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LeonhardHennen· JuliaHahn·
MiltosLadikas· RalfLindner·
WalterPeissl· RinievanEstEditors
Technology
Assessment in
a Globalized
World
Facing theChallenges ofTransnational
Technology Governance
Technology Assessment in a Globalized World
Leonhard Hennen · Julia Hahn · Miltos Ladikas ·
Ralf Lindner · Walter Peissl · Rinie van Est
Editors
Technology Assessment
in a Globalized World
Facing the Challenges of Transnational
Technology Governance
Editors
Leonhard Hennen
Institute of Technology Assessment
and Systems Analysis
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Karlsruhe, Germany
Miltos Ladikas
Institute of Technology Assessment
and Systems Analysis
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Karlsruhe, Germany
Walter Peissl
Institute of Technology Assessment
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Vienna, Austria
Julia Hahn
Institute of Technology Assessment
and Systems Analysis
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Karlsruhe, Germany
Ralf Lindner
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems
and Innovation Research
Karlsruhe, Germany
Rinie van Est
Rathenau Instituut
The Hague, The Netherlands
Eindhoven University of Technology
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
ISBN 978-3-031-10616-3 ISBN 978-3-031-10617-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2023. This book is an open access publication.
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents
Introduction: Technology Assessment Beyond National Boundaries .... 1
Leonhard Hennen, Walter Peissl, Julia Hahn, Miltos Ladikas,
Rinie van Est, and Ralf Lindner
Technology Assessment in a Globalized World
Tracing Technology Assessment Internationally—TA Activities
in 12 Countries Across the Globe .................................... 17
Julia Hahn, Nils B. Heyen, and Ralf Lindner
Technology Assessment in a Multilateral Science, Technology
and Innovation System ............................................. 31
Miltos Ladikas and Andreas Stamm
Challenges for Global TA
Globalisation as Reflexive Modernisation—Implications for S&T
Governance ....................................................... 53
Leonhard Hennen and Rinie van Est
Technology Assessment and Public Spheres in the Context
of Globalization: A Blueprint for the Future ......................... 75
Rinie van Est and Leonhard Hennen
Technology Assessment in Developing Countries: The Case
of India—Examples of Governmental and Informal TA ............... 101
Krishna Ravi Srinivas and Rinie van Est
Global Challenges and TA
Climate Change—Does the IPCC Model Provide the Foundation
for a Potential Global Technology Assessment Framework? ........... 127
Peta Ashworth and Elliot Clarke
v
vi Contents
Challenges of Global Technology Assessment
in Biotechnology—Bringing Clarity and Better Understanding
in Fragmented Global Governance .................................. 149
Sophie van Baalen, Krishna Ravi Srinivas, and Guangxi He
Artificial Intelligence—A New Knowledge and Decision-Making
Paradigm? ........................................................ 175
Lei Huang and Walter Peissl
Global Systems Resilience and Pandemic Disease—A Challenge
for S&T Governance ............................................... 203
Marko Monteiro, Florian Roth, and Clare Shelley-Egan
Outlook
The Shape of Global Technology Assessment ......................... 225
Miltos Ladikas, Julia Hahn, Leonhard Hennen, Rinie van Est,
Walter Peissl, and Ralf Lindner
Appendix: Technology Assessment Activities in Australia, Brazil,
Central Europe, Chile, China, India, Russia, South
Africa, South Korea, and the USA ........................ 237
Bibliography ...................................................... 269
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Dr. Leonhard Hennen is done Ph.D. in Sociology and a senior researcher at Institute
of Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis at KIT, Karlsruhe, until 2021. He is
a project manager at the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament
(1991–2006). From 2006 to 2021, he was the coordinator of the European Tech-
nology Assessment Group ETAG carrying out TA studies on behalf of the European
Parliament. He participated in several European projects on concepts and methods
of technology assessment.
Dr. Leonhard Hennen
Jennerstr. 37
D 53332 Bornheim, Germany
e-mail: leonhard.hennen@gmx.de
Dr. Julia Hahn has been a researcher at the Institute for Technology Assessment and
Systems Analysis (ITAS) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) since 2011.
She has experience working in several EU-funded projects, especially focussing
on small- and large-scale stakeholder and citizen engagement. Her research inter-
ests include participatory methods of technology assessment, interdisciplinary and
cultural perspectives of sustainability as well as responsible research and innovation.
She is also a co-coordinator of the globalTA network, which brings together 30 non-
profit institutions and think tanks from around the world working together in the area
of science and technology, promoting responsible and sustainable research and inno-
vation to tackle global grand challenges. She received her Master’s Degree Cultural
Sciences from Leuphana University Lüneburg and obtained her Ph.D. in Philosophy
at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology focussing on the conceptual and practical
implications of a global technology assessment, particularly in Germany, China and
India. Further developing a global framework for the assessment of impacts of (new)
technologies as well as how to provide concrete and relevant advice in this context
continues to be a focus for her.
vii
viii Editors and Contributors
Dr. Julia Hahn
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS)
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
c/o Schliemannstr. 46
10437 Berlin, Germany
e-mail: Julia.hahn@kit.edu
Dr. Miltos Ladikas is a senior researcher at the Institute for Technology Assessment
and Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. He has studied
social psychology with a focus on societal aspects in technological developments, and
since 1996, he has held research positions in UK and Germany specialising in science
and society issues. He has coordinated a number of international projects in the areas
of science and technology policy, technology assessment, ethics of scientific devel-
opments, public perceptions in science and technology, genetically modified foods
and access to pharmaceuticals. He advises the European Commission, the European
Research Council, the European and Developing Countries Clinical Countries Part-
nership and a number of National Research Organisations, on social-ethical issues in
Science and Technology developments. His current work focusses on global aspects
of technology assessment, responsible innovation, ethics in science and technology
policy, as well as science diplomacy.
Dr. Miltos Ladikas
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS)
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
c/o Schliemannstr. 46
10437 Berlin, Germany
e-mail: miltos.ladikas@kit.edu
Dr. Ralf Lindner is the head of Department Policy and Society at the Fraun-
hofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) in Karlsruhe. He received
his degree in political science and economics from the University of Augsburg,
completed graduate work at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) and
postgraduate studies at Carleton University (Ottawa). Since more than a decade,
he has been working on numerous research projects focussing on the political and
societal impacts of emerging technologies. In addition to his research in the area
of technology and society, Ralf Lindner has specialised in the analysis of science,
technology and innovation policy and governance.
Dr. Ralf Lindner
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI
Breslauer Strasse 48
D-76139 Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: ralf.lindner@isi.fraunhofer.de
Editors and Contributors ix
Dr. Walter Peissl is Deputy Director of the Institute of Technology Assessment
(ITA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) in Vienna. He studied business
administration and sociology at the University of Graz, where he received his diploma
in 1985. In 1992, he completed his doctoral thesis on the sociology of white-collar
workers. In 1988, he was one of the first scientific employees at the ITA’s predecessor
institution at the Academy of Sciences. The focus of his work is in the field of the
information society, digitization, the protection of privacy, participatory TA and other
methodological issues of technology assessment. He has also been involved in or even
led projects in virtually all subject areas of the ITA.
Dr. Walter Peissl
ITA—Institute of Technology Assessment
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Apostelgasse 23
Vienna, Austria
e-mail: wpeissl@oeaw.ac.at
Prof. Dr. ir. Rinie van Est is a research coordinator at the Rathenau Instituut, the
Dutch parliamentary organisation in the Hague. He has a university degree in applied
physics and public administration. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of
Amsterdam with his political science thesis ‘Winds of Change’ (1999) that examines
the interaction between politics, technology and economics in the field of wind energy
in California and Denmark. He is a global expert in the field of technology assessment,
politics of innovation and public participation. For more than twenty-five years, he
has been involved in the energy and digital transitions, with special attention to
the role of emerging technologies, such as robotics and AI. He is also a part-time
professor of Technology Assessment and Governance at Eindhoven University of
Technology.
Prof. Dr. Rinie van Est
Rathenau Instituut
Anna van Saksenlaan 51
2593 Den Haag, The Netherlands
e-mail: q.vanest@rathenau.nl
Contributors
Dr. Peta Ashworth is Director of the Andrew N. Liveris Academy for Innovation
and Leadership and Chair in Sustainable Energy Futures. For almost two decades,
Peta has been researching the intersection of science, technology and society, with
a particular focus on climate change and energy technologies. More recently, her
research has focussed on the development of a green hydrogen industry and how
that may help the world to decarbonise. Peta serves on a range of Advisory Boards
to government, industry and academia and is a keen participant of the globalTA
network.
x Editors and Contributors
Dr. Peta Ashworth
The University of Queensland
Andrew N. Liveris Academy for Innovation and Leadership
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Brisbane, St Lucia
QLD 4072, Australia
e-mail: p.ashworth@uq.edu.au
Elliot Clarke is a Ph.D. Candidate and Research Assistant attached to the School
of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland and
part of the Future Fuels Cooperative Research Centre (FFCRC). The purpose of his
thesis is to explore the role of deliberative processes in public perception and attitude
formation towards hydrogen energy. More broadly, he is interested in all matters
surrounding the environment, resource security, public engagement and policy, and
the sociology of technology.
Elliot Clarke
The University of Queensland
School of Political Science and International Studies
Brisbane, St Lucia
QLD 4072, Australia
e-mail: elliot.clarke@uq.edu.au
Dr. Guangxi He is a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science and Tech-
nology for Development (CASTED), which is a prestigious think-tank and research
institute in S&T policy studies under the Ministry of Science and Technology, P.R.C.
He is also the director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Society (ISTS) of
CASTED.
Dr. Guangxi He
Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development (CASTED)
No.8, Yuyuantan South Road
Haidian District
Beijing, 100038, China
e-mail: hegx@casted.org.cn
Dr. Nils B. Heyen is a senior researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems
and Innovation Research (ISI) in Karlsruhe, Germany, and coordinates the insti-
tute’s technology assessment activities. He studied sociology and psychology at the
Universities of Bielefeld, Hanover (both Germany) and Edmonton (Canada) and
did his postgraduate studies at the Institute for Science and Technology Studies
(IWT) at Bielefeld University. For more than a decade, he has been working on
numerous research projects in the fields of technology assessment and governance,
science studies, and innovation systems analysis, with a special focus on participatory
approaches, medicine and health care.
Editors and Contributors xi
Dr. Nils B. Heyen
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI
Breslauer Strasse 48
D-76139 Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: Nils.Heyen@isi.fraunhofer.de
Dr. Lei Huang is a postdoctoral researcher and a guest scientist in Institute for Tech-
nology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at Karlsruhe Institute of Tech-
nology (KIT). He received his Ph.D. degree from University of Chinese Academic
of Sciences (UCAS). His doctoral dissertation focusses on the economic mechanism
of personal data resource allocation and data governance of online social media plat-
forms. His research focussed on artificial intelligence governance, data governance,
responsible research and innovation, and open science, etc. Besides the formal publi-
cations, he also participated in the state-level and international research projects that
relate to big data and artificial intelligence governance, etc.
Dr. Lei Huang
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS)
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
c/o Schliemannstr. 46
10437 Berlin, Germany
e-mail: Lei.Huang@kit.edu
Prof. Dr. Marko Monteiro has a Ph.D. in Social Sciences (University of Campinas,
2005), with research on the governance of biotechnology. He has held postdoctoral
positions at the University of Texas at Austin (2006–2008) and the University of
Campinas (2009), both in Science, Technology and Society. He is currently Associate
Professor at the Science and Technology Policy Department, University of Camp-
inas, Brazil. His research interests include sociotechnical controversies, especially
related to deforestation monitoring; ethnographies of interdisciplinary scientific prac-
tice; and the governance of science and technology/RRI in Brazil. He is currently
conducting research on the Brazilian response to COVID-19 in a global compara-
tive project (CompCoRe—https://compcore.cornell.edu/). He is also the leader of
GEICT—Interdisciplinary Research Group in Science and Technology.
Prof. Dr. Marko Monteiro
Instituto de Geociências
Departamento de Política Científica e Tecnológica
Universidade Estadual de Campinas—UNICAMP
Cidade Universitária Zeferino Vaz—Distrito de Barão de Geraldo, Caixa Postal 6152
CEP: 13083-970—Campinas/SP, Brazil
e-mail: carambol@unicamp.br
Dr. Florian Roth is Senior Researcher at the Competence Centre Politics and Society
of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI. He studied polit-
ical science, history and arts and media at the University of Konstanz and Stockholm
University. In his dissertation at the University of Konstanz Florian Roth analysed
xii Editors and Contributors
political risk taking and risk communication processes in uncertain and complex
contexts. Before joining Fraunhofer ISI in 2019, Mr. Roth was part of the Risk and
Resilience Research Group at ETH Zürich, where he led several research projects
on strategies to foster societal resilience, among others related to natural hazards
management, climate change adaptation and sustainability. His work at Fraunhofer
ISI focusses on the links between innovation and transformative resilience in complex
sociotechnical systems.
Dr. Florian Roth
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI
Breslauer Strasse 48
D-76139 Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: florian.roth@isi.fraunhofer.de
Prof. Dr. Clare Shelley-Egan is Associate Professor at the Responsible Innovation
and Design division at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). She obtained
her Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Twente in 2011.
