.

Artificial Intelligence front and centre

Topics around AI continued to play a major role in the ITA’s research: Stefan Strauß presented his study on the connections between the digital transformation and the vulnerability of societal infrastructures and revealed considerable areas of tension. He also focused in on Chat GTP’s splash, stressing it would not be mature enough to be a true “job killer”. Doris Allhutter and her team continued their research on the effects of AI on the welfare system with the project AUTO-WELF. How would the health sector, logistics and other crucial infrastructure deal with an internet outage? In September 2022, Jaro Krieger-Lamina and others presented the findings of the multi-disciplinary project ISIDOR, a two-year analysis of what would happen in Austria when the internet dies. The study continued to catch attention, with the media questioning whether Austria’s cash resources would be sufficient in case of such an emergency.

How to manage a crisis

How should governments deal with immediate crises, such as the Covid pandemic? How can there be a balance between scientific expertise, political decision-making and the needs of the electorate? Alexander Bogner has established himself as a major voice in this discourse. As a result, he led a team of experts that was tasked by the ÖAW on behalf of the Austrian government to conduct a major study on the subject. The study, titled “After Corona. Reflections for Future Crisis“, took into account the voices of experts, citizens, and politicians and was presented in December 2023. It received major media attention.

Policy Advice

The ITA’s role as advisor to political decision-makers reached a new high in 2023. The Parliament’s Research Committee Chairman Hafenecker emphasised: “With the help of the expertise from the Institute of Technology Assessment, policymakers have the "state of the art knowledge" in dealing with current challenges. Since 2017, the ITA has provided semi-annual reports on relevant scientific and technological as well as related societal developments. The first two monitoring reports within the new framework contract were published in May and November 2023.

Plus-energy districts are considered an important component of sustainable urban development. In the TRANS-PED project, Michael Ornetzeder and his team investigated such districts in Sweden, Belgium and Austria, including the sunny village of Schwoich in Tyrol. The aim is to create a surplus of renewable energy production and net-zero energy imports, thus ensuring climate neutrality.

In his report, Ornetzeder explains the challenges involved and the measures that those responsible can take to promote development.

The mission of the project is to discover successful approaches to prevent and reduce food waste. Stakeholders in European food systems will be encouraged to make better decisions towards more sustainable food systems for food production and consumption with the help of evidence-based tools and experiences. Practical aspects will therefore be an essential element of this meeting of 21 partners.

After a well thought-out and lengthy selection process, the first portfolio of local project ideas developed so far will be presented. These will be implemented over the next few years in Valencia (Spain), Graz and Vienna (Austria), Halandri (Greece) and Hälsingland (Sweden). The local projects will take place in different contexts. Specifically, they will focus on improving the implementation of waste reduction in school kitchens, in the direct marketing of organic products in urban areas, or by training multipliers to prevent and reduce food waste in supermarkets.

At this General Assembly, the science-based evaluation framework for selected pilot projects will be transferred from theory to practice. This will ensure that all partners involved in implementing the measures in the various pilot projects can coordinate their ideas, understand each other's vocabulary, identify synergies and increase the impact of these pilot projects. The hosts, the project team at the ITA consisting of Saskia Favreuille, Freya Schulz, Ulrike Bechtold and Mahshid Sotoudeh, will evaluate and analyse the partial results and synthesize them in a report.

Peissl emphasises: "At the ITA, we have been conducting research on AI for over a decade, for example when it comes to questions of social impact, data protection or privacy. AI is more than just ChatGPT, it affects us all." For example, the ITA is currently running projects on dealing with AI in the world of work and the increasing use of automated decision-making in the welfare sector.

Service centre for AI issues being set up

The kick-off for the official AI Service Centre Austria and the presentation of the AI Advisory Board took place at the Federal Ministry of Finance. The aim of the service centre is to create transparency and legal certainty and to make the opportunities and innovations available to companies.

