Constructive Technology Assessment Research Articles

Links between sustainability and technology development

This article presents important official statements on the role of technology in sustainable development, such as some supporting cleaner production, sustainable development strategy, and the Environmental Technologies Action Plan (ETAP) of the European Union (EU). The author shows that sustainability entails more than using environmentally friendly technologies and products to achieve economic growth. The framework of sustainability implies that the impacts of a technology should be assessed using methods such as Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) at the global and local levels to improve positive effects. The author refers to the case of pervasive computing as an area requiring such assessment.

Dwarfing the Social? Nanotechnology Lessons from the Biotechnology Front

Biotechnology and nanotechnology are both strategic technologies, and the former provides several lessons that could contribute to more successful embedding and integration processes for the latter. This article identifies some of the key questions emerging from the biotechnology experience and summarizes several lessons learned in the context of constructive technology assessment. This approach broadens the range of social considerations relevant to the sustainable development of nanotechnology and emphasizes the need for developing social tools for nanotechnology innovation while the technology is in its early stages of design.

Animal spare parts? A Canadian public consultation on xenotransplantation.

Xenotransplantation, or the use of animal cells, tissues and organs for humans, has been promoted as an important solution to the worldwide shortage of organs. While scientific studies continue to be done to address problems of rejection and the possibility of animal-to-human virus transfer, socio-ethical and legal questions have also been raised around informed consent, life-long monitoring, animal welfare and animal rights, and appropriate regulatory practices. Many calls have also been made to consult publics before policy decisions are made. This paper describes the Canadian public consultation process on xenotransplantation carried out by the Canadian Public Health Association in an arm's length process from Health Canada, the ministry overseeing government health policy and regulation. Focusing on six citizen for a conducted around the country patterned after the citizen jury deliberative approach, the paper describes the citizen panelists' recommendations to hold off on proceeding with clinical trials and the rationales behind this recommendation. The consultation process is discussed in the context of constructive technology assessment, a framework which argues for broader input into earlier stages of technology innovation, particularly at the technology design stage.

Assessing a controversial medical technology: Canadian public consultations on xenotransplantation

A policy question was posed in 2001 to Canadian publics: should Canada proceed with clinical trials on xenotransplantation and if so, under what conditions? As part of its development of policy and regulations on this medical technology, Health Canada and the Canadian Public Health Association implemented a public consultation process that included a public opinion survey and deliberative citizen fora modeled along the citizens' jury. This study focuses on the citizen fora and describes an assessment of effectiveness based on an evaluation framework developed on the basis of concepts from constructive technology assessment and deliberative democracy.

Towards New Forms of Participatory Technology Development

Technical change is crucial for sustainable development. Yet, it is unclear what kind of technology policy would suit such development. In this article constructive technology assessment (CTA) is offered as a model. CTA proposes broadening design by bringing together all interested parties early on and throughout the design process. CTA activities are not automatically directed at substantive goals such as those incorporated in the notion of sustainable development. The purpose of CTA is to shape technology development processes in such a way that social aspects are symmetrically considered in the process itself. To evaluate and shape CTA processes three criteria are offered: anticipation, reflexivity and social learning. These criteria are applied to three case-studies to illustrate their usefulness.

Medical Technology Assessment: The use of the Analytic Hierarchy process as a Tool for Multidisciplinary Evaluation of Medical Devices

Most types of medical technology assessment are performed only after the technology has been developed. Consequently, they have only minor effects on changes in clinical practice. Our study introduces a new method of constructive medical technology assessment that can change the development and diffusion of a medical device to improve its later clinical effectiveness. The method, based on Saaty's Analytic Hierarchy Process, quantitatively supports discussions between various parties involved in technological development and diffusion. We applied this method in comparing a new blood pump with two competitors based on technical, medical and social requirements. These discussions changed the evaluators' perspectives, reduced diasagreements, and ended in a reliable evaluation of the pump's performance. On the basis of these results, adaptations were derived which improved the design and diffusion of the blood pump. This application shows the adequate potential of our method to steer technological development and diffusion of artificial organs.

Methodology for constructive assessment of IT-based systems in an organisational context

Even if painted in black and white, there is no doubt that the assumptions for the application of traditional approaches for user requirements specification are more or less unfulfilled. This indicates a need for evolutionary system development combined with constructive assessment throughout the life-cycle of an IT-based solution. A methodology for constructive technology assessment is presented, which 1) covers the entire system life-cycle; 2) has users from the application domain of the future system, or their representatives, as the target users of the assessment methodology; 3) enables constructive assessment during the development of an IT-based solution; 4) is applicable independently of the system development approach; and 5) provides users of the IT-based solution with information enabling them to decide whether or not to take the system into real-life clinical usage.