Clare’s research interests include ethics and governance of new and emerging science
and technologies; Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI); open science; public
engagement; research on research; and public health ethics. She has participated in
both national and European funded projects including the Horizon 2020 RRI-Practice
project (2016–2019) which she co-coordinated from 2018 to 2019. Her current
research foci include responsible investments, the implementation of open science
practices; and the organisation of responsibilities under governance frameworks such
as RRI.
Prof. Dr. Clare Shelley-Egan
Technical University of Denmark
Department of Technology, Management and Economics
Responsible Innovation and Design
Akademivej, 358, 169
2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
e-mail: clshe@dtu.dk
Dr. Krishna Ravi Srinivas is Senior Fellow and Consultant at Research and Infor-
mation System for Developing Countries (RIS) in New Delhi, India, and coordinates
science, technology and innovation-related research and activities and the Science
Diplomacy Program. He holds a Ph.D. on open-source models and innovation from
National Law School University of India, Bangalore.
Dr. Krishna Ravi Srinivas
Research and Information System (RIS)
RIS, Core IVB, IVth Floor
India Habitat Center
Lodi Road, New Delhi 110003 India
e-mail: ravisrinivas@ris.org.in
Editors and Contributors xiii
Dr. Andreas Stamm is economic geographer by training. Since 1998, he is working
in research, policy advice and postgraduate training at Deutsches Institut für Entwick-
lungspolitik (DIE)—German Development Institute. In his research, he focusses on
value chain development, sustainability standards and science and innovation for
sustainable development, including technology assessment.
Dr. Andreas Stamm
Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)
Tulpenfeld 6
D-53113 Bonn, Germany
e-mail: andreas.stamm@die-gdi.de
Dr. Sophie van Baalen is a senior researcher at the Rathenau Instituut in the Nether-
lands where she is involved with technology assessments of and public dialogue about
emerging medical technologies, such as germline genetic modification, medical inno-
vation and AI in health care. She holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Science, studying
the use of knowledge in clinical decision-making.
Dr. Sophie van Baalen
Rathenau Instituut
Anna van Saksenlaan 51
2593 Den Haag, The Netherlands
e-mail: s.vanbaalen@rathenau.nl
Introduction: Technology Assessment
Beyond National Boundaries
Leonhard Hennen, Walter Peissl , Julia Hahn , Miltos Ladikas ,
Rinie van Est, and Ralf Lindner
Modern societies are immensely permeated by technologies and thus also depen-
dent on them. Increasingly, this is also true for countries in the global South. As a
result, questions about the interdependencies of technology and society, the possible
mutual influences and the social governance of technology are becoming a global
challenge. In addition, innovation cycles have become shorter and shorter, and more
new products and services are being offered at shorter intervals. Many of these new
Contribution to: Technology Assessment in a Globalized World—Facing the Challenges of
Transnational Technology Governance.
L. Hennen (B) · J. Hahn · M. Ladikas
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,
Karlstr. 11, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: leonhard.hennen@gmx.de
J. Hahn
e-mail: Julia.hahn@kit.edu
M. Ladikas
e-mail: miltos.ladikas@kit.edu
W. Peissl
Institute for Technology Assessment, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Apostelgasse 23, 1030
Vienna, Austria
e-mail: wpeissl@oeaw.ac.at
R. van Est
Rathenau Instituut, Anna van Saksenlaan 51, 2593 HW The Hague, The Netherlands
e-mail: q.vanest@rathenau.nl
R. Lindner
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, Breslauer Str. 48, 76139 Karlsruhe,
Germany
e-mail: ralf.lindner@isi.fraunhofer.de
© The Author(s) 2023
L. Hennen et al. (eds.), Technology Assessment in a Globalized World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0_1
1
2 L. Hennen et al.
technological processes, products and services are provided primarily unchanged on
global markets, encountering societies with different cultures and socio-economic
conditions.
1 A Brief History of Technology Assessment
Since the 1970s, attempts have been made under the label of “Technology Assess-
ment” (TA) to scientifically investigate the possible effects of technological inno-
vations and, based on the findings, to advise civil society and political actors in
this regard (for an overview see, e.g. Grunwald, 2018; Vig & Paschen, 2000). From
a scientific point of view, TA is an interdisciplinary activity that responds to the
emergence of new scientific and technological developments, artefacts, processes,
services, societal problems and concrete policies, and attempts to identify the possible
effects on different areas of life. Particular emphasis is placed on unintended conse-
quences—the non-obvious is to be made visible through interdisciplinary exchange,
often involving stakeholders and those affected, and is thus made accessible for
evaluation.
There is currently no generally accepted definition of TA, but the definition used
in an international project on TA1 methods can be regarded as a sound basis:
Technology Assessment is a scientific, interactive and communicative process which aims
to contribute to the formation of public and political opinion on societal aspects of science
and technology. (Bütschi et al., 2004, S. 14)
This very general definition contains many aspects of modern TA. It goes beyond
“classical” informing (science to policy) and acknowledges that values and interests
influence technology development. Bringing stakeholders and the broader public on
board through TA processes also helps open up issues to public debate and to set
public agendas. This endeavour needs interactive settings and communicative skills
to bridge different perspectives and disciplines.
However, beyond a formal discussion, the mission of TA is clear: It is about
reflection on technological progress, which should be used to enable a scientifically
elaborated knowledge base for political decision-making, and social discourse on
questions of shaping futures in an increasingly technology-dependent world. Since
technological development is global, reflection on technological progress and gover-
nance needs to take a global perspective. However, a particular challenge is that the
social embedding of global technologies can lead to regionally, culturally and socially
different impacts. The effects of new technologies cannot be assessed independently
of the socio-economic environments they are used in, as there are no universal deter-
ministic impacts of a specific technology. So, the particular challenge for global TA
is to analyse global technologies, which are often uniform—with generic challenges
1 TAMI (Technology Assessment in Europe. Between Method and Impact) was a European project
from 2002 to 2003 focussing on providing a basis for discussions on the methods and impact of
TA. For details see: https://www.itas.kit.edu/english/projects_grun02_tami.php.
Introduction: Technology Assessment Beyond National Boundaries 3
for human beings and the environment—but at the same time to appreciate their
interdependent embeddedness in socio-cultural and socio-economic conditions.
Another challenge is that TA is primarily an element of policy advice, and policy
systems vary widely internationally. An example of this is provided by the different
forms of institutionalisation of TA in Europe. Although all full-member countries
of the European Parliamentary Technology Assessment network (EPTA)2 follow the
same, or very similar, models of parliamentary democracy, a colourful diversity of
institutionalisation forms and preferred methods is evident. On the one hand, these
are historically justified, but on the other, they are mostly highly functional and
tailored to the specific parliamentary system.
The beginnings of institutionalised TA can be located in the Office for Technology
Assessment (OTA) in the USA in the 1970s. In the founding law, the foundations for
and the demands on TA were formulated in a way that can still be regarded as valid:
To establish an Office for Technology Assessment for the Congress as an aid in the identifi-
cation and consideration of existing and probable impacts of technological application. […]
As technology continues to change and expand rapidly, its applications are […] increasingly
extensive, pervasive, and critical in their impact, beneficial and adverse, on the natural and
social environment. Therefore, it is essential that, to the fullest extent possible, the conse-
quences of technological applications can be anticipated, understood, and considered in
determination of public policy on existing and emerging national problems. […] It is neces-
sary for the Congress to equip itself with new and effective means for securing competent,
unbiased information concerning the physical, biological, economic, social, and political
effects of such (technological) applications. (United States Senate, 1972)
From the beginning, the need for policy advice was central: Congress wanted to
better exercise its control function vis-à-vis the executive branch, but was increas-
ingly confronted with studies that contradicted each other and lacked decision-related
information (see, e.g. Herdman & Jensen, 1997). The OTA relied on interdisci-
plinary, strongly scientifically oriented in-house expertise and the most compre-
hensive presentations possible. From the beginning, the OTA tried to enhance the
readability of its reports with the help of professional scientific writers. After 23 years
of practising TA for Congress, the OTA was closed in 1995. For a long and fruitful
period, the OTA served as the blueprint for TA internationally. “The OTA Legacy”3
describes the history of the OTA and presents all 700 reports.
Soon after the founding of the OTA, the discussion about TA started in Europe.
After lengthy discussions, several PTA institutions were established around the mid-
1980s, beginning in France, Denmark, the Netherlands, the European Parliament,
Austria, the UK and Germany. The European Parliamentary Technology Assess-
ment (EPTA) network emerged from these foundations. The second wave occurred
towards the end of the 1990s and a third in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Thus, EPTA now includes 25 parliamentary TA (PTA) institutions. Since the US
Government Accountability Office (GAO) became an associate member in 2002,
EPTA has extended beyond Europe. This process of global networking of PTA has
2 https://eptanetwork.org/.
3 www.princeton.edu/~ota/.
4 L. Hennen et al.
continued, with the admission of members from Japan, Mexico, Chile, South Korea
and most recently Spain and Lithuania.
In the 50 years since the first foundations of TA, both the social framework and the
political conditions for parliamentarism have changed. Thus, PTA has also evolved.
An overview of the institutionalisation of PTA and its development, especially in
Europe, can be found in Vig and Paschen (2000), as well as Cruz-Castro and Sanz-
Menéndez (2005), and more recently in Ganzevles et al. (2014), Est et al. (2015),
Klüver et al. (2015), Nentwich (2016), and Peissl and Grünwald (2021).
Even though its institutional focus still lies in the area of PTA, TA has differ-
entiated, addressing governments and establishing itself in academia. A chrono-
logical sequence of different concepts and approaches to TA shows that OTA’s
expert-oriented classical TA concept, with interdisciplinary project groups to develop
“unbiased information” as a basis for options for action, quickly developed further
into participatory TA, primarily in Denmark and Switzerland. Participatory TA
(pTA) recognises the social nature of technology and thus the importance of its
inherent values. Therefore, it includes a wide range of stakeholders and the general
public in the TA process (Durant, 1999; Hennen, 1999; Joss & Bellucci, 2002).
Other approaches, e.g. from the Netherlands, were particularly fruitful for academic
discourse on the further development of TA. Constructive TA (CTA) envisages an
active role for TA as an actor as early as possible in the technology development
process, mainly to introduce social issues (Genus, 2006; Rip & van den Belt, 1986;
Rip et al., 1995; Schot, 2001; Schot & Rip, 1996). The concept of real-time TA, intro-
duced in the USA in the 2000s, attempts to do something similar by early integra-
tion of social science knowledge into scientific and engineering ventures (Guston &
Sarewitz, 2002).
2 Technology Assessment and Its Relatives
In the international context, a particular success story is Health Technology Assess-
ment (HTA). HTA developed almost simultaneously from classical TA and pursues
the same fundamental goals in terms of policy advice on an evidence basis, albeit
restricted to medical products, interventions, therapies and preventive measures. The
formal definition of HTA reads like this:
HTA is a multidisciplinary process that uses explicit methods to determine the value of health
technology at different points in its lifecycle. The purpose is to inform decision-making to
promote an equitable, efficient, and high-quality health system. (O’Rourke et al., 2020)
The specialisation in health technology made it possible to reach a consensus on
methods and procedures and anchor them in the HTA community. An international
community emerged early on, now represented by the International Network of
Agencies for Health Technology Assessment (INAHTA), and Health Technology
Assessment international (HTAi). INAHTA has a membership of 50 agencies with
2100 staff from 31 countries, and HTAi has 82 member organisations, and over
Introduction: Technology Assessment Beyond National Boundaries 5
2,500 individual members from 65 countries worldwide. A detailed history of the
development of HTA and its organisations is described by Banta et al. (2009).
In contrast to the precise requirements posed in HTA, the world is confronted with
many highly complex issues, from managing and preventing conflicts to mitigating
global warming, dealing with increasing inequality which threatens the social fabric
on a global level, or new pandemics that threaten both our health and the global
economy. In all these challenges, Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) plays
a vital role as an essential factor in either causing or mitigating the problem. These
challenges are severe and require rapid coordinated action on a global scale. Many
technological developments require urgent global coordination, from digitisation to
gene editing, nanomaterials, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics.
However, while global interaction in economic and technical terms has increased,
we are faced with a lack of global governance. To address the global challenges and
govern the global development of technology, it is imperative to identify, assess,
discuss and regulate the impacts (e.g. societal, environmental, ethical or legal) of
STI in a timely manner. As this is the main focus of Technology Assessment, TA can
help support the global governance of technologies, find alternatives to problematic
applications or promote key technologies’ positive attributes.
While similar activities exist in many areas of the world, the term “TA” is often
unknown. These other “TA-like activities” range from research into the relationship
between Science, Technology and Society (STS), to more project-oriented consul-
tancy in environmental issues, such as the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
STS research to understand and clarify the relation of science, technology and society
splits in two basic directions—first, scientific understanding of the nature and practice
of S&T and, secondly, (similar to TA)—investigating more deeply into the impacts
and control of S&T, focussing on risks and benefits that might concern values such
as peace, security, community, democracy, environmental sustainability and human
values.4
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has been developed and strongly
promoted in Europe under the patronage of the European Commission. RRI takes up
several approaches and methods of TA and aims at creating a “transparent, interactive
process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each
other with a view to the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability
of the innovation process and its marketable products” (von Schomberg, 2011). A
considerable effort was made to understand the innovation process under the frame of
RRI, and to further advance its implementation with the help of concrete criteria and
tools through numerous European-funded projects (Owen et al., 2021). Even though
the new European funding frameworks (e.g. Horizon Europe) have shifted focus
towards “Open Science”, the more conceptual levels or “dimensions” of RRI remain
relevant, including for TA. These dimensions are procedural in their approach and
include anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion and responsiveness (Stilgoe et al., 2013).