Peissl is pleased "that social responsibility will also play an important role in the use of AI in the interdisciplinary advisory board. It will be important for the success of AI in Austria that the service centre will also be a low-threshold contact point for citizens and consumers."

Not only society, but also research must adapt to new developments and technologies. One example: the digitalization of research has far-reaching consequences, some of which should be critically evaluated. On the other hand, there are tried and tested methods of technology assessment such as participatory scenario development or interviews with experts.

The conference will also discuss which typical TA methods have proven their worth and what challenges TA practitioners face when it comes to AI applications or fact processing relevant to political decisions.

TA24 Open Call (Download) - in German

• Brain organoids
• Battery systems of the future
• Protein turnaround - making widespread use of alternative protein sources
• Forests: fires and restoration
• Health consequences of digitalisation
• Collaborative industrial robots

"We are particularly keen to provide the Committee on Research, Innovation and Digitalisation in Parliament with independent expertise. Democratic processes are complex, and fact-based political work is more important today than ever," emphasises ITA Director Michael Nentwich.

All the results that have already been delivered can be viewed on a dedicated space within the website of the Austrian Parliament. These include earlier topics such as "Virtual and augmented realities", "AI and democracy" and "Large heat pumps".

Getting future ready

"A global perspective means, that approaches that may not be referred to as 'technology assessment' but are similar in terms of methodology, subject matter and organisation will also be included. Moving outside our established, Western-influenced contexts will be stimulating and inspiring for us," emphasises ITA Director Michael Nentwich.

A number of important issues will be discussed at the conference, including how global justice can be achieved on topics such as pandemics and climate change. "It is clear that we need an exchange between TA practitioners as well as inter- and transdisciplinary training strategies. Our mission is to make knowledge available not only for research, but also for politics and society, and that's what we want to do with the international network," says Nentwich.

"We not only measured the energy values, but also asked: was this model successful? Was there something missing?", emphasises Ornetzeder, energy expert at the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. "Can a successful model be transferred to other districts from today's perspective? How do technological innovations in the energy sector influence urban planning?" Project collaborator Barbara Saringer-Bory adds: "It is exciting to see what different ideas are being implemented: In the Tyrolean project, for example, the Sonnedorf of Schwoich, they managed not only to implement sustainable construction methods but hired exclusively local companies to build it. Something like that should also be included in energy assessments."

Getting fit for the future together

"The aim of the project was to develop new approaches on how to effectively implement such plus-energy neighbourhoods across Europe. This is a particular challenge because they require fundamental changes in the way cities are planned, designed and maintained in the long term," says Ornetzeder.

Thus, in the course of two years, the participating international experts profited not only from their joint research but also from interpersonal exchanges: "The joint workshops and meetings were impressive. It is clear that we can only achieve more energy efficiency through European cooperation," says Ornetzeder.  Finally, the ITA team developed a method with the help of which previous experiences can be collected, evaluated and passed on to other city districts. There is also a compact how-to guide that summarises the most important findings from the project in a quick and uncomplicated way.

For a climate-conscious and healthy way to eat it is vital to buy seasonally and regionally produced food, stresses the ITA project team Mashid Sotoudeh and Niklas Gudowsky. The ITA dossier "Regional Food Futures" explains problems and obstacles for regional foods and makes recommendations to promote regional diets.

In order to improve regional supply, an interplay between producers, agriculture, trade and regional institutions is required, among others. Recommendations include buying directly from producers to avoid transportation and packaging, eating seasonally to make the best use of farmland, and promoting small regional living spaces to prevent urban sprawl.

Read more here: ITA Dosser No. 71 - Regional Food Future

NEOS, OEVP, FPOE and Greens present

With Helmut Brandstätter (NEOS), Carina Reiter (OEVP), Thomas Spalt (FPOE) and Süleyman Zorba (Greens), more Austrian parliamentarians than ever before joined the meeting: "ITA has been a member of EPTA since 1993, and since 2017 we have regularly advised the Austrian Parliament. Therefore, we are particularly proud that this year representatives of four parties were on site to learn about the impact of artificial intelligence on democratic societies," says Michael Nentwich, Director of the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. "Technology assessment sees itself not only as a valuable source of advice for policymakers, but also as a source of input for the discourse of democratic societies on how to deal with new technologies," says Nentwich.