The construction of the techno-economic: networks vs. paradigms

This paper discusses the literature on `techno-economic networks' (TENs) and `techno-economic paradigms' (TEPs). The object of study in both literatures is some form of combination of the `technical' and the `socio-economic'; the phrase `techno-economic' thus points to the need to see that the widest variety of `actors' may be of significance for particular innovations. The literature on TENs has focused mainly on describing the emergence and stabilisation of specific innovations; the literature on TEPs has focused more on the issues and problems arising from the diffusion of highly `pervasive' generic technologies. The two perspectives thus constitute different ends of a spectrum regarding the formulation of research and policy issues. The central concern of this paper is to illustrate that, by maintaining a focus on innovation and by shifting theoretical registers between the TEN and TEP perspectives, a number of issues emerge around what we call the ` meso-level techno-economic': at the level of the nation, of national governments, of specific firms and organisations of particular scientific and technological disciplines, or of particular market arrangements and patterns of consumption. The paper explores some of the applications of the approaches to technological development in relation to the environment and constructive technology assessment (CTA); it concludes by presenting a possible framework for analysis of the meso-level.

The Techno-Economic: Perspectives for Analysis and Intervention

This paper compares the macro- and micro- analyses of techno-economic change. Arguing for perspectives which are sensitive to the local flexibility of innovation but which can also provide suggestions for policy and intervention, it describes and reviews the two major contributions: work on Techno-Economic Networks, and on Techno-Economic Paradigms. It is argued that the former has greater depth of analytical sensitivity, whilst the latter is more policy-relevant. Whilst there are approaches, such as Constructive Technology Assessment, which attempt to combine the two perspectives, these are seen as failing to retain sensitivity to the power differentials between key actors such as firms, experts, governing agencies or citizens' groups. The paper concludes by advocating attention to the ‘meso-level techno-economic’—the networks of institutions and actors at work in: geographically bounded systems of innovation; scientific and technological disciplines; firms, their strategies and linkages; and the nexus between production and consumption.

Traditional and Modern Technology Assessment: Toward a Toolkit

Technology assessment (TA) as a discipline includes rather different approaches and methods. Traditionally, the discipline has focused on forecasting, impact assessment, and policy studies. Later more process-oriented approaches, such as constructive technology assessment (CTA), were developed that were aimed explicitly at influencing the shape of new technologies. Although the new approaches have enriched the field of technology assessment, the scope and variety of the field has increased, particularly concerning its methods. These range from trend extrapolation and Delphi's to interventions in innovation networks and consensus conferences. This article aims to classify the approaches and methods of TA into a common framework. Distinctions are made between methods of analysis and intervention methods, and between methods functioning as project layout and mere tools. Some criteria are formulated for the choice of methods. In this way, the article attempts to increase the coherence of the field of TA, and to make it more transparent to nonpractitioners such as scientists and engineers, government employees, and members of civil movements.

Research in Philosophy and Technology. Vol. 15, Social and Philosophical Constructions of Technology ed. by Carl Mitcham