Several discussions on whether RRI is a critique of TA (van Lente et al., 2017)or
whether TA should take on the role of a lighthouse for approaches such as RRI
4 Further reading: https://sts.hksharvard.edu/about/whatissts.html.
6 L. Hennen et al.
(Nentwich, 2017) have taken place. Further, activities in EU projects (RRI Practice5 )
have aimed to expand RRI to countries outside of Europe, such as India, China or
Brazil, which in turn raises questions of the value basis of the concept and how
this varies in different national contexts (Wong, 2016). This of course is also a key
question for a global TA.
Additionally, Foresight has evolved as an often- and widely used tool for strategic
planning and long-term decision-making. According to a well-established definition,
Foresight is a systematic, participatory, future intelligence-gathering and medium-
to long-term vision-building process aimed at enabling present-day decisions and
mobilising joint actions.6 Its roots go back to the early 1980s and took off in t he
1990s, as European and then other countries sought new policy tools to address
problems in their science, technology and innovation systems (Miles, 2010).
Finally, impact assessment is a way of dealing with the concrete effects of tech-
nological interventions in nature and society. A large international professional
community focussing especially on environmental impacts is organised in the Inter-
national Association of Impact Assessment (IAIA).7 Environmental Impact Assess-
ment (EIA), as a widely standardised tool, deals with the environmental implications
of concrete planning processes, mainly on a regional level. Through the evaluation
of many projects and their regional focus, it soon became apparent that, in addition
to environmental impacts, it was above all the effects on the social fabric and socio-
economic status that had to be taken into account. So, the Social Impact Assessment
(SIA) evolved. SIA is seen as a field of research and practice that addresses every-
thing associated with managing social issues throughout the project lifecycle (pre-
conception to post-closure). SIA has transformed from a regulatory tool to being the
process of managing a project’s social issues, used by developers, financiers, affected
communities and environmental licencing agencies (Vanclay, 2020).
Several activities at different levels are dedicated to the tensions, interdependen-
cies and opportunities between technology and society—both in the relationship and
its governance. They all have alliances, platforms, organisations and networks that
aim to establish professionalisation, exchange, further development and visibility
for the respective approaches. Of course, this also applies to TA. In addition to the
EPTA Network8 mentioned above, the TA network (NTA)9 of the German-speaking
countries is particularly noteworthy. In this network, 55 institutional members
from Germany, Austria and Switzerland work together. Within the context of these
networks ( e.g. EPTA, NTA), and wider international cooperation in projects such as
GEST,10 PA CI TA11 or RRI Practice, the wider importance of a global perspective
for TA activities has become more and more distinct over the years. Technologies
5 https://www.rri-practice.eu/.
6 http://www.foresight-platform.eu/community/forlearn/what-is-foresight/.
7 https://www.iaia.org/about.php.
8 https://eptanetwork.org/.
9 https://www.openta.net/.
10 https://www.itas.kit.edu/projekte_deck11_gest.php.
11 http://www.pacitaproject.eu.
Introduction: Technology Assessment Beyond National Boundaries 7
develop globally and have worldwide impacts; grand challenges go beyond national
boundaries, and assessments should take this into account.
3 The Need for Technology Assessment to Go Global
The first discussion on global TA was initiated with the book “Constructing a Global
Technology Assessment” (Hahn & Ladikas, 2019), which examined science and
technology policy systems, decision-making frameworks, priorities and values as
well as TA(-like) activities in various countries, such as Australia, China, India and
Russia. This discussion highlighted the existence of a “TA Habitat” (Hennen &
Nierling, 2015) as a prerequisite for the creation of a global TA. The Habitat
refers to the elements that are needed in order to have a functioning TA in the
national context, that can then be assimilated in the multilateral context. In detail, it
revolves around the decision-making structures, the public accountability system, the
existence of problem-oriented or hybrid research activities in the academic sector,
public awareness of STI issues and a wish to articulate societal implications in
policy-making.
More importantly, this first discussion arrived at an agreement on the parameters
that would help delineate the functions of a global TA. These include:
Political System: with a wide range from multi-party to one-party systems, from
liberal to authoritarian, from socialist to capitalist, from social welfare-oriented to
free market-oriented, etc., the political system of the country affects the type of
TA that can be undertaken. Disregarding extreme political systems that are not
conducible to any type of TA, the prevalent view is that any system that allows
freedom of expression and includes willingness to accept open debates is a good
candidate for inclusion in global TA. This also presupposes willingness to accept
different perspectives, and not simply to accept, or not, the most public forms of TA.
S&T Governance System: refers to the administrative setup around the STI
decision-making process, and in particular, how centralised or decentralised this
might be. The European Union’s multi-national (or transnational) governance
provides a good example of a multi-national organisation that can perform successful
TA at central level. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is another
example of TA-type activity at centralised global level.
Socio-economic Development Stage: refers to national STI priorities that are
closely connected to development needs and require particular types of technological
development. For instance, frugal innovation, i.e. low-tech innovation that is evident
in less developed regions, requires other approaches to assessment than the high-tech
innovation sector that TA usually focuses on.
National Values: refers to norms of behaviour and cultural specificities that are
key ingredients i n every STI debate. These must be analysed and understood in order
to identify their impact on decision-making and their role in developing a global TA.
8 L. Hennen et al.
Next to such conceptual thinking, the globalTA Network12 was founded with
the aim to concretely develop cooperation among researchers and institutions active
in research and advice on technology policy, and to establish long-term working
structures for a global TA. More than 30 members from across the globe represent
TA(-like) activities from non-profit institutions committed to developing a global
framework for the assessment of the impacts of technologies, facilitating global
cooperation and supporting anticipatory governance of new technologies in line
with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This book is a project of the
globalTA Network. The contributions here result from thorough discussions among
members of the network, in a process that has already strengthened its co-operative
links and potential. The next step is to analyse systematically the framework condi-
tions, opportunities and challenges for setting a global TA into practice. The book
can thus be regarded as a conceptual endeavour for further activities in the globalTA
Network.
4 The Book and Its Contributions
The contributions to this volume share an understanding that the development of
S&T, including its social and environmental consequences, can no longer reasonably
be dealt with solely on a national level. With a view to the economic, social and
environmental challenges ahead, and the growing interweaving of economic and
socio-cultural life around the globe, they regard globalisation as a reality in the
making and hold it to be a political task for the next decades to react to the urgent need
for democratic and open transnational modes and processes of global governance.
Indications of militant and aggressive nationalism, and authoritarian attempts to
prevent nation states and civil societies from open global interchange and socio-
political discourse are virulent and have been shocking the world again as work on
this volume was completed in early 2022. The contributors to this book are however
convinced that these tendencies do not offer any viable way to secure the future of
the globe. They hope in all confidence that in the long run these tendencies will not
prevail against the civil, cultural, professional, scientific and political communities
that constantly strive for open and equal interchange on just solutions for global
problems, leading to legitimate transnational decision-making. Holding that such
efforts towards processes and structures of global interchange and understanding
are all the more urgent, the present volume is a step in this direction in the field
of science and technology policy, and specifically in TA as an instrument through
which to base political decisions on the best knowledge available, and on inclusive
democratic deliberation on norms and values that can guide decisions.
Triggered by ongoing exchanges within the globalTA Network on the need and
options for better global cooperation in the field of TA, the volume explores what
globalisation means and can offer for our common efforts, and which parameters
12 https://globalta.technology-assessment.info/.
Introduction: Technology Assessment Beyond National Boundaries 9
have to be taken into account when jointly working for a global TA. This includes the
recognition of different cultures and understandings of scientific policy advice, and
hence different concepts of TA. It includes a reflection on the relevance of processes
of globalisation for both the mission and practice of professional TA practitioners. It
also includes a reflection on salient problems and fields of advanced development of
technologies and the possible contributions from TA. Finally, it includes a reflection
on structures of global discourse and decision-making, and ways for TA to respond
to these and bring our debate on ways and modes of improved cooperation to the
next level.
The volume starts (Part I) with an overview of the global state of play in our
professional community and the relevance of TA in international governance. In
the contribution by Julia Hahn, Nils Heyen and Ralf Lindner we—the global TA
community—try to validate our knowledge of practices of TA-related activities
worldwide. Based on interviews with colleagues from the globalTA Network, the
chapter describes and highlights current and relevant developments of technology
assessment (TA) across several countries and clusters these according to main areas
of activity or modes of institutionalisation. The focus of this chapter is on twelve
(mainly) non-European countries which are part of the globalTA Network: Australia,
Brazil, Chile, China, Czechia, India, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Slovakia,
Russia and the USA. This provides an overview of the heterogeneity of socio-
political systems which TA may relate to, and modes of institutionalisation that
characterise TA activities around the world. At the same time, a TA core becomes
visible: addressing potentials and risks of emerging technologies, reflecting ways of
doing responsible research and innovation, inclusion of stakeholders and the public
in assessment processes, and others. The supplement of the book provides brief
Country Reports that serve as an information pool to the overview chapter. In these
briefs, colleagues from the respective countries reflect on the state and challenges of
national TA activities.
Shifting from the national to the i nternational policy-making level, Miltos Ladikas
and Andreas Stamm identify TA’s role in the existing STI multilateral system and
localise it within existing global decision-making structures. The paper shows that a
wide spectrum of TA methodologies is employed at the United Nations and multi-
lateral agencies in their efforts to analyse the significance of new and emerging tech-
nologies for development. The paper concentrates on the United Nations Conference
on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), where TA is specifically commissioned as an
aspiration for the achievement of its development goals. It is especially the activities
related to the UN SDGs that promise options to overcome the numerous challenges
that TA faces when applied in developing countries. The chapter concludes with a
discussion of possible models for organising TA on a global level and discusses the
significance of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a role
model for an independent and effective global TA.
Part II of the book is dedicated to three challenges that TA faces when trying to
go global. Leonhard Hennen and Rinie van Est explore the dimensions and problems
of globalisation, as discussed in the scholarly literature of the last decades, to provide
10 L. Hennen et al.
a general reflection on the meaning of globalisation in the field of science and tech-
nology governance and identify the challenges of transferring TA activities to the
global level. Globalisation is understood here as an articulation of “reflexive moderni-
sation”, and thus features to a high extent “reflexive” problems of governance-
making, such as systematic uncertainties of knowledge and cultural diversity of
relevant values and norms. Great economic interdependencies as well as inequal-
ities, together with the fact that technological and environmental risks are largely
of global character and transcend the reach of national policy-making bodies, make
up the challenges of globalisation. TA is presented as an instrument tailor made for
reflexive governance, and thus as a natural support for politics under the conditions
of globalisation, if it manages to strengthen its global character.
TA as a democratic mode of policy advice has a strong relation and commitment
to the public sphere as a space to express and discuss common concerns and collec-
tive social interests. Rinie van Est and Leonhard Hennen reflect on the challenges
implied in relating TA’s activities to a global public sphere. The chapter’s reflections
follow the “all-affected” principle, which implies that TA should take into account
all kinds of people that are affected worldwide by science, technology and inno-
vation (STI). It first examines the relationship between TA and public spheres that
deal with the societal significance of STI from a national context, because both are
mainly approached from the point of view of national political decision-making. The
authors then reflect on public spheres in a context of globalisation and describe how
TA institutes, networks and activities are organised beyond national borders. The
exploration of the link between public spheres and TA in a global context leads to a
sketch of a blueprint for the future of global TA.
One of the main challenges for global TA is transferring the concept of TA as
democratic policy advice from its origins in the Western world to developing coun-
tries which not share the same cultural and political background and mainly do not
have the same economic capacities. Ravi Srinivas and Rinie van Est draw some
lessons for the transfer of TA from the example of India. The chapter provides an
overview of the TA landscape in India, as an example of TA in a developing country.
The authors start with a reflection on the role and relevance of TA for developing
countries in general. Focussing on the development of S&T governance in India,
where most TA-like activities and practices are organised by and for governmental
agencies, five examples of formally institutionalised governmental TA-like activities
are given: governmental TA-like capabilities for technological foresight in general,
for agricultural, medical and pollution abatement technologies in particular, and
finally the only government-organised participatory TA, regarding the introduction
of a genetically modified eggplant. In addition, three informal TA-like grassroots
activities are described. Concluding by reflecting on the TA landscape in India, some
lessons are drawn for the role and conditions for TA i n developing countries.
Part III of the book provides an exploration of four selected fields of tech-
nology, respectively, policy-making problems—climate change, biotechnology, arti-
ficial intelligence and the COVID-19 pandemic—that clearly show the need for and
the challenges of global governance, as well as global cooperation and interchange
Introduction: Technology Assessment Beyond National Boundaries 11
regarding the scientific analysis of the social significance and effects that emanate
from these fields and develop into global policy-making issues.
Climate Change can be regarded as the most serious challenge for global policy-
making and is an ongoing exercise in finding ways to globally shared strategies
for solutions. Peta Ashworth and Elliot Clarke explore the structure, practices and
methods of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a legitimate
scientific institution, and its interplay with the global political decision-making forum
of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). By
examining the successes and shortfalls of the IPCC process and comparing t hese with
TA theory and practice, they investigate whether such an institutionalised process
of co-design between governments and researchers could serve as a potential global
TA model. They identify central challenges of the IPCC process related to questions
of political impact, pursuit of consensus, trust and accessibility of information. The
authors argue that there is potential for each of these problems to be addressed
using existing analytical TA frameworks, resulting in more authentic and accepted
outcomes from a global governance perspective.