Dealing with AI requires joint action

This time, the meeting focused on the growing use of Artificial Intelligence, as seen, among other things, in the use of ChatGPT, which is spreading at breakneck speed. "AI is a transformative force with profound implications for democracies and civil society," the organizers said. This makes the importance of European collaboration in tackling complex global problems all the more important.

As part of the meeting, EPTA presented its latest report "Generative Artificial Intelligence. Opportunities, Risks and Policy Challenges". It provides policymakers and the public with knowledge and expertise in order to responsibly shape the use of AI in Europe and to develop awareness for its limitations.

When we shop, we can make a small contribution, but how? Is eating tofu really always "better" than meat, even if the tofu comes from thousands of miles away? How can buying organic pay off so that everyone can afford it? What would you do if there was already cooked food left over in your restaurant?

You will find the answers to these questions at the ITA booth at the European Researchers Night 2023.

Where: University of Applied Arts, Vordere Zollamtsstraße 7, 1030 Vienna
When: 15-22 h
Link to the program
Link to the ITA-Station

In his keynote, Michael Decker from KIT-ITAS Karlsruhe gave a brief insight into the basics of technology assessment, its global development and the ambivalent impact of new technologies on society. There has always been a light as well as a dark side to the consideration of new innovations. His appeal to a sustainable development: "Technology as well as societal processes and structures must be aligned in such a way that both ethical principles are guaranteed: to enable present generations to meet their needs without creating risks for meeting the needs of future generations."

Currently, the OECD also has a noticeable presence in the NanoTrust project. NanoTrust has been an active member of the Working Group on Nanotechnology, Biotechnology and Converging Technologies (BNCT) for several years. Douglas K.R. Robinson explains in his keynote why the OECD is exploring strategic intelligence and new requirements for TA tools and practices.

Risk researcher André Gazsó, project leader and senior researcher at the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, reflects on 15 years of NanoTrust, which has evolved from a classical research project into a complex process within the framework of Austrian nano-risk governance: "They were exciting years that we went through in a total of six project phases. The term advanced materials did not exist at the beginning in 2007. The perspective of the steakholders and the accompanying changes in policy advice have also changed over the years," Gazsó knows.

Advanced materials are materials with new properties and functionalities that are developed for specific purposes and can be used in many areas. Nanomaterials continue to be an important group within them. Gazso: "Tonight we can celebrate 15 successful years and hope that the topic will be taken up by more institutions in the future and that research will continue."

Crises need both - politics and science

Scientific advice should enable policymakers to make informed and autonomous decisions, is one of Bogner's core principles. In early 2023, he was instrumental in formulating the Vienna Theses - a manual for successful scientific policy advice. In his latest book, "The Epistemization of the Political. How the Power of Knowledge Endangers Democracy" (Reclam, 2021), he also took a close look at the role of policy advice in times of crisis, especially in the Corona pandemic .

"Evidence-based policy means that science should ensure that policymakers are not relieved of all burdens of justification. Politicians, for their part, should explain why they decided to take which measures based on which considerations," Bogner summarized in an interview with Austrian radio station OE1 on the occasion of the publication of the Vienna Theses.

The prize for the Austrian of the Year, the "Austria23", is awarded in a total of six categories: Success International, Research, Humanitarian Commitment, Climate Initiative, Cultural Heritage and Companies with Responsibility. There are five candidates in each category. Votes can be cast until October 3.

