Biotechnological applications in animals are increasingly developed for use in agriculture and aquaculture to tackle breeding challenges in animal production. By examining two case studies of genetically modified (GM) farmed animals relevant to the European Union, slick-haired cattle and growth-enhanced carp, we highlight the challenges for environmental risk assessment and discuss available assessment approaches to address broader societal concerns. We find that the existing guidance for environmental risk assessment of GM animals available in the European Union faces several challenges. Assessing risks of GM animals in agriculture and aquaculture requires consideration of the farming systems of these animals. In addition, we find that there is a lack of guidance and practical implementation to address wider issues, including cultural, societal, ethical, and socio-economic issues, as well as animal health and welfare issues, related to GM farmed animals. We propose using existing assessment frameworks to address the sustainability of GM farmed animals beyond environmental risk assessment. Sustainability assessment approaches should also address potential farm-level sustainability claims of GM animal applications. We note that issues related to animal health and welfare are cross-disciplinary topics that require special attention when commercializing GM farmed animals. We recommend developing a comprehensive framework, including risk assessment, sustainability assessment, and technology assessment, that will enable policymakers to better anticipate and address the societal, legal, ethical, and governance issues associated with emerging biotechnologies in farmed animals.

In recent years, the interest in developing genetically modified microorganisms (GMMs), including GMMs developed by genome editing, for use in the environment has significantly increased. However, the scientific knowledge on the ecology of such GMMs is severely limited. There is also little experience at the hands of regulators on how to evaluate the environmental safety of GMMs and on how to assess whether they provide sustainable alternatives to current (agricultural) production systems. This review analyzes two different GMM applications, GM microalgae for biofuel production and nitrogen-fixing GM soil bacteria for use as biofertilizers. We assess the challenges posed by such GMMs for regulatory environmental risk assessment (ERA) against the background of the GMO legislation existing in the European Union (EU). Based on our analysis, we present recommendations for ERA and the monitoring of GMM applications, and in particular for the improvement of the existing EU guidance. We also explore whether existing approaches for technology assessment can provide a framework for the broader assessment of GMM applications. To this end, we recommend developing and implementing an evidence-based sustainability analysis and other methods of technology assessment to support decision making and to address broader societal concerns linked to the use of GMM applications in the environment.

Three years ago, the sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic challenged academia just like any other societal field, while at the same time putting science center stage. Media attention tended to focus on particular disciplines, such as epidemiology and microbiology, and on individual, mostly local, experts. Based on the idea that science as a global, multidisciplinary community has something to offer society beyond the highly specialized output of individual research fields prepared for local, short-term perspectives, the Institute of Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences launched a spontaneous expert survey in June 2021 with a global and interdisciplinary aspiration, addressing three non-standard issues related to the pandemic and its management: side effects, opportunities, and preparedness. In this paper, we present our methodology and the results of our analysis. We conclude with a discussion of potential contributions of technology assessment in times of sudden, global crises.

Wissenschaftliche Politikberatung bedient die Schnittstelle von Wissenschafts- und Politiksystem, wie sie sich in modernen Gesellschaften ausgeprägt hat und institutionell wie diskursiv kontinuierlich stabilisiert wird. Sie ist somit unvermeidlich in der Situation, zwei gesellschaftliche Systeme miteinander zu verknüpfen und zugleich an deren fortwährender Differenzierung mitzuwirken. Wie diese Aufgabenstellung und die ihr immanente Paradoxie im Detail verstanden und prozessiert werden, hängt dabei von systemischen wie individuellen Faktoren ab: Wie sieht die institutionelle Landschaft in diesem Kontext aus? Welche bindenden Verfahren, welche politischen Traditionen gibt es? Wie positioniert sich eine Beratungsinstitution in dieser institutionellen Landschaft? Welche allgemeinen Prioritäten setzt sie und welche Paradigmen vertritt sie?