Biotechnology involves the use and manipulation of living organisms such as
plants, animals, humans and biological systems or parts of this, to modify their
characteristics in order to create desired organisms or products. Biotechnology is
a field that touches on many aspects that are central to TA and have been in its
focus since the 1980s. By presenting three key topics in biotechnology—genetically
modified food and crops (GMO), synthetic biology and human genome germline
editing (HGGE)—Sophie van Baalen, Ravi Srinivas and Guangxi He show that a
central feature of biotechnology is that the science is evolving globally and the
products it brings forth are traded across the globe. But as is typically the case for
modern technologies nowadays, there are major differences between the regulation
and governance of the academic and industrial sectors across countries. These stem
from different needs and interest per country, as well as differences in traditions,
cultural differences and public perceptions. As global governance is fragmented,
with little scope for harmonisation, global TA of biotechnology can bring clarity,
better understanding and enable better governance. In order to do so, an integrated
global TA framework should consider international trade, differences in risk assess-
ment, cultural variation and different value-systems between countries, as well as
differences in countries’ capacities in R&D and coordination of public engagement
efforts.
Based on a large scale of technology application scenarios, artificial intelligence
(AI) is expected to have disruptive impact on economies and societies. Lei Huang
and Walter Peissl argue that breakthroughs have been made recently in basic research
on the fundamental technologies, so that AI is showing greater potential to become
a general-purpose technology. In the domain of TA, research on AI and its potential
impacts has been considered early. The research questions, which include impacts on
the workforce as well as on societal communication and democracy, and fundamental
issues such as responsibility, transparency and ethics have drawn widespread atten-
tion from TA studies. The chapter presents a scholarly discussion of AI topics in the
12 L. Hennen et al.
context of TA, based on a qualitative analysis of AI policy databases from the Organ-
isation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European
Parliamentary Technology Assessment (EPTA) network. The analysis concludes that
enhancing global cooperation in TA will contribute to addressing fundamental ethical
and societal issues of AI, which in turn broadens the knowledge base and helps to
pave the way for more inclusive and just use of AI.
A recent case showing the need for concerted global governance to increase
social resilience to crisis is the COVID-19 pandemic. Marko Monteiro, Florian
Roth and Clare Shelley Egan examine the governance of health technologies during
the COVID-19 pandemic. They reflect on three interrelated challenges that need
to be addressed in future assessment approaches for achieving systemic resilience:
problems of scale, trust and politics. The chapter focuses on digital surveillance
technologies and vaccines; two cornerstones in the efforts to mitigate the spread of
SARS-CoV-2 around the globe. Tracing apps were introduced in many countries,
but their effectiveness has been constrained by issues of data privacy, insufficient
interoperability and digital inequalities. In parallel, a global research race enabled
the development of different vaccines with unprecedented speed, building on inno-
vative biotechnologies. However, vaccination worldwide was marked by disparities
in access and controversy. The authors conclude that governance and assessment
should be built around strong international coordination and cooperation, without
limiting local experimental learning and innovation. Further, public trust should be
considered as a necessary condition for the success of any technological innovation
in the health context. As trust in policymakers, academia and industry is strongly
context-specific, global governance should also be sensitive to the diversity of social
and cultural contexts. Finally, to improve overall systemic resilience, global power
imbalances should be addressed in all phases of the innovation process.
The concluding chapter (Outlook) draws tentative conclusions from the findings
of these contributions with regard to possible future ways to organise TA on a global
scale. These considerations comprise a discussion of possible organisational shapes
that can support the global interchange and sharing of TA capacities and increase its
political relevance and operability on a global level. Beyond such medium- and long-
term aspirations, the outlook reflects on more short-term practical steps that could
be taken within the globalTA Network to improve interchange of knowledge and
expertise, engage in joint projects and mutually foster analytical and methodological
capacities.
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Technology Assessment in a Globalized
World
Tracing Technology Assessment
Internationally—TA Activities in 12
Countries Across the Globe
Julia Hahn, Nils B. Heyen, and Ralf Lindner
1 Introduction
This chapter describes and highlights current and relevant developments of tech-
nology assessment (TA) across 12 countries within the globalTA network1 and clus-
ters these according to their main areas of activity. Overall, we understand TA as a
“scientific, interactive, and communicative process which aims to contribute to the
formation of public and political opinion on societal aspects of science and tech-
nology” (Bütschi et al., 2004, 14). This involves various approaches and methods,
including scientific assessments, policy analysis, and participatory processes, which
are used to understand the societal implications of technology and innovation in a
multitude of dimensions, thereby taking into account the different cultural contexts
in which technology development unfolds. TA as a term is not necessarily used alike
in different national contexts. Instead, other approaches such as ELSA/ELSI (ethical,
legal, and social aspects/implications), Responsible Innovation (RI) or Responsible
Research and Innovation (RRI), sustainability studies, societal effects of science and
1 https://globalta.technology-assessment.info/.
Contribution to: Technology Assessment in a Globalized World—Facing the Challenges of
Transnational Technology Governance.
J. Hahn (B)
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe Institute of
Technology (KIT), Schliemannstr. 46, 10437 Berlin, Germany
e-mail: Julia.hahn@kit.edu
N. B. Heyen · R. Lindner
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI, Breslauer Strasse 48, 76139
Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: Nils.Heyen@isi.fraunhofer.de
R. Lindner
e-mail: ralf.lindner@isi.fraunhofer.de
© The Author(s) 2023
L. Hennen et al. (eds.), Technology Assessment in a Globalized World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0_2
17
18 J. Hahn et al.
technology (S&T), etc., may be more common (Hahn & Ladikas, 2019). Looking
at different national contexts allows for a detailed view of these activities regarding
the interrelation of S&T and public/political/societal settings, and to frame these as
TA or “TA-like”. By tracing current TA or “TA-like” activities in selected coun-
tries across the globe, this chapter highlights several developments, initiatives, or
methods, which are relevant for a global perspective on TA. In order to remain in the
scope of this volume, the focus of this chapter is mainly on non-European countries,
especially because the European TA landscape has been extensively described and
analyzed elsewhere (e.g., Hennen & Ladikas, 2019). Since the globalTA network
unites researchers and institutions from around the world working in the area of TA,
members of the network were invited to share practical insights into their activities.
This provides a unique impression of TA-like activities in Australia, Brazil, Chile,
China, Czechia, India, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Slovakia, and the
USA.
The starting point for this chapter was to conduct interviews (JH, NH) with glob-
alTA network members in each of the 12 countries, which enabled discussions
about current activities and developments. The interview partners then provided
brief reports outlining the situation of TA in their respective national settings (see
Country Reports, in the supplement of this volume). The Country Reports all follow
the same structure including, (i) the country-specific context, (ii) specific highlights
of TA activities (e.g., projects, technologies, and methods), and (iii) outlook and
challenges regarding TA in the national setting, and the potential for a global level of
TA. Based on these Country Reports, this chapter clusters and localizes the country-
specific TA activities (Sect. 2) and reflects on what can be learned from this global
analysis (Sect. 3).
2 Mapping of Country-Specific TA Activities
The Country Reports were analyzed and clustered with regard to the various modes
of institutionalization of TA. We build on the three main areas of parliamentary TA
that have been identified in the European TA landscape (Hennen & Ladikas, 2019,
62): politics (committee model of TA), science (office model of TA), and the public
(interactive model of TA). These areas show various manifestations of TA practices,
strongly characterized by specific political cultures, yet TA institutions are often
active in all three areas. For the global context, we expanded the TA activities to
be considered, focusing not only on parliamentary TA. This expands the original
TA landscape from the European context to consider TA activities in an international
context that are not necessarily termed as “TA” and are embedded in different institu-
tional settings. In addition, in a context in which TA is emerging there may not be an
institutionalized form (yet). Corresponding with the definition of TA as an interactive
and communicative process, this broader view enables a range of different actors and
activities to be considered. We used the three areas (politics, science, and public) as
Tracing Technology Assessment Internationally—TA Activities … 19
POLITICS
SCIENCE
PUBLIC
Parcipatory TA
Acvies,
Networks
TA O ffices
TA Agencies RRI/RI Oriented
Research
USA
Korea
USA
India
Chile
Poland
Korea
South
Africa
Brazil
China
Australia
Scienfic TA
Russia
Czechia
Slovakia
Modes of Instuonalizaon of TA(-like) Acvies
Fig. 1 Modes of institutionalization of TA (-like) activities in the 12 countries
a starting point, but considered wider areas of TA activities and application, such as
research programs, networks, or government ministries.
Based on the expert interviews and Country Reports, we identified five main areas
of TA activities—or five modes of institutionalization of TA—in the 12 countries
(see Fig. 1):
(a) A distinct TA office, which is the institutionalization mode closest to Politics,
whether in the f orm of government ministries or the parliament;
(b) Research funding programs of government ministries that are oriented toward
responsible (research and) innovation (RRI or RI), localized between politics
and science;
(c) Scientific institutions conducting TA, which is the institutionalization mode
closest to science with its main function in research and education;
(d) Participatory TA activities and networks, which often include NGOs, think tanks
or other civil society actors, therefore, being close to public; and
(e) TA agencies or government ministries that are oriented toward the public and
can, therefore, be located between politics and public.
Figure 1 shows where the country-specific TA activities described in this chapter
can be located in terms of institutionalization. In some countries, a variety of TA
activities take place, thus these countries are located in more than one area of institu-
tionalization. This is a first account of clustering TA across different national contexts,
and deeper analysis of the specific socio-political contexts, institutional settings and
formation of TA in each country would be a necessary next step in order to gain a
more in-depth picture. Yet, this first clustering can provide some insights into the
aspects that are important for TA to emerge and then institutionalize, and provides
first indications of which actors may be important in these processes. In the following,
20 J. Hahn et al.
we present some of these insights and provide more details on the localization of the
country-specific TA activities, drawing on the Country Reports (Fig. 1).
Politics
TA’s origins at the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) as part of the US Congress
in the 1970s, together with current networks such as the European Parliamentary
Technology Assessment (EPTA) understand TA as an integral part of scientific policy
advice and democratic parliamentary decision-making. This “Parliamentary TA” can
be found in several countries examined here.
In the USA (cf. Guston, in this volume), for instance, there is a group of experts at
the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which mainly serves the US Congress
and is led by the US Comptroller General, with responsibility for auditing and eval-
uation. Some connections to TA can be found, even though this is mostly attached to
the expert mode of practice, in the tradition of OTA. As described in the US Country
Report, GAO has emerged as a small but well-regarded TA capacity which has
provided reports on various technologies (recently 5G, CRISPR, climate tech, and
health), as well as reports focused on more concise and decision-centered information
and communication at the parliamentary and government level.
In South Korea (cf. Choi, in this volume), parliamentary TA activities have also
been taking place in a formalized way for some time. The Ministry of Science
is responsible for TA, and within the Korea Institute of Science and Technology
Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP), studies and reports on specific technologies are
published each year, with the results reported to the Presidential Advisory Council
on Science and Technology (PACST). In this way, TA findings are potentially incor-
porated into policymaking and budget planning. Experts carry out TA analyses on the
effects and issues of emerging technologies, and a Citizen Forum discusses impli-
cations and impacts (see “public” paragraph below). According to the analysis in
the South Korean Country Report, the future of TA development should focus on
simplifying the TA process in order to be able to evaluate more technologies per
year, and on raising general awareness of TA through new media. The opening up
and diversifying of methods such as the Citizen Forum can be seen as an important
development in South Korea to widen the perspectives of parliamentary advice.
We also find a clear location of parliamentary TA within the political system in
Chile (cf. Weidenslaufer and Roberts, in this volume). The Parliamentary Technical
Advisory Service (Asesoría Técnica Parlamentaria, ATP-BCN) was created in 2007,
and is made up of forty researchers and advisors from various fields. They support
legislative committees on a permanent basis and provide assessment of comparative
law, comparisons of public policies, and assessments of technical aspects subject
to regulation and their societal relevance. As described in the Country Report, in
Chile, there is a renewed interest toward science in the public debate (e.g., due to
COVID-19). In turn, ATP-BCN has established networks and protocols with scientific
experts and parliamentary decision-makers. In 2020, a new task force was created to
promote TA methodologies and products among ATP-BCN researchers and advisors
(“Scientific Legislative Advisory”, ACL), showing an increase in TA as a scientific
activity.
Tracing Technology Assessment Internationally—TA Activities … 21
In Poland (cf. Soler et al., in this volume), the Bureau of Research of the Polish
Parliament (Biuro Analiz Sejmowych, BAS) was established in 1991, and is the
leading national institution specializing in legislative aspects of TA. The Polish Asso-
ciation for Technology Assessment (PTOT) works on the development of new TA
concepts and the improvement of research methods and tools. The various activities
of TA, mainly in academic fields, are brought together through PTOT.