Click here to cast your vote
Austria23 - the Austrians of the Year

Nanocarriers useful for pharmaceuticals and agriculture

"The term nanotechnologies covers a wide spectrum. Everything that takes place in the nanoscale is difficult to comprehend for the average consumer and still poses many questions for research. How safe is the use of nanoparticles in, for example, pesticides that can come into direct contact with our food? Do we know that even food packaging and our lipstick can contain "nano"? There is an urgent need for education, which is why it is all the more important that authorities, researchers, industry and politics regularly exchange new findings," emphasizes biologist Anna Pavlicek, who has been working on the ITA's NanoTrust project for six years.

"Nanocarriers are an important new development. These transport and encapsulation systems in dimensions down to 1000 nanometers - that's one-thousandth of a millimeter - can be loaded with various active ingredients. In pharmaceuticals, but also in agriculture, they can be used to transport substances to specific locations and release them in a controlled manner," emphasizes organizer and project leader André Gazsó. Nanocarriers are therefore also the current main topic for Austrian group co-founded by NanoTrust for the protection of employees.

NanoTrust as a global model for the regulation of innovation

The NanoTrust initiative, launched by the then Ministry of Technology and the ITA, has been running for more than 15 years. The fact that the Austrian project, which also helped shape the Ministry of Health's Nano-Information Commission (NIK) founded in 2013, has a role model effect beyond its borders and is internationally respected became clear in the OECD report "Technology Assessment for Emerging Technology" (April 2023). There, in fact, NanoTrust is cited together with examples from, for example, Portugal, the Netherlands, the USA or Japan as successful applications of the principle "Safe and Sustainable by Design".

"It is important to us that areas such as worker protection, chemical regulation, environmental protection and consumer protection are already addressed in the development stage of innovations," Gazsó emphasizes. This year's NanoTrust conference is dedicated to policy advice for safe and sustainable innovation and how technology assessment can best support innovation.

Representatives of the German long-term project DaNa and the Swiss project Swiss NanoAnalytics will also be present at the conference.

NanoTrust selected as a global example for successful regulation

More than a decade ago, the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences started the NanoTrust project, which has since then evolved into an example of successful risk management in nanotechnologies. In the OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Paper "Technology Assessment for Emerging Technology", Nanotrust is cited as a successful application of "Safe and Sustainable Design" together with examples from e.g. Portugal, the Netherlands, the USA or Japan.

"An important driver for the project was the idea of building a network of experts capable of producing independent and robust information on EHS issues and potential risks of nanomaterials and other nanotechnologies," project collaborators Anna Pavlicek and Gloria Rose emphasize. Project leader André Gazsó adds, "Scientific evidence alone is not sufficient to capture the wide-ranging impacts of innovations. NanoTrust’s role is facilitating exchange between research, policy and other stakeholders, processing existing knowledge and bringing the discussion of safety-related issues to the forefront. In this way, we contribute to the safe and sustainable development of technologies."

And what about citizens engagement?

ITA human ecologist Ulrike Bechtold was interviewed for the OECD report "Engaging citizens in innovation policy": she designed a presentation at the OECD-CSTP Workshop on Societal Engagement (Paris, March 2023) and spoke with the authors at this event. Her presentation focused on framing and possible rationales for societal engagement in science, technology, and innovation. Specifically, Bechtold talked about various examples of citizen participation on the topic of climate change and explained how public and political interest in this has changed in Austria in recent years.

On climate justice and a better life

The diverse conference contributions made clear how important it is to take a close look at the social contexts in which infrastructures are integrated. The "optimization fantasies" of BigTech would ignore what it takes to live a good life, said media researcher Stine Lomborg in her keynote.

Infrastructures that enable climate-just social practice should break away from quantitative security of supply and the compulsion to grow, also emphasized risk researcher Cordula Kropp in the second keynote lecture. The central guiding principles, according to Kropp, must be supply and distribution justice in order to guarantee equivalent living conditions in the future.

