Technology Assessment and Approaches to Early Engagement

Abstract

Technology Assessment (TA) emerged in the 1970s as a research-based policy-advising activity. During the 1980s, TA discovered technology development at the lab level as a subject of interest, reflection, and intervention. Since that time, TA as orientation for shaping new technology and innovation has been part of the overall TA portfolio. TA concepts and approaches to early engagement have been developed in different frameworks, e.g. as Constructive TA. In the last 10 years, a new wave of early engagement in TA occurred mainly in the field of new and emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, enhancement technologies, and synthetic biology. This wave led to many activities involving TA in early stages of development. In this chapter, we describe the most relevant approaches in TA aiming at early engagement. A deeper look will be presented into conceptual backgrounds that are specifically relevant to early engagement, such as concepts of technology determinism, social constructivism, and co-evolution. As a case study, we discuss an ongoing activity at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) where a major technological development in the field of new cement is accompanied by systems analysis and innovation research from its very beginning. This case allows specifically for discussing chances and opportunities of early engagement but also pitfalls and obstacles.