Besides this clear location within the parliamentary system, there are TA (-like)
activities in agencies and think tanks with close proximity to ministries and govern-
ment. In India (cf. Srinivas, in this volume), the Technology Information, Fore-
casting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) is an organization under the Department
of Science & Technology. It has developed the “Technology Vision 2035” (a strategy
paper describing S&T focus areas) and has supported innovation-related programs
dealing with intellectual property rights, technology development, and commercial-
ization. Yet overall, according to the Country Report, activities in India cannot neces-
sarily be classified as “Technology Assessment”. “Technology evaluation”, “impact
assessment”, and “techno-economic study/assessment” are some of the terms used
in various documents and in the mandates of various institutions and programs. The
government has supported Health Technology Assessment (HTA), but in general,
there is a lack of a specific agency to coordinate, standardize methods and help with
capacity building efforts.
Monteiro and Matenhauer Urbinatti describe an overall crisis in the positioning of
science and technology within society in Brazil (cf. this volume), which in turn has
effects on the opportunities for TA activities. The Country Report mainly describes
HTA activities, which are a specific form of assessment focused on health prod-
ucts, clinical aspects, and cost-benefit analyses of drugs or health applications, and
as such represent a very different community than TA. The current situation with
COVID-19 vaccines is an example of HTA which shows challenges. Chinese Coro-
navac vaccine has become an issue of dispute between the Federal Government and
the State Government of São Paulo. This argument has centered around issues of
the origin of the vaccine, its efficacy, and conspiracy theories, anti-vaccine move-
ments, and misinformation. The Russian vaccine Sputnik V was also controversial
in Brazil regarding the regulatory process, and featured in political disputes between
government agencies. This focus on HTA activities also indicates a more restricted
understanding of TA and the activities taking place. Overall, in Brazil, interrelated
developments have had severe effects, also regarding TA (-like) activities. Large
budget cuts to research and an increase in denialism and critique of scientific exper-
tise have led to a division of science and society, while calls for opening up science
and technology policy aim to increase legitimacy. The analysis by our Brazilian
experts shows how hugely problematic it is to establish TA-like activities in Brazil,
due to highly contested socio-political disputes.
Science
Another important area for TA (-like) activities across the 12 countries is science
and research in the respective institutional settings. It seems that this is the main area
of interest for emerging TA activities, where these are not institutionalized (yet).
22 J. Hahn et al.
Academia can be a key player when initiating TA activities in countries without
established (parliamentary) forms of TA. Within several Country Reports, we find
activities which are relevant for TA in academic education and in network building
and research.
According to the Russia Country Report (cf. Kazakova and Gavrilina, in this
volume), TA initiatives can be found in the largest technical universities, such as the
Bauman University (BMSTU) in Moscow. Here, TA education is integrated into the
pilot master program, “Social Analysis of Technological Innovations and Risks”,
which aims to provide practice-oriented training and knowledge on sociotechnical
processes. Also, courses on sociology of technology or engineering ethics are imple-
mented into the engineering curriculum. BMSTU and the technical universities of
Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Tomsk, and Perm have initiated the “TA and STS in
Russia Association”, which brings together institutions, enterprises, and govern-
ment analytical centers. Overall, a main challenge for TA in Russia is a missing
balance between the development of economies and technology across the Russian
regions. This raises issues of lack of access to basic infrastructure and information
on environmental effects. Further, the cultural and ethnic diversity of the country is a
challenge regarding the understanding of public perceptions of technologies. A lack
of transparency regarding decision-making in the technical processes creates uneven
distribution of knowledge and responsibilities in society. This requires comparative
and contextualized views of technologies and their potential benefits and risks.
In the Country Report from Czechia (cf. Soler et al., in this volume), we learn
that there are no real established TA institutions, but that research activities are of
importance, especially in European TA-related projects. The Technology Centre of
the Czech Academy of Science (TC CAS) has been involved in several European
projects, which in turn have changed public and policy-makers’ views due to more
representation of TA, and public engagement in S&T or research and development
policy strategies. Similarly, in Slovakia (cf. Soler et al., in this volume), there is no
clear TA institution, yet the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) can be considered as
an aspiring TA institution. Past TA activities on nuclear energy and human enhance-
ment technologies were conducted by SAV, which lacks resources and capacities, yet
is advocating for TA in the country. In general, in the three described Central Euro-
pean countries (Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia), there are institutions that conduct
TA-like activities, but these remain mainly uncoordinated.
Another area of relevance to TA is RRI activities, which can be found as
part of funding programs in research organizations, or as governance frameworks.
For example, the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development
(CASTED) participated in the Horizon 2020 European research project “Responsible
Research & Innovation in practice”2 and introduced RRI as a governance research
concept to case studies in China (cf. Huang, in this volume). Overall, TA, RRI,
and sustainable development have been included in research, especially regarding
areas such as research ethics, open science, artificial intelligence (AI), or the digital
economy. According to the China Country Report, the fast development of S&T in
2 www.rri-practice.eu.
Tracing Technology Assessment Internationally—TA Activities … 23
China has put issues of research ethics and integrity at the center of attention for many
stakeholders, such as scientists, businesses, the government, and the wider public.
Therefore, approaches such as RRI or TA, as well as Open Science, are regarded as
useful tools for researchers and policy-makers in China.
According to the Australia Country Report (cf. Lacey and Fielke, in this volume),
Responsible Innovation (RI) is also an important approach. The country’s national
science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
(CSIRO), has adopted RI as one of its future science platforms, which represent
new research programs and funding. This was based on previous work on R(R)I
in European contexts and projects, and has developed a ten-year impact pathway
for delivering RI for Australian S&T development. Applied research capacities in
RI and its application are advancing, yet the outcomes of applying RI approaches
especially through “blue sky” research investments are still open. Its seems that
bringing together findings from a wide array of projects to better understand what
has worked and what can be taken up by different stakeholders remains a challenge.
Public
The localization of TA in a more public sphere can be found in several of the 12
countries in the form of participatory activities, and wider networks that include
different TA-like or adjacent institutions. In South Korea (cf. Choi, in this volume),
participatory elements are included in parliamentary TA processes. A Citizen Forum
is implemented to discuss the impacts of technologies and provide recommenda-
tions. Before finalizing TA reports, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology
Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP) holds an open forum, during which the results,
and TA in general, are communicated.
In South Africa (cf. Mugabe, in this volume), both expert-led more top-down
activities as well as multi-stakeholder participatory biotechnology assessment can
be observed. The South African Agency of Science and Technology Advancement
(SAASTA) launched a program in 2003 named South Africa’s Public Understanding
of Biotechnology (PUB), which aimed to increase public awareness and under-
standing, and promote public dialogue on the socio-economic and environmental
impacts. Overall, TA seems to be in its early beginnings in Africa, but according
to the South Africa Country Report there is a demand to include it in STI policy
processes. It seems that in African countries there is an increasing body of scien-
tific knowledge and technological innovation, which in turn shows the need for TA.
To improve awareness, capacity building, and sharing of information and experi-
ences, it is necessary to establish an African TA network, strengthen institutional
coordination, and improve policy frameworks.
Participatory and network activities can both be found in the USA (cf. Guston,
in this volume). For instance, Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Tech-
nology (ECAST) is an initiative which aims to revive more participatory forms of
TA. Further, an emerging field of “Public Interest Technology” can be observed,
which sees TA as an important part of its potential contributions. The Public Interest
Technology University Network plays an important role here, with more than 40
members, and small grants that support TA-like projects.
24 J. Hahn et al.
As observed in the Australia Country Report (cf. Lacey and Fielke, in this volume),
we also find participatory activities within the framework of RI, which are aimed at
risk/benefit assessment as well as the uncertainties of S&T in light of advancements
for society. For instance, there has been research to combine Indigenous Knowledge
and AI for the improvement of environmental management in Northern Australia,
which shows a specific example of participation and TA at a regional and community
level.
3 Reflections
Reviewing the country-specific descriptions of TA activities across the globe illus-
trates the high heterogeneity of socio-political systems, modes of institutionaliza-
tion of TA, and TA practices in the 12 countries discussed. Overall, it appears as
if approaches aiming at the “public” are more dispersed and fluid and less insti-
tutionalized when compared to TA manifestations in “science” and “politics”. In
an attempt to further identify similarities, differences and patterns between TA
institutionalization across the analyzed country cases, we first look at the topical
substance and the intended impact of TA and TA-like activities. Subsequently, a more
bird’s eye perspective is taken on the broader structural conditions within which TA
institutionalizes and is performed.
In all 12 Country Reports, the TA core is clearly visible: researchers in different
settings are addressing the potentials and risks of emerging technologies, exploring
ways to perform RRI, analyzing issues of trust and acceptance by the public and
different stakeholders, investigating science and technology governance, etc. Another
communality lies in the technologies with which the socio-political systems are
confronted, whether this is AI, digitalization, health, or biotechnologies. In all 12
Country Reports, we find descriptions of challenges associated with sociotechnical
issues and different ways and levels of approaching them.
In terms of the mission of TA activities and their intended impact, it is interesting
to see that a main focus of TA activities, both in Europe and globally, seems to lie on
impacts. These include a) improving knowledge about the technological or scientific
aspects of the subject in focus, b) forming attitudes and opinions with respect to
agenda-setting in research or politics, or c) with respect to self-reflection and bridge
building between different stakeholders. This becomes apparent when applying the
typology of impacts developed in the TAMI project (Decker & Ladikas, 2004). In this
chapter, three impact dimensions have been cross-tabulated with three issue dimen-
sions of TA (Hennen et al., 2004, 63). The TAMI impacts can also be understood as
intended impacts, or the mission of TA activities and institutions. The impact dimen-
sions include raising knowledge (through scientific assessment, social mapping, and
policy analysis), forming attitudes and opinions of actors (through agenda-setting,
mediation, and re-structuring the policy debate), and initializing actions (through
reframing debates, new decision-making processes, and decisions taken); the issue
dimensions include technological and scientific, societal, and policy aspects. Table 1
Tracing Technology Assessment Internationally—TA Activities … 25
Ta bl e 1 Types of impact of TA in 12 different countries
Issue/impact dimension Raising knowledge Forming
attitudes/opinions
Initialising
actions
Technological-scientific
aspects
Chile (TA office)
South Korea (TA
office)
India (HTA)
Poland (TA office)
Czechia (TA
institution)
Slovakia (TA
institution)
USA (TA office)
South Africa
(Academia)
Australia (RI
program)
China (RI
orientation)
Czechia (TA
institution)
Slovakia (TA
institution)
South Africa
(Academia)
Australia (RI
program)
Societal aspects South Korea (TA
office)
Australia (RI program)
India (TA agencies)
South Africa
(Academia)
Russia (TA
education)
Poland (TA office)
Czechia (TA
institution)
Slovakia (TA
institution)
USA (TA network)
Policy aspects Chile (TA office)
South Korea (TA
office)
Chile (TA office)
shows the classification of the country-specific TA activities into the resulting TAMI
table. As is the case for the European TA landscape (Decker & Ladikas, 2004), most
TA activities seem to address the upper left area of the TAMI table. This is not
surprising, since raising knowledge and forming attitudes/opinions represent the key
impact dimensions of both classical and participatory TA (Hennen et al., 2004).
In sum, the great heterogeneity of different country-specific settings in which TA
takes place and is performed globally, cannot hide the fact that on a substantive and
methodological level TA faces similar challenges.
The Country Reports also briefly describe the individual country backgrounds
and political settings, which in turn are relevant for TA activities. This can be under-
stood as the “habitat” in which TA takes place (Hennen & Nierling, 2015), which
is structured by aspects such as the political system, S&T decision-making systems,
socio-economic development stage or values (Hahn & Ladikas, 2019). Drawing
conclusions from the comparative analysis of the cases has to be done with caution
due to both the limited number of cases analyzed and the information provided in
the Country Reports, as these are only a brief highlight of TA relevant activities and
structures. However, while taking this limitation into account, a closer look allows
us to point to a number of noteworthy observations and preliminary insights with
regard to the relationship between TA manifestations and the broader institutional
and structural contexts.
26 J. Hahn et al.
Ta bl e 2 Liberal democracy
score of 12 selected country
cases
Score on V-Dem liberal
democracy index
Country
Top 50% countries
Top 20% Australia, Czechia, Slovakia,
Chile, South Korea, and USA
Top 30–50% Brazil, Poland, and South Africa
Bottom 50% countries
Bottom 40–50% India
Bottom 10–20% China and Russia
Source Based on V-Dem liberal democracy index 2021 (Boese
et al., 2022; pp. 10–11)
The following interrelated factors have been identified that begin to explain
similarities and differences between TA manifestations between the 12 countries:
• The key characteristics of the polity, including the degree and quality of
democratic decision-making and basic structural features;
• The types and intensities of political conflicts about scientific-technological
issues, including the role of science in society and in policy-related decision-
making;
• The developmental levels of and opportunity structures for science, technology,
and innovation in the respective political economies and the socio-economic
make-up of the countries, including the steering capacities of the state with regard
to techno-scientific developments and innovation.
With regard to the characteristics of the polity, the question of the democratic
quality of the political system and the rule of law seems to be a potentially useful
predictor of the degree of TA institutionalization, understood as the existence of
fairly stable and formalized organizational structures and procedures within which
TA is conducted. If the liberal democracy index of the V-Dem Institute is applied
(Boese et al., 2022),3 our 12 selected countries cover nearly the whole spectrum of
the index score: six countries are among the top 20%, three are in the top 30–50%,
one is in the bottom 40–50%, and another two are located in the bottom 10–20%
(see Table 2).