Book Reviews Research in Philosophy and Technology. Vol. 15, Social and Philosophical Constructions of Technology. Edited by Carl Mitcham. Greenwich, Conn., and London: JAI Press, 1995. Pp. xviii+423; notes, bibliog­ raphy, index. $82.50 (cloth). Philosophy and technology is an area of intellectual concern that has been closely linked to the interests of SHOT members through­ out the society’s history. Encouraged by Mel Kranzberg, SHOT has periodically hosted program sessions on the theme at its annual meeting and devotes a section of its annual bibliography to it; in­ deed, in 1974 SHOT awarded its Usher Prize to Carl Mitcham and Robert Mackey for their pathbreaking “Bibliography of the Philoso­ phy of Technology” {Technology and Culture 14 [April 1973]). It comes as no surprise that Mitcham, one of the leading scholars in this field of endeavor, has become the new editor of Research in Phi­ losophy and Technology, nor that this first volume under his editorship contains a number of items of interest to historians. The “construction” of technology (and its subsequent implica­ tions for society) is an issue of interest to philosophers as well as historians of technology and constitutes the primary theme section of the volume. Of the seven essays in this section, I found four to be of particular interest. Eduardo Aibar examines the Catalan civil engineer Ildefons Cerda’s mid-19th-century plans for Barcelona’s Eixample or extension beyond its then surrounding walls. Here town planning is analyzed as a form of technology, and the city is seen as a huge artifact subject to design and construction,just like any other machine or system. Aibar’s purpose in applying a “constructivist” approach is in part to respond to critics of constructivism, such as Langdon Winner, who have argued the shallowness of the approach due to its general failure to account for the social consequences of technological choice and its tendency to ignore “irrelevant” social groups. The Barcelona town-planning case suggests how an analysis of “the co-production of technology and society” (p. 15) can help us avoid lingering notions of technological determinism, while en­ gaging in the “politics” of technological change. Two essays, one byJosé Antonio López Cerezo and Mitcham and a second by Jesse Tatum, treat the issue of technology assessment. López Cerezo and Mitcham respond to the seemingly paradoxical question of how society can engage in independent or unbiased asPermission to reproduce a review published here may be obtained only from the reviewer. 122 TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 123 sessment of technology if indeed technology influences our collec­ tive societal values. Recognizing that any technological system consti­ tutes a complex social network, and drawing on Karl Popper’s suggestion that democracy entails not only the freedom to elect rep­ resentatives but to dismiss them as well, they suggest: “New technolo­ gies or new developments offamiliar technologies (ifan appropriate social assessment is to follow their adoption) should be designed so as to avoid producing unknown and irreversible transformation in social ways oflife” (p. 60). The idea here is to promote technologies that are relatively “benign” in terms of fundamental social transfor­ mation, open to subsequent social monitoring, and amenable to change and amelioration. Given the socially contingent nature of technological change, Tatum similarly argues the need for a more conscious and vigorous “constructive technology assessment” (CTA), one that recognizes, without alleging conspiracy, the implicit exercise of “political power” in technological choice. If we accept the constructed nature of technology, “there is room for attention to the process by which choices are made” (p. 106). What Tatum seeks through his call for CTA is a way to address legitimate demo­ cratic choices among alternative “forms oflife,” a phrase he borrows from Winner, and an answer to the question, “who else could we be?” (p. 108). Given the underdetermined nature of technology, one of the par­ ticularly intriguing questions for technology studies scholars is how society reaches “closure” on a given technology. In other words, given that a technological design might have been different, how did it come to take the form that it does? This is precisely the ques­ tion asked by contributors, many of whom are historians as well...

Managing Technology in Society: The Approach of Constructive Technology Assessment

Part 1: The Constructive Technology Assessment Discourse: Technology Assessment and Reflexive Social Learning: observations from the Risk Field, Bryan Wynne (Constructive) Technology Assessment: An Economic Perspective, Luc Soete. Part 2: Steering Technology is Difficult but Possible: The Danish Wind-Turbine Story: Technical Solutions to Political Visions?, Ulrik Jorgensen and Peter Karnoe Steering Technology Development Through Computer-Aided Design, Gary Lee Downey Risk Analysis and Rival Technical Trajectories: Consumer Safety in Bread and Butter, Fred Steward. Part 3: Experiments with Social Learning: Learning About Learning in the Development of Biotechnology, Jaap Jelsma User Representations: Practices, Methods and Sociology, Madeleine Akrich Technologies as Social Experiments. The Construction and Implementation of a High-Tech Waste Disposal Site, Ralf Herbold Pollution Prevention, Cleaner Technologies and Industry, Arne Remmen. Part 4: Constructive Technology Assessment - The Case of Medical Technologies: Why the Development Process Should Be Part of Medical Technology Assessment: Examples from the Development of Medical Ultrasound, Ellen B. Koch Social Criteria in the Commercialization of Human Reproductive Technology, Vivien Walsh Decision Structures and Technology Diffusion: Technical and Therapeutic Trajectories for Diabetes Care, Thea Weijers. Part 5: Analysis of Possibilities for Change: Technological Conception and Adoption Network: Lessons for the CTA Practitioner, Michel Callon Firm Strategies and Technical Choices, Rod Coombs. Epilogue: Managing Technology in Society: Toward Constructive Technology Assessment, Arie Rip, Thomas J. Misa and Johan Schot Index.