Over past decades, the notion of policy advice in technology assessment (TA) has widened, going beyond traditional advice in the form of expert opinions by adding a broad range of brokerage activities. Concomitantly, the roles of scientific policy advisors have diversified.Based on an empirical study of advisory practices at the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, we ask which advisory roles TA practitioners adopt. Our study shows that practitioners take up multiple roles: the decisionist advisor, the deliberative practitioner, the governance facilitator, the engaged academic, and the agenda-setter. These roles vary, inter alia, in the dominant modes of policy advice and the aspired function in politics and society and correlate with specific project and advisory constellations but also with paradigmatic beliefs of TA practitioners. Our analysis further exemplifies how these roles differ in a) the reference to and interpretation of core principles such as scientificity, neutrality and relevance and b) their strategies of managing the boundary between science and politics. Thus, the article goes beyond the mere statement “TA has politics” by illustrating how the politics of TA manifests in distinct ways in different roles of TA practitioners in policy advice.

Systems and synthetic biology both emerged around the turn of this century as labels for new research approaches. Although their disciplinary status as well as their relation to each other is rarely discussed in depth, now and again the idea is invoked that both approaches represent ‘two sides of the same coin’. The following paper focuses on this general notion and compares it with empirical findings concerning the epistemic cultures prevalent in the two contexts. Drawing on interviews with researchers from both fields, on participatory observation in conferences and courses and on documentary analysis, this paper delineates differences and similarities, incompatibilities and blurred boundaries. By reconstructing systems and synthetic biology’s epistemic cultures, this paper argues that they represent two ‘communities of vision’, encompassing heterogeneous practices. Understanding the relation of the respective visions of understanding nature and engineering life is seen as indispensible for the characterisation of (techno)science in more general terms. Depending on the conceptualisation of understanding and construction (or: science and engineering), related practices such as in silico modelling for enhancing understanding or enabling engineering can either be seen as incommensurable or ‘two sides of one coin’.

Systems biology and synthetic biology are said to represent ‘two sides of the same coin,’ with systems biology focussing on understanding and synthetic biology on construction. This notion is based on the implicit assumption that understanding and construction (or science and engineering) are, in themselves, ‘two sides of the same coin.’ Moreover, synthetic biology has been framed as an approach that encompasses understanding as well as control, construction, and creation. In the’ talking’ and ‘doing’ of synthetic biology, one can discern a contemplative, interventionist, constructionist, and creationist stance. It is the aim of this paper to illustrate these stances in detail and to discuss more generally their techno-epistemic and socio-political implications.

In Darstellungen der neuen Nano-, Bio-, Info- und Kogno-Technowissenschaften wird häufig deren ,,weltverändernde Macht‘‘ beschworen. Man kann solche Formulierungen nun als ,,rein rhetorische Figur‘‘ abtun, sie als rhetorisch und selbstbestätigend werten oder auch als treffende Charakterisierung von Technowissenschaft verstehen. In letzterem Fall wird eine sehr spezifische Verknüpfpfung von Wissenschaft und Technologie, dem epistemischen und dem konstruierenden Bereich thematisiert. Der vorliegende Artikel widmet sich dieser Verknüpfung von theoretischer und empirischer Seite. Er stellt unterschiedliche technowissenschaftliche Ansätze dar ,,die Welt zu verändern‘‘—durch Kontemplation und Repräsentation, Intervention und Kontrolle, Konstruktion und (Neu-)Schöpfung. Der hybride Charakter von Technowissenschaften—so die weitere Folgerung—erschwert die praktische Trennung von Wissensproduktion und gesellschaftlicher Intervention und stellt somit Fundamente herkömmlicher Wissenschafts- und Technologiepolitik in Frage.

Der vorliegende Bericht widmet sich der Rekonstruktion unterschiedlicher akademischer „Biologien“ am Universitätsstandort Wien: was unter biologischer Forschung und Lehre verstanden wird, wie diese bezeichnet und realisiert werden, mit welchem Selbstverständnis und in welchen sozialen Formationen sie ausgeübt werden, war auch in den letzten Jahrzehnten einem fundamentalen Wandel unterworfen. Auf Grundlage von vier narrativen Interviews mit ProfessorInnen unterschiedlicher Wissenschaftsgenerationen wird die Bandbreite dieses Wandels skizziert und auf synchrone paradigmatische Unterschiede (insbesondere zwischen „organismischer“ und „molekularer“ Biologie) eingegangen. Daran knüpft eine Diskussion der Bedeutung dieses Wandels für die Governance von TechnoWissenschaft im Allgemeinen wie für die Technikfolgenabschätzung im Besonderen an.