About categories and people

"Supply systems of various kinds, be it the welfare state or energy supply, are increasingly evolving via a certain 'datafied' knowledge," emphasized Doris Allhutter, organizer of TA23 and Senior Scientist at ITA. "It is important not to lose sight of the social contexts in which these infrastructures are embedded." Allhutter is currently working on the Automating Welfare project, which was also presented at the conference. With her team, she is researching the effects of the algorithmization of welfare, for example in job placement or the provision of social benefits.

"Digitization has long permeated countless areas of infrastructure. However, the development does not always follow a clear concept, but is often driven by technological trends and economic interests," says Stefan Strauß, project manager and senior scientist at the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Together with Steffen Bettin (ITA), he has investigated institutional but also individual effects of this development on the basis of selected case studies in the project "Digitalization, Vulnerability and Societal Infrastructures".

The study shows that digitized infrastructures are becoming increasingly complex and therefor prone to error. According to Strauß, many problems, especially loss of control, are not necessarily due to the use of technology, but to inadequate security and business models of the platform economy. Technology companies could exert more and more pressure through their growing power over the market: "Growing information and power asymmetries are a fundamental problem of digitalization. They lead to more technological and economic dependencies, for companies as well as households and individuals," Strauß emphasizes.

Strengthening resilience for a secure basic supply

This development also has consequences for security of supply and meeting basic social needs. New possibilities, such as remote access to digital systems, can lead to a loss of control, as the study shows. It is therefore essential not only to secure infrastructures against attacks or technical risks, but also to have a broader understanding of vulnerability - also in order to recognize weak points and dependencies: "Often, digitalization is carried out quickly without awareness of the longer-term consequences. In addition to cybersecurity, care must also be taken to ensure that security of supply and fundamental rights are not jeopardized," says Strauß. The ongoing digitization of societal infrastructures raises fundamental questions that are currently being renegotiated, he adds. Who controls infrastructures? What roles do state and private actors play in the provision of public services?  How can resilience be strengthened for secure basic services in line with fundamental rights and basic needs? "This is an issue we need to address so that we as a society do not become more vulnerable, but more resilient," says Strauß.

Links

ITA Study: Digitalization, Vulnerability and (Critical) Societal Infrastructures, Authors: Stefan Strauß, Steffen Bettin (in German)

"In 2009, the EU Cosmetics Regulation was adapted, with specific provisions for nanomaterials already introduced. Since cosmetics are so-called consumer applications, their safety is particularly important," points out Anna Pavlicek, co-author of the dossier.

To ensure the highest possible level of protection for consumers, the EU Cosmetics Regulation was adapted in 2009, with special provisions for nanomaterials introduced. These include the notification of cosmetic products containing nanomaterials to the European Commission, a comprehensive safety assessment, and the labeling of nanoscale ingredients on the product label. Cosmetics are the only consumer products with such regulations in the EU. In the U.S., for example, these regulations don’t exist to protect consumers.

"The rapid progress in technology now makes it necessary to adapt and update the regulations in order to continue to ensure the highest possible level of protection for consumers", Pavlicek continued.

The definition of the term "nanomaterial" in the regulation, the safety assessment procedure, the notification procedure and the method of labeling are now subject to review at the EU level.

Read more in the 61st NanoTrust dossier (German only)

"Today, digital tracking is standard operating procedure across the digital platforms that most of the world’s population use on an everyday basis. Digital tracking, e.g. through web cookies or sensor-based technologies, can be used for a vast array of purposes, including functionality and service optimization, surveillance, and new technological developments, and it serves a critical role in generating data to train machine learning models and other developments in AI. In this talk, I relate digital tracking to the backend material infrastructure of digital communication systems. I demonstrate that digital tracking enables the exercise of a specific kind of power, infrastructural power, which refers to the ability to exert control over the material underpinnings of an ecosystem. I suggest that infrastructural power is a foundational and increasingly important companion to other forms of power exercised in digital communication systems, and sketch ways to unpack its operational logics for the critical study of big tech and the political economy of data."