Managing Technology in Society: The Approach of Constructive Technology Assessment ed. by Arie Rip, et al

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 813 Managing Technology in Society: The Approach of Constructive Technology Assessment. Edited by Arie Rip, Thomas J. Misa, andJohan Schot. London: Cassell, 1995. Pp. xii+361; figures, tables, notes, bibliog­ raphy, index. £37.50 (hardcover), £18.99 (paper). Based on papers presented at a workshop on constructive technol­ ogy assessment held at the University of Twente in 1991, the essays in this volume present a yeasty if uneven selection of perspectives and case studies on how different technologies have been managed in the past and may hopefully be managed better in the future. This is social construction of technology with a public service mission. As with older paradigms of technology assessment developed during the 1960s and 1970s, the “constructive technology assessment” ad­ vocated by the editors of this volume is motivated by a faith that it is both necessary and possible to influence technological change in ways that serve society as a whole. But unlike older paradigms, con­ structive technology assessment does not view its primary mission as one of anticipating positive and negative effects of new technology on society and devising appropriate policy responses. Older approaches to technology assessment, the editors assert, are based upon a mistaken understanding of technology as a kind of outside force unidirectionally “impacting” society. Constructive technology assessment, by contrast, attempts to systematically take into account the “coproduction of technology and its effects” and ways in which “the social effects of any technology depend crucially on the way impacts are actively sought or avoided by actors involved in the development of technology” (p. 3). The emphasis is less on prediction than on how the ongoing shaping of technology over time can be done better by broadening the range of actors involved, integrating promotional and regulatory activities, enhancing com­ munication and dialogue, and facilitating social learning in the face of inevitable uncertainty. The bulk of the volume is devoted to case studies of the social and political shaping of a range of technologies in Western Europe and the United States. In one of the best essays in the volume, Fred Steward presents a rich account of why safety concerns prompted abandonment of chemical additives in dairy but not in wheat prod­ ucts in Great Britain during the 1920s. Ulrik Jorgenson and Peter Karnoe consider the surprisingly long-lived and problematical rela­ tionships between wind power and decentralist “folkish” social vi­ sions in Denmark dating back to the 1890s. As part of a critique of the after-the-fact character of much medical technology assessment and regulation, Ellen B. Koch describes how idiosyncrasies of medi­ cal research funding in the United States during the 1950s shaped development of medical ultrasound technologies for years after in ways that had little to do with the efficacy of alternative approaches. Other essays consider roles played by social factors and moraljudg­ 814 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE ments in hindering development of contraceptive technologies, the potential of computer aided design and manufacture to be used as a tool in constructive technology assessment, and the construction of a waste disposal site in which uncertainty is acknowledged and provision made for retrieval of wastes. The volume also includes discussions of roles that different theo­ retical and disciplinary perspectives can play in doing constructive technology assessment. Brian Wynne, for example, advances cultural theory ofrisk and technology as a tool for rendering social processes “more explicit and more avowedly negotiated” (p. 28). In otherwise quite different essays, Michel Calion and Rod Coombs both describe points of intersection between models of social construction devel­ oped by sociologists and evolutionary economics approaches. From a different angle, Luc Soete criticizes static economic notions ofmar­ ket failure as applied to technology policy and calls instead for a focus on “dealing with and adjusting to change” (p. 46). Not yet a rigorously worked out method for managing technology, the editors assert, constructive technology assessment can best be viewed as “a paradigm still under construction” (p. 347). Itself an engagingly modest invitation for participation, this statement re­ flects a real strength of the approach to understanding and manag­ ing technology put forward here. An appreciation of variety, an openness to diverse approaches, and avoidance of premature...

The past and future of constructive technology assessment

Constructive technology assessment (CTA) is a member of the family of technology assessment approaches. developed in particular in the Netherlands and Denmark. CTA shifts the focus away from assessing impacts of new technologies to broadening design, development, and implementation processes. Explicit CTA has concentrated on dialogue among and early interaction with new actors. The idea has been taken up by actors other than governments (consumers, producers). CTA implies a modulation of ongoing technological developments, and an understanding of the dynamics of such modulation is used to identify and briefly discuss three generic strategies for CTA: technology forcing, strategic niche management, and loci for alignment. Modulation activities are to be located in the broader issue of how our societies handle new technology at all. The established division of labor between promotion and control should be mitigated by sociotechnical criticism. This underlines the need for reflection on role and value profile of CTA agents.

Technology assessment: Product or process?