While any correlation between TA manifestations and scoring on the liberal
democracy index should be treated with caution, we can observe that low scores
on the index correlate with low degrees of TA institutionalization, as is the case for
India, China, and Russia. However, the opposite relationship is not supported by
our selected cases: a high rating on the liberal democracy index is not uniformly
reflected by high degrees of TA institutionalization. Instead, among the top 50% of
3 The V-Dem liberal democracy index rates over 180 countries based on 71 indicators, covering
aspects such as quality of the electoral process, freedom of expression, protection of civil liberties,
and checks and balances between governmental institutions (http://www.v-dem.net).
Tracing Technology Assessment Internationally—TA Activities … 27
the countries included in our study, significant differences in terms of TA institution-
alization are evident. While South Korea, Chile, the USA, and Poland have estab-
lished specialized offices or services generating TA-related knowledge for policy,
TA remains largely informal and limited to academia in other countries of this high
rated group.
Another potentially useful structural factor in understanding different pathways
toward TA institutionalization refers to the general structure of the polity of the
democratic systems among our 12 selected cases. It can be expected that particu-
larly presidential systems are more inclined to establish parliamentary TA offices
due to the stronger separation of legislative and executive powers, thus increasing
the need of the legislature to have access to its own scientific advice infrastruc-
ture. This relationship seems to be supported by the example of the USA, where
the first parliamentary TA office—the OTA—was established in 1972 (but was also
defunded roughly twenty years later). Other presidential systems with institution-
alized TA offices or services are Chile and Poland. In South Korea’s presidential
system, however, the TA facilities are part of the executive branch. These obser-
vations, together with the fact that a number of parliamentary democracies have
established TA offices connected to the legislature, s uch as Austria or Germany,
indicate that macro-institutional factors of the polity are a rather weak predictor of
specific country pathways toward institutionalization.
While establishing relationships between basic structural features of the polity
and TA has rather limited explanatory strength, linking TA to political and soci-
etal patterns of conflict over techno-scientific issues and socio-economic condi-
tions related to science, technology, and innovation is likely to be more promising.
Although significantly more in-depth knowledge is needed to arrive at generaliz-
able insights in this regard, the Country Reports provide valuable evidence on the
interplay of these complex framework conditions on the different trajectories of TA
developments. For instance, the report from Brazil can be seen as an example of the
challenges in any attempt to develop TA under the rule of an outright anti-scientific
federal government. In Russia, the prospects for academic freedom and thus TA are
considerably worse in view of the far-reaching and recently amplified infringements
of freedom of speech, civil rights, and the rule of law.
In terms of possible pathways toward the institutionalization of TA, the Country
Reports provide useful insights. A first, though not overly surprising observation,
is that academia seems to be the “birthplace” of TA across all 12 countries. Thus,
the realm of science and research develops and provides the foundational exper-
tise needed for further uptake and institutionalization of TA. And i n those instances
where TA thus far has not reached beyond the science system, academia serves as an
important reservoir of expertise needed for institutionalization at later stages. More-
over, even in those countries that are unlikely to establish formal TA institutions in
the near future, conducting academic TA studies and offering training can provide
important contributions to TA capacity building, and sensitizing actors about critical
perspectives on the complex interplay between technology and society. Second, a
number of Country Reports showing currently low levels of TA institutionalization,
such as Australia, China, Czechia, Slovakia, and South Africa, all stress the important
28 J. Hahn et al.
role of international exchanges with TA actors, and particularly the conduct of joint
TA or RRI projects. While this observation clearly suggests maintaining and even
increasing efforts for international cooperation, it also indicates a rather precarious
situation for TA in these countries, as sustained funding is scarce or even non-existent.
Third, in some of the countries with very low levels of TA institutionalization, specific
variants of TA or neighboring approaches to assessment, such as HTA and Envi-
ronmental Impact Assessment (EIA), are comparatively well-developed and highly
institutionalized. This is the case, for instance, in Brazil, Australia, South Africa, and
India. It remains to be seen if the existence of such related approaches might provide
entry points for the institutionalization of TA at a later stage. For this to materialize,
however, explicit connections to the STI policy field will have to be established.
Similarly, some of the country cases report a stronger focus on RRI than conven-
tional TA. While this might be an expression of deliberate emphasis on influencing
research and innovation practices rather than generating orientation via TA-based
policy advice, embedding RRI in STI policy might nonetheless help to pave the way
toward TA, due to the many conceptual and epistemic commonalities between the
two approaches.
The discussion of the interplay between structural context factors and TA institu-
tionalization was a first step in improving our understanding of the different pathways
toward TA. Undoubtedly, more comparative research on these issues will be required
in order to provide answers on conducive and hindering factors of TA institution-
alization across the globe. The emerging globalTA network could provide valuable
contributions in such a collective research process.
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Technology Assessment in a Multilateral
Science, Technology and Innovation
System
Miltos Ladikas and Andreas Stamm
1 Introduction
The standard role of Technology Assessment (TA) has always been to serve the
national policymaking community in its aims to devise a successful Science, Tech-
nology and Innovation (STI) policy. Even when TA became involved in public debates
with wider stakeholder representation and initiated new methodological approaches
to cover the needs of such debates, it remained within the realm of national debates
about the effect of STI developments in a specific country or region within it (Hennen,
2002). But the current challenges that STI is required to resolve are, more often than
not, international or even global in nature.
There is a common understanding that the main grand challenges that our societies
face are not unique to a particular country, region or even cultural context (Robinson,
2007). Most of the grand challenges of our times (e.g. food security, climate change,
pandemics, air pollution, soil degradation, depletion of fish stocks, ocean contamina-
tion, etc.) are global in nature. No country alone can deal with such enormous scales
of intervention, and no solution can be effective at a local level of involvement alone.
It is therefore inevitable to argue that global challenges require global solutions,
which in itself means effective societal transformations and policy interventions on
scales not previously seen in human history.
Contribution to: Technology Assessment in a Globalized World—Facing the Challenges of
Transnational Technology Governance.
M. Ladikas (B)
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,
Karlstr. 11, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: miltos.ladikas@kit.edu
A. Stamm
German Development Institute, Deutsches Institut Für Entwicklungspolitik DIE, Tulpenfeld 6,
53113 Bonn, Germany
e-mail: andreas.stamm@die-gdi.de
© The Author(s) 2023
L. Hennen et al. (eds.), Technology Assessment in a Globalized World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0_3
31
32 M. Ladikas and A. Stamm
At the same time, there is considerable uncertainty as to the best available means of
intervention and the technological developments to be used, since the science behind
large-scale interventions is incredibly complex and untested. The only certainty is that
STI developments are urgently needed to deal with the challenges of our times, and
there is clearly a need to establish a level of multilateral coordination and governance
of STI. This in turn requires the expansion of national plans and assessment capa-
bilities, including monitoring and evaluation of technologies of interest. In essence,
the gap between the national and international levels of TA must be bridged, if we
are to deal effectively with grand challenges. Multilateral cooperation in TA has the
potential to enhance the outcome and impact of strategies targeted towards grand
challenges, due to economies of scale, economies of scope and network effects.
However, while many arguments call for scaling up STI cooperation, national
governments are still reluctant to invest public resources in existing or new transna-
tional programmes. Different stances of national governments towards technological
trajectories often hinder cooperative approaches. This is especially relevant when it
comes to disruptive innovations that entail opportunities and risks which are not
fully known. At the same time, STI developments have intended or unintended
effects that transcend international borders and political contexts. Even under a shared
ethics of responsibility, politicians and research implementers may come to opposite
conclusions about what constitutes a responsible approach to new technologies. For
instance, some actors and observers see break-through innovations, such as genome
editing, as important and even strategic in addressing global challenges (climate
change, food security, etc.), while others assess them as developments containing
severe and unacceptable global risks (Ladikas, 2019).
Overall, which lines of research and technology development are considered as
responsible is very context-specific and can lead to fundamentally different direc-
tions in the innovation process. At the same time, multilateral STI cooperation can
only work as a catalyst for incremental and disruptive innovations to address global
challenges, if a sufficient number of countries assess the same lines of research and
innovation as responsible and acceptable for further development. This is exactly
the focus of global TA and its main function in promoting the necessary multilateral
STI cooperation (Hahn & Ladikas, 2019). However, before accepting that TA is an
integral part of the pathway to resolving global challenges, it is necessary to identify
TA’s role in the existing multilateral system and locate it within the decision-making
structures.
Technology Assessment in a Multilateral Science, Technology … 33
2 Technology Assessment in the United Nations System
and Multilateral Organisations
2.1 TA in Multilateral Organisations
The foremost global STI governance structure is located within the United Nations
(UN) system, which is also ultimately the natural place for the development of global
TA. The history of the UN is intrinsically related to STI developments. Founded to
keep global peace after World War II, it soon became the main debate and analysis
centre for a wide range of technologies with direct effect in peace and development,
prominent amongst them being nuclear power, food and agriculture technologies
and medicinal technologies. Specialised agencies were created to deal in depth with
technological developments, such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and
the World Health Organization (WHO), and affiliated bodies dedicated to specific
technologies, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In addition,
there are many autonomous multilateral funds, programmes, research and training
institutes, and other subsidiary bodies that deal with STI issues, such as the Direc-
torate for Science, Technology and Innovation of the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD). Although the evaluation and assessment
of new and emerging technologies in relation to the remit of each organisation are
central to their functions, there is no standard common methodological approach to
achieve this. The common application of TA as in regular use at European institutes
(e.g. European parliamentary offices of TA) is evident in many cases, but is rarely
named as such. Examples include:
The World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology
(COMEST): an active forum of UNESCO that is mandated to formulate ethical
principles that could provide decision-makers with criteria that extend beyond purely
economic considerations. It is active in several STI areas, such as nanotechnologies,
converging technologies and ICT.
The Advisory Services and Analytics (ASA) of the World Bank: tasked to support
design of better national policies and build capacity, ASA provides analytical reports
on critical STI developments in crucial areas for development such as energy and
digitization. Much of the analysis is based on participatory TA principles.
The Office of Innovation (OIN) at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):
assists member countries in understanding innovation to drive socio-economic
growth, ensure food and nutrition security, alleviate poverty and improve resilience
to climate change. It instigates debates and provides technology assessment reports
to governments in key areas such as digital agriculture.
The Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation of the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD): develops evidence-based policy
advice on the contribution of science, technology and industry to well-being and
economic growth. It provides assessment reports in a wide number of technologies
including artificial intelligence, space technology, genomics, energy, etc.
34 M. Ladikas and A. Stamm
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): includes the “review missions
and advisory services” that deal with extensive assessment of technologies aiming
at nuclear safety and security, as well as assessment of nuclear energy applications
in the health sector.
The Nature Futures Framework (NFF) of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy
Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES): within the overall orga-
nizational aim to assess the state of various biodiversity and ecosystem systems, the
NFF performs visioning exercises with scientists, indigenous peoples, the private
sector, civil society organizations and decision-makers, using participatory TA tools.
All of these UN and multilateral agencies employ, amongst others, TA method-
ologies to analyse new and emerging technologies and provide policy input. Their
remit is diverse but it is basically that of a typical government think tank with partial
focus on STI issues. The work of these agencies is not coordinated centrally as they
are independent entities with their own boards of directors/trustees with no evident
connection between agencies. This can lead to overlapping focus and competing
views that are published and promoted independently of each other, even to the same
target audience. Moreover, the identification and positioning of TA within the work
programme of these agencies is a complex endeavour with uncertain results. The
reason for this is that TA is not explicitly mentioned as a guiding research process,
even though there is a clear affinity of conceptual and methodological aspects in their
analyses of STI issues.
2.2 The Role of TA in the United Nations Conference
on Trade and Development
A particular case in the UN system where TA is well entrenched as a guiding principle
is that of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
The reasons for this unique approach go back to the early history of UNCTAD, where
the role of technology in economic development was identified as a crucial factor
in its efforts to support developing countries to access the benefits of a globalized
economy in a fairer and more effective manner.
As early as 1949, Raúl Prebisch, Executive Secretary of the United Nations
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and
Secretary-General of UNCTAD from 1964 to 1969, analysed the unequal economic
relations between Latin America and the industrialized Global North. Growing
disparities in economic growth and well-being between the two hemispheres were
traced back to different trade specializations, with Latin America being confined
to the export of mostly unprocessed mineral resources and agricultural products,
while the Global North traded industrial goods with increasingly higher knowledge
content and technological sophistication. One consequence of this unequal trade was
the changes of price relations in the exchanged goods that benefit the Global North
to the disadvantage of the Global South. In addition, the gap in usage of technology
Technology Assessment in a Multilateral Science, Technology … 35
was found to increase in times of unequal trade patterns, as innovations are often
driven by the manufacturing sector in the search for higher levels of productivity.
In Latin America, ECLAC promoted industrialization mainly by means of import
substitution as a key strategy for lowering the development gap between the North and
the South, whereby formerly imported industrial items should be replaced by locally
manufactured goods.1 At UNCTAD, a similar reading of the main reasons for unequal
international development pushed the struggle for fundamental changes in interna-
tional trade relations under the concept of the “New International Economic Order
(NIEO)”. Improvements in international trade relations would require a narrowing of
the technology gap, since the application of state-of-the-art technology is a prerequi-
site for manufacturing items which may fulfil the needs of customers, both in terms
of quality and prices. As an essential element of a NIEO, technology transfer was
promoted by UNCTAD and defined as “the transfer of systematic knowledge for the
manufacture of a product, for the application of a process or for the rendering of a
service and does not extend to the mere sale or lease of goods” (UNCTAD, 1985,
Chap. 1, para. 1.2.).