Stine Lomborg is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Copenhagen. She studies the role of media in everyday life and in broader social processes and contexts with focus on digital tracking and datafication. Her work addresses the meaning and implications of digital tracking and data-driven decisions for people and societies.

"This is a strong sign of life for parliamentary technology assessment. Together with its German partner, ITAS Karlsruhe, ITA advises the Austrian, and also the European Parliament with the aim of analyzing socio-technical innovations and including possible societal impacts," emphasizes Walter Peissl, Deputy Director of the Institute of Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The value of technology assessment in an international context has thus been proven once again. 

The European Technology Assessment Group (ETAG) currently includes institutions from Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Norway and Portugal.

"The drafting of the new version took six months of intensive transdisciplinary teamwork with the participation of ITA's NanoTrust project. Experts from BOKU, ÖSBS and the Central Labor Inspectorate were also involved. The result was an extended instruction manual, a so-called 'Merkblatt plus', for managers on the safe and responsible handling of nanomaterials. The guidance also includes a procedure for risk assessment of these materials. A version for direct application at special workplaces is to follow," says ITA researcher André Gazso about the extensive update of the leaflet.

The two ITA researchers Anna Pavlicek and Gloria Rose are also among the authors.

Download the fact sheet (German language only)

ITA researcher Astrid Mager has devoted the past decade of her research to examining the omnipotence of search engines and the influence of Big Tech on Europe. In her newly published dossier "European Search", she explains why digital independence is not so easy to achieve and what the EU can nevertheless do to ensure autonomy over our data, at least to a limited extent.

Throughout her prestigious Elise-Richter project, she has examined European search engine initiatives in detail: the privacy-friendly search engine Startpage, the peer-to-peer search engine YaCy and the Open Web Index Initiative, which calls for the creation of a publicly or EU-funded web index to enable independent search engines in the first place.

Download the dossier here: "European Search" - ITA Dossier No.70

AI requires new expertise

"Knowledge work involves problem-solving skills and requires the combination of existing knowledge based on expericence and new, practical knowledge. AI can make a constructive contribution here, whether in IT, education, medicine or journalism," explains project leader Stefan Strauß from the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

"However, in order to actually tap into this added value constructively, we need a completely new critical technical competence in companies in dealing with AI-based technologies," he emphasises. Because our knowledge about the technology also influences its practical use: "If we don't know enough about the functionalities, possibilities and limits of the technologies we work with, we run the risk of trusting them 'blindly'." Technical complexity and lack of transparency could lead to people no longer being able to understand and correctly interpret procedures and decision-making processes, says Strauß.

Experts call for more transparency

The research project, funded by the Austrian Chamber of Labour's Digitisation Fund Work 4.0, is therefore investigating how working practices in knowledge work are changing and is developing solutions to strengthen critical technical competence for the responsible use of AI-based technologies (Critical AI Literacy).

In a workshop on 21 March, experts from the field of work and technology discussed the associated challenges. The participants agreed that the oftentimes slow and unnoticed introduction of AI-based technologies makes it difficult to assess their opportunities and risks in companies. In order to objectify the discourse, both decision-makers and employees would need more knowledge about the real benefits and limits of such technologies.

Against the background of a global economy of data collection, the EU has adopted various regulations to strengthen the rights and freedoms of citizens. These include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the laws recently passed in the European Parliament, such as the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Service Act. "We are once again facing major technological upheavals, such as the increasing use of artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making systems, up to and including the use of quantum computers," emphasises ITA project manager Walter Peissl.

A new study, conducted by the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the Austrian Chamber of Labour, asks: How has the role of consumers changed, and how do European regulatory projects and the penetration of our everyday life with information and communication technologies influence the lives of consumers?

Click here for the project page

Further links

News: Algorithms in welfare: Social and transparent?
Podcast with ITA-researcher Astrid Mager: Hey Google! The almost limitless power of a search engine