Technology assessment was originally conceived of as an analytic activity, aimed at providing decision makers with an objective analysis of effects of a technology. Early in the history of technology assessment, it became clear that assessment projects must involve multiple perspectives. In the United States, this led to stakeholder involvement in the analysis. In a number of European countries, however, forms of technology assessment developed in which the analytic product became of relatively minor importance compared to the interactive process: consensus conferences and constructive technology assessment developed as alternative forms. This article discusses four paradigms of technology assessment: the classical paradigm; the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) paradigm; public technology assessment; and constructive technology assessment. It concludes that the multiple views of technology assessment and its position between academia and politics lead to dilemmas for technology assessment organizations, especially after the demise of OTA. It stresses the importance of experimenting with various ways of conducting technology assessments and of addressing quality control.

SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT: THE MOBILE HYDROGEN FUEL CELL

Sustainable technology development implies large changes in technological systems. The illustrative process ‘hydrogen fuel cell in a boat’ is used here as an example of a learning process concerning a transition towards a hydrogen economy. Theoretically the concepts of constructive technology assessment, back-casting and social niche management are combined in this approach.

SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT: THE MOBILE HYDROGEN FUEL CELL

he central theme of this paper is how to influence technological development in the T direction of sustainability. This question will be approached from theoretical and practical points of view. Theoretically, the concept of constructive technology assessment is introduced, which aims to manage technological development in directions that are optimal with respect to social acceptance @aey Ouwens et al., 1987; Rip et al., 1995). This concept is combined with that of back-casting, i.e. starting from a desirable or unavoidable picture of the future and looking backwards towards the present situation (Jansen and Vergragt, 1993; for back-casting in industry, see Wang and Guild, in press). Practically, the example of the hydrogen economy will be taken as an illustration. Hydrogen is often considered as the energy carrier of the future: if it is generated by solar cells, wind energy or other non-fossil fuel sources, it can be burned without introducing toxic substances into the atmosphere (Quakernaat, in press). In this context one specific example has been taken: the polymer fuel cell. In this cell hydrogen is chemically combined with oxygen, providing water and an electric current at relatively low temperatures. This type of fuel cell seems to be an appropriate candidate for a power source for personal transportation, such as cars and buses (Prater, 1990; Mallant and Koene, 1993). The polymer fuel cell has been taken as an example (an illustrative process) by the programme Sustainable Technological Development. In this Dutch interdepartmental research programme it is investigated how, starting from a sustainable futural vision, technologies could be developed and implemented that fulfil the necessary functions while at the same time being sustainable (Jansen and Vergragt, 1992; Vergragt and Jansen, 1993). ~

European innovation policy for environmentally sustainable development: Application of a systems model of technical change

Abstract Technical change is described using a systems model that focuses on four important characteristics: multi‐directional linkages, knowledge and learning, unique development paths and cumulative self‐reinforcing development. The model is then applied to the goal of environmentally sustainable development in order to determine the implications for policy at the level of the European Union (EU). The European Commission should use direct regulation, economic instruments, procurement and social policies to guide the direction of technical change. The systems model also suggests policy options for dealing with potential or existing lock‐in to undesirable technologies. Overall, the responsibilities of the European Commission should include the co‐ordination of long‐term regulatory signals and support for the development and diffusion of favourable technologies, constructive technology assessment and international co‐operation. Aspects of the proposed Fourth Framework Programme of relevance to environmentally sustainable development are discussed.

Sustainable technological development: the making of a Dutch long-term oriented technology programme

Since 1993 a new Dutch technology programme—Sustainable Technological Development—has been in operation which is sponsored by five government ministries. On a time scale of 50 years, research is started to investigate the possibilities of new technologies or technical systems that fulfil human needs as well as the requirements of sustainability. The scope of the programme is to illustrate how to initiate new technological trajectories and systems by articulation of functions to meet un- articulated long-term future demands to fulfil societal needs. The programme is analysed as a case of Constructive Technology Assessment initiated by the government and aimed at a long time scale.

Constructive Technology Assessment and Technology Dynamics: The Case of Clean Technologies

A synthesis of neo-Schumpeterian evolutionary, sociological, and historical coevolution ary models could be used for constructive technology assessment, aimed at the active management of the process of technological change. This article proposes a synthetic quasi-evolutionary model, in which variation and selection are neither independent nor coincidental processes. Variation and selection are linked by actors, resulting in the actor role labeled technological nexus. On the basis of the quasi-evolutionary approach, three constructive technology assessment strategies are proposed: stimulating alternative variations, changing the selection environment, and creating or utilizing technological nexus. The usefulness of these concepts is demonstrated for the case of clean technolo gies. Ultimately, a conscious application of these strategies could result in a new actor role for government as a creative social regulator of technological change.