One of the criticisms of these relatively early concepts of technology transfer is that
it was relatively static and one-dimensional, overlooking the relations between inter-
national measures of licencing, knowledge-sharing for manufacturing s ectors, and the
conditions of the potential recipient countries. A more recent document (UNCTAD,
2019) stressed the interrelations between successful technology transfer, the absorp-
tive capacities in national or regional innovation systems, and local innovation as the
outcome of technology transfer. Once STI systems have become effective, they may
lead to a higher rate of innovation and at the same time improve capacities on the
ground to absorb technological knowledge coming from outside. The same docu-
ment (UNCTAD, 2019, 31–34) emphasizes that the role of technology is no longer
confined to economic growth and social well-being, but is also pivotal in addressing
global challenges, specifically climate change, global health and agriculture.
The UNCTAD debate on the role of technology and the STI system in development
has brought TA to the forefront. Assessing technological developments in terms of
their capabilities t o enhance economic and social growth in the Global South is
pivotal in both choosing the targets of technology transfer and also investing in
regional growth initiatives. As such, TA has been promoted, alongside foresight,2
as the preferred research process to analyse the implications of new technologies,
expand the national debates and promote policy options. This is clearly stated as an
aspiration for the UN in its efforts to achieve its development goals (UN Economic
and Social Council Resolution, 2019):
1 A huge body of literature discusses the only relative success of the policies for industrialisation
by means of import substitutions. Notable exceptions are the Brazilian company Embrear, today
one of the internationally leading airplane manufacturers, and the coal liquefaction cluster in South
Africa.
2 It should be noted that UNCTAD documents often use the terms TA and Foresight interchangeably.
A recent project attempts to clarify the conceptual differences between TA and similar concepts for
application in UNCTAD (See, https://unctad.org/meeting/launch-project-technology-assessment-
energy-and-agricultural-sectors-africa-accelerate).
36 M. Ladikas and A. Stamm
To conduct technology assessment and foresight exercises as a process to encourage
structured debate among all stakeholders towards creating a shared understanding of the
implications of rapid technological change. (p. 6)
To explore ways and means of conducting international technology assessments and foresight
exercises on existing, new and emerging technologies and their implications for sustainable
development and building resilient communities, including discussions about models of
governance for new areas of scientific and technological development. (p. 9)
3 TA and Global Challenges
The role of TA in the development of resolutions to global challenges is still unclear
as it is rarely directly referenced in the debates. This is not surprising since, as we have
seen, TA is not often acknowledged within the global STI institutional setting. There
is nevertheless evidence that TA has contributed to the analysis of global challenges
in multiple ways. The examples of climate change and agriculture in developing
countries are indicative of TA’s contribution.
3.1 Climate Change
STI is seen as key to alleviating the impact and adapting to the consequences of
climate change, which affects developing countries disproportionately. Although
there is considerable debate on the role of technologies in dealing with climate
change, these do not cover the economic and social context in which most developing
countries function. Nevertheless, the climate goals of the Paris Agreement approved
by the global community in 2015, such as improving energy access and social well-
being without a direct increase in the carbon footprint of society, are also on the
agenda of developing countries. All signature countries have committed to contain
greenhouse gas emissions in order to keep global warming below 1.5 or 2 degrees
above pre-industrial times, and they have expressed their commitments in National
Determined Contributions (NDCs) to United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC). In this manner, innovations in the energy field can be
seen as absolutely key to this process, ranging from carbon capture and storage,
through large-scale renewable energies and green hydrogen production, to effective
mini-grids fed by solar and/or wind energy, and improved cooking stoves to serve
the energy needs of rural communities (see e.g. Chen, 2018). TA has a pivotal role to
play in the development of innovative solutions and also in the overall improvement
of the global debates. An example of the latter aim is the World Wide Views project
that attempted a first general methodology to initiate a global stakeholder dialogue
on climate change (see Textbox 1).
Technology Assessment in a Multilateral Science, Technology … 37
Textbox 1: Worldwide consultation—World Wide Views on Climate
Change
The World Wide Views is a multisite citizen consultation methodology used
for global citizen consultations. The core of the method is to have citizens at
multiple sites debate the same policy-related questions on a given issue on
the same day. The method was developed by the Danish Board of Technology
and other partners in the World Wide Views Alliance, which was established
for this purpose, prior to the climate COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. The
aim was to develop a method that would provide participating citizens with
balanced information and give them the opportunity to discuss the issues at
hand with other citizens and at the same time produce results which are easily
communicated to policymakers.
World Wide Views projects have so far focused on the themes of Climate
and Energy (10,000 participating citizens in 76 countries), Biodiversity (3000
participating citizens in 25 countries) and Global Warming (4000 participating
citizens in 38 countries). The questions put to the citizens are identified through
a comprehensive consultation of policymakers and stakeholders worldwide in
order to address the most pertinent, debated and disputed policy issues in
the policy process which is addressed. The information material is designed
to present citizens with the pros and cons of voting one way or another on
the questions at hand. The information material is reviewed by a scientific
advisory board and both the questions and information material is reviewed
by citizen focus groups in different parts of the world prior to being finalized.
Citizens discuss (with the help of professional moderators) and vote on the
questions posed to them. The results feed directly into policy debates, which
so far have been at UN conferences for Parties to the Climate and Biodiversity
Conventions.
Source: http://wwviews.org.
3.2 Agriculture
Another global challenge involving numerous and complex STI issues is that of
agriculture. A functional agricultural sector is seen as a fundamental element for the
economic transformation of developing countries, and particularly Least Developed
Countries. In its Technology and Innovation Report 2010, UNCTAD asserted that
improving agricultural performance in developing regions depends on technology
and innovation and rising agricultural production. This topic is of special relevance
for developing countries, as the primary sector is still fundamental both for local
food security in the Global South, and to create opportunities for income generation
through the export of increasingly higher-valued agricultural and agro-industrial
38 M. Ladikas and A. Stamm
goods. Technology- and innovation-related challenges arise from the fact that the
opportunities and risks of agricultural innovations have to be analysed against the
fact that many small farmers and labourers depend on agriculture for their livelihood.
Technological progress in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (see next
section) is thus incompatible with technologies which drive further concentration
processes forward and/or lead to the loss of income opportunities for labourers,
especially women.
This is an area that has already seen a lot of TA activity across the globe (e.g.
see IIED, 2007). For instance, following standard participatory TA approaches, socio-
economic considerations have been incorporated in the analysis of GMO develop-
ment in India (see Textbox 2). This represents a strong indication that the need to
undertake TA exercises with wide stakeholder consultation in STI developments has
been accepted by the decision-making bodies of the country.
Textbox 2: New participatory methodologies—Socioeconomic (SE)
Consideration of Living Modified Organisms in India
A country-wide consultation exercise on socioeconomic considerations of
Living Modified Organisms (LMOs), funded by United Nations Environment
Programme, Global Environment Facility, was run by the Research and Infor-
mation Systems for Developing Countries (RIS) and overseen by the Ministry
of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Government of
India.
The aim of the project was to develop guidelines and methodologies for
SE assessment for LMOs as envisaged under Article 26.1 of the Cartagena
Protocol on Biosafety. It involved the creation of a steering committee with
experts from the Indian Council for Agricultural Research, the Indian Council
for Social Science Research and a number of state agricultural universities.
The consultation exercise that employed survey and workshop methodologies
involved small and medium farmers from across the country on a number of
crop and trait examples.
Based on the analysis of the needs of farmers and the opinions of the expert
community, the project developed a SE assessment methodology that was
presented and adopted by the MoEF&CC. As a result, the moratorium on
GM crops in India (active since 2010) continues. The guidelines and method-
ologies in decision-making on GMOs are discussed at the Ad Hoc Technical
Expert Group (AHTEG) under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and repre-
sents powerful empirical TA research toward the effort to find consensus
on what factors/elements should be taken into account for Socio-Economic
Considerations of LMOs.
Source: http://www.geacindia.gov.in/resource-documents/10-Resource_
document_on_Socio_economic_considerations.pdf.
Technology Assessment in a Multilateral Science, Technology … 39
In another instance, the standard TA methodology of a Citizens’ Jury has
been successfully applied to agricultural GMO developments in a Low Middle
Income Country (see Textbox 3). This is another example of how well-established
TA methodologies from developed countries can be used in vastly different
socio-economic contexts with equally fruitful results.
Textbox 3: Participatory assessment—Citizens’ Jury on GMOs in Mali
A Citizens’ Jury on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) was organised
by the government (the Regional Assembly) of Sikasso, sponsored by the Swiss
Development Cooperation and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A
steering committee consisting of representatives of fifteen local, national and
international institutions (government, civil society, research, farmer organi-
sations, IIED…) was responsible for the design, organisation and facilitation
of the deliberative process.
The Citizens’ Jury was designed to allow ordinary farmers, both men and
women, to make policy recommendations after considering expert evidence
from different sources. Its main objective was to create a safe space for commu-
nication and action in which small-, medium- and large-scale farmers could
better understand the risks and advantages of GMOs, confront different view-
points in favor of and against GMOs and formulate recommendations for
policies on GMOs and the future of farming in Mali.
The Citizens’ Jury recommendation to delay the approval of national legis-
lation needed for the introduction of GM crops and initiate a debate on the
future of agriculture was acted upon by the Malian National Assembly. In addi-
tion, a film was made about the process and outcomes of this Citizens’ Jury
(Titled “Paroles de Paysans”) and was shown on national television channels in
African countries (Burkina Faso, Mali) to strengthen the work of international
civil society networks.
Source https://pubs.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/G02367.pdf.
Overall, it is clear that when it comes to global challenges, TA studies and standard
TA methodologies can be used in many cultural and socio-economic contexts. The
examples show that TA has already been applied successfully at both national and
global levels. In all cases, there was little to no adaptation of the standard developed
country approach, thus denoting the capacity of TA to transcend borders.
40 M. Ladikas and A. Stamm
4 Technology Assessment and the Sustainable Development
Goals
A particular case of interest for the potential function of TA at the global level is that
of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, adopted by the United Nations’ General Assembly in 2015, provides
the main description of the challenges that humanity is faced with. This is broken
down into seventeen SDGs, representing the aspirations of the world to achieve a
sustainable and peaceful future for everyone. Each SDG is divided further into a set
of specific targets (169 in total) that deal with specific issues in terms of poverty
alleviation, improvements of health and well-being, inequality reduction, tackling
climate change, reversing environmental pollution, etc. Figure 1 provides an overview
of the SDGs.
It is worth noting that the development of the SDGs has been based on a set of
specific principles. These take into consideration that grand challenges are universal
(affecting all countries), interlinked (cannot be solved in isolation) and socially inclu-
sive (all citizens are involved). In a more detailed description, the guiding design
principles are (United Nations, 2015):
Universality: The new agenda is applicable to all country typologies, not only
to developing countries. The SDGs allow for the concept of nationally adapted and
differentiated approaches for implementing what is seen as a common and collective
responsibility.
Integrated approach: The new agenda denotes that it is clearly insufficient to
achieve the SDGs on a goal-by-goal or target-by-target basis. The SDGs require
an integrated approach that identifies sets of development interventions that can
unleash progress across multiple goals and targets—across sectors—at the same time.
While accountability will continue to reside in a particular sector, understanding how
Fig. 1 UN sustainable development goals (Source United Nations)
Technology Assessment in a Multilateral Science, Technology … 41
to promote an integrated approach and policy coherence in order to inform better
planning through cross-sectoral collaboration is key to success.
Leaving no one behind: The 2030 Agenda strongly embodies the idea of no-
one left behind, and this is expressed in various SDG goals and targets which aim at
universal achievement (e.g. zero targets: eradicate extreme poverty, eradicate hunger;
systematic use of disaggregated data; quality outcomes based approach; and norma-
tive frameworks). This will require countries to work to reach the last mile. Coun-
tries will need to re-evaluate their approaches, development interventions and costs
associated with leaving no-one behind.
The SDGs are therefore aspirations that have been translated into specific goals.
However, the means through which to achieve these goals are not described in
adequate detail. SDG No. 9, “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and
sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”, is the only one that directly deals
with STI, but most of the SDGs require STI developments to achieve their goals. TA
has a role to play in any effort to use STI in achieving the SDGs. Considering the wide
spectrum of possibilities for implementing TA processes in this area, one can draw
preliminary ideas from similar disciplines and their relationships to the SDGs. For
instance, the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) has accepted
that the SDGs can be used as a framework for the integration of diverse assessment
disciplines. In its view, SDGs can be incorporated into impact assessment in various
ways (IAIA, 2019; Partidario & Verheem, 2019), e.g.:
• Use the global SDG framework as an instrument to increase the relevance
of impact assessment in national development policy, programme and project
decisions.
• Seek harmonization of national impact assessment regulations with SDG-inspired
development policies and practice, ensuring that relevant criteria are used in
decision-making processes.
• Support the adoption or adaptation of impact assessment guidelines to incorporate
SDG principles and concepts; develop sector-based impact assessment guidelines
aligned with the SDGs; and generate well-documented case studies that highlight
the links between impact assessment and the SDGs.
• Translate SDGs into criteria that are specific to a particular project or plan context;
addressing the critical risks and limits of acceptable change in the potentially
affected ecosystems and communities.
• Avoid being over-rigid or overly prescriptive: not all SDG targets are relevant for
all contexts. Considering sustainable development issues in the local setting will
simplify the impact assessment scope.
At the same time, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has acknowledged the need
to use the innovation capabilities of the fourth industrial revolution to achieve sustain-
able industrial development in accordance with the SDGs. The WEF’s White Paper
on the sustainability of production systems within the fourth industrial revolution has
identified a number of relevant technological developments that must be assessed in
terms of the SDGs (WEF, 2018). Examples are given in the areas of automotives,
electronics, food and beverages, and textiles and footwear. Each of these areas is
42 M. Ladikas and A. Stamm
reviewed in terms of sustainable innovation potential that can be measured against
the SDGs.
These are also interesting possibilities for TA. The exact positioning of TA in the
process of achieving the SDGs depends on accurate identification of those SDGs that
provide a useful reference framework to judge the impact of technological develop-
ments, and also on the availability of evidence at the global level that allows for a
meaningful assessment process (Ladikas et al., 2018).
5 Technology Assessment in Developing Countries
When attempting to apply TA processes in the context and realities of devel-
oping countries, one must consider carefully the challenges that such undertakings
involve. Current TA methods are based on experiences gathered in industrialised
countries that naturally present great contextual differences to developing countries
(see also Srinivas and van Est, this volume). For instance, the national innovation
systems or production systems of developing countries are often much weaker, while
their economies are much less diversified and often dominated by sectors that are
technology-poor. The Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD),
including both public and private R&D spending, shows major differences. For
instance in 2018, High Income Countries (HICs) invested 2.59% of their GDP in
GERD, Upper Middle Income Countries (UMICs), including China, 1.64%, while
Lower Middle Income Countries (LMICs) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs)
spent only about 0.53% and 0.17% of their GDPs, respectively (World Bank, 2021).
Other important indicators of the health of the national innovation system show
similar great disparities (see Table 1). For instance, in terms of scientific publications
LDCs have an astonishing 1/178 ratio to HICs. This is a very important indicator
for TA since the amount and quality of the national scientific production are crucial
for the quality of the assessment. Interesting here is that, as with many other STI
indicators, China is by far the most productive MIC, which brings it into equal footing
with HICs.
Further disparities between developed and developing countries show that the
number of researchers in R&D per million population is 4116 in a HIC, but 737 in
MICs, while there is no data available for LICs (World Development Indicators 2021).
In addition, public funding for higher education that can produce future researchers is
low and there is a constant “brain-drain” situation that depletes the limited numbers
of researchers emerging from LICs. The situation is similar in terms of innovation,
whereby research in the private sector is very limited, and most active industrial
research entities are subsidiaries of larger foreign corporations.
A clear exception to the general low level of STI research capabilities in MICs and
LICs is the multilateral research institutes, such as the International Rice Research
Institute in the Philippines, the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya
and Ethiopia, or the International Potato Centre in Peru. Donor-funded research
centres also offer exceptional research capabilities, for instance, the West African
Technology Assessment in a Multilateral Science, Technology … 43
Ta bl e 1 Scientific and
technical journal articles 2018
by World Bank country group
Country group Absolute number of
publications
Publications per 1
Million people
Low income
countries
5308 8
Middle income
countries (MIC)
1,106,517 192
MIC w/o China 580,254 133
China 528,263 377
High income
countries
1,450,446 1177
Source World Development Indicators online April 2021
Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use in Western Africa,
the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land
Management for Southern Africa or the Fundación Hondureña de Investigación
Agrícola in Honduras.
TA must therefore accommodate to the local context, and function according to
local needs and capabilities (e.g. see UK Parliamentary Office of S&T, 2011). Lack
of research capabilities in many countries signifies a lack of quality scientific data
on which to base the required assessment, but also a potential lack of experts to
participate in it. At the same time, stakeholder participation, as it is undertaken in
current TA processes, assumes an active civil society and a culture of non-restricted
public debate that might not be the case in many MICs or LICs. However, this
might not be seen as a lack of democratic credentials in the country. There are many
reasons for a diminished debate or active civil society that range from cultural norms
to funding prerogatives (Wakeford & Pimbert, 2004). In any case, the limitations
faced by TA due to the specific national context will definitely restrict its usual scope
and functions, but this should not be seen as a prohibitive setting.
Another aspect that should be taken into consideration when attempting to adopt
TA practices in the developing country context is the differences in technology adop-
tion processes. STI-intense economies are also early adopters of STI developments,
since they base much of their economic success in competitive advantages deriving
from speedy assimilation of new technologies. Most developing countries are late
adopters, as they lack the structures for early assessment. This is where TA can play
an important role, by functioning as a “horizon scanning” process that can identify
STI developments that offer particular opportunities in t he less developed economy
context. Such developments might be akin to what is termed “frugal innovation”,
whereby simple or low-tech innovations can be more attuned to the needs of devel-
oping countries and thus much easier to assimilate in the existing context (Lelivend &
Pesa, 2020).
44 M. Ladikas and A. Stamm
6 Discussion: Future Challenges for Technology
Assessment at the Global Level
As described above, multilateral STI analysis and policy advice is required to
deal with many global challenges that face humanity. There is a need to generate
new knowledge on the benefits and risks of STI developments and provide new
perspectives and institutional structures in global governance. TA as a concept of
problem-oriented research and policy advice is ideally placed for this purpose and
has recently drawn interest from international organisations such as OECD and the
United Nations.3
Beyond the basic institutional arrangements to develop a global TA, there are
many additional topics to be addressed, which could be structured around four main
areas:
Agenda- and priority-setting: There is no clear definition of what should be seen
as grand, global or societal challenges which would need a fast and responsible
response from STI. As not all topics can be addressed simultaneously, mechanisms
would have to be found to define global TA agendas and priorities. There might be
different ways of agenda and priority setting, for instance, and they may be either
problem- and goal-driven, or science-driven. The SDGs provide the set of objectives
to which the international community has committed and where STI solutions have
to contribute. Ground-breaking innovations offer both opportunities and risks, which
would have to be assessed internationally, e.g. artificial intelligence, or CRISP-CAS9
techniques.
Funding and spending arrangements: Depending on the challenge to be addressed
and the underlying scientific basis, responsible and effective TA can in some cases
be based on meta-level analyses of existing scientific work (as in the case of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)). However, this may be different
when technology paths are relatively recent and the body of scientific literature is not
exhaustive. Need may arise to conduct limited original research, which would raise
questions regarding funding and spending arrangements to assure both effectiveness
and equity.
Stakeholder involvement: Literature on TA indicates that good TA practices must
involve different stakeholder groups, be participatory and interactive. The relevance
and feasibility of this approach for multilateral processes should be assessed in more
detail. For most current TA processes, parliaments are the clearly targeted addressee,
as parliaments decide upon the legal framework under which technologies develop.
However, there are other actors to be considered, which also decide about rules and
regulations (governments and courts), and the social acceptance of technology paths
(trades unions, civil society groups). How to effectively reach different stakeholder
groups at a global level is still rather uncharted territory.
3 See Resolution adopted by the UN Economic and Social Council on 24 July 2018 on “Science,
technology and innovation for development”: https://unctad.org/meetings/en/SessionalDocuments/
e_res_2018_29_en.pdf.
Technology Assessment in a Multilateral Science, Technology … 45
7 Conclusions: A Model for Technology Assessment
at Global Level
The TA community has discussed extensively the various modes of institutionali-
sation of TA (Liebert & Schmidt, 2010; Decker & Ladikas, 2004). These discus-
sions have focussed on specific national contexts whereby TA has been developed
in the past forty years, mainly in western European countries (Hennen & Ladikas,
2019). Recently, there has been considerable interest in how TA could be institu-
tionalised at a multilateral or global level (Hahn & Ladikas, 2019) and from the four
models discussed in the conclusions of this volume two fit well within the global STI
governance reality:
Institutional Networks across borders
To stimulate the internationalization of TA, existing national TA institutes may collab-
orate across national borders on various TA-related topics. This so-called Institu-
tional Network option aims to establish an expert-and-participatory TA capability by
connecting an appropriate set of independent, non-partisan and non-profit organiza-
tions in an international network. Examples of existing networks are EPTA and the
globalTA network. Cooperation between institutes may vary from bilateral cooper-
ation to cooperation on a global scale, like for example in the World Wide Views on
Global Warming (WWViews) project.
Global TA linked to a global Decision-Making Body
National parliamentary TA organizations are often linked to a decision-making body,
such as the parliament. This Decision-Making Body option can also be implemented
on the global level, in particular with regard to UN institutes. In the field of global
warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an example of
this model.
Both models are viable possibilities for a TA linked to international governance
structures. We have seen that TA-linked activities are evident in a number of bilateral
organisational settings, so long as they focus on STI issues. And this is perhaps the
pivotal aspect of any form of TA that transcends national boundaries. Analysis of
STI issues for the development of policy advice can hardly be done without some
form of TA methodology, whether of the classical expert types or the more recent
interactive ones. Nevertheless, one should risk a prediction of an ideal organisational
structure for TA, if it is to function at a purely global level and applied to global
challenges. As the Decision-Making body model suggests, this could be similar to
the existing IPCC structure (see also Ashworth and Clarke this volume).
The IPCC is an excellent example of global science for policy advice, with some
observers considering it “the largest exercise in scientific cooperation ever embarked
upon” (Pearce et al., 2018, 127). It has worked as an institutional role model which
helped form the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and
Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in 2012 (Beck et al., 2014). Researchers and observers
have proposed an institutional setting for several other environmental challenges, e.g.
46 M. Ladikas and A. Stamm
food, water and anti-microbial resistance. There are four largely undisputed elements
of success in t he IPCC model of scientific policy advice (Pearce et al., 2018):
• Most of the work is done by a huge number of volunteer scientists from different
parts of the world whose work is synthesized in reports of the three Working
Groups (WGs): physical science (WG1), social and ecological impacts and
adaptation (WG2), mitigation options (WG3).
• The IPCC has pioneered new ways of assessing scientific knowledge across a
broad range of disciplines and interconnected topics.
• The findings of both its report outlines and final content are approved by
government representatives, giving them high political authority.
• The high visibility of the work of the IPCC has contributed to keeping climate
change on the international policy agenda over several decades.
The specific governance of the IPCC is the outcome of institutional co-evolution
of the international climate policy regime and the scientific advisory sub-system. In
1986, the Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases was set up by the World Meteo-
rological Organization (WMO), the Environmental Program of the United Nations
(UNEP) and the International Council of Scientific Unions. It soon became clear that
this group was too small and underfunded to fulfil a meaningful purpose. Following
complex negotiations between WMO and the US Government, the road was paved
for the creation of the IPCC, which materialized in 1988, under the auspices of WMO
and UNEP. Shortly thereafter, in 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted by UN member countries. Between
1990 and 2022, the IPCC has published six Assessment Reports and a number of
reports on specific topics.
Considering the relevance of the IPCC experience to a global TA exercise, some
debates around the IPCC governance model seem of special relevance:
• How to prioritize questions around new and emerging technologies in a global
science exercise? Critical debates have formed around the focus of the IPCC on
precise climate change modelling, mitigation actions and the related risk that
adaptation to already manifest climate change would not receive the necessary
attention.
This question is the essence of TA, and its main function as a means to assess the
impact of specific technology developments in society, economy and the environ-
ment. As we have seen, global challenges require new STI approaches that can be
applied equally well in different geographical, cultural and economic contexts. TA
has been performing such comparative studies at multilateral level for a number
of years and can effectively upgrade its methodologies to a global level of analysis
(see the example of World Wide Views above, and Ladikas et al., 2015).
• How to assure a good mix of disciplines? As the initial focus of IPCC was very
much on modelling future climate change, physical and other natural sciences
were long seen as being over-represented at the expense of social sciences beyond
economics.
Technology Assessment in a Multilateral Science, Technology … 47
TA is a multidisciplinary approach that has successfully integrated social
science, natural science and engineering methodologies under its remit. A stan-
dard TA analysis will use knowledge created by any relevant discipline on the issue
under consideration, and the final analysis will be based on multidisciplinary anal-
ysis. This is also evident in the expectation that final reports and policy options
development are co-authored by representatives of all disciplines involved in the
analysis (Hennen et al., 2004).
• How to assure an adequate representation of different world regions? Corbera et al.
(2016) found that around 80% of authors and reviewers of successive assessment
reports produced by the IPCC were from OECD countries. This leads to different
priorities and assessments, such as framing Southern forests as “empty” spaces
available to suck up the Global North’s carbon pollution (Pearce et al., 2018, 126).
As we have discussed above, TA is mainly active in western, developed coun-
tries, with a clear presence in every STI-intensive economy. It has nevertheless
been applied successfully in a variety of developing country settings and has shown
full capability to incorporate low income and low STI intensity contexts in its
methodologies. This is particularly true for the interactive modes of TA, whereby
wide stakeholder consultation is a prerequisite for the analysis and development
of technology roadmaps (Ely et al., 2011).
• How inclusive or restrictive should assessments be conceptualized? For example,
large-scale reforestation and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)
can be assessed as a feasible climate change mitigation option via negative emis-
sions, but all feasible trade-offs cannot realistically be assessed in the same
report.
TA offers an established process to research and identify the scope of the
prospective exercises and determine which technologies are sufficiently relevant
to be put on the agenda and assigned high priority. The exact delimination of what
should be the object of the TA process will be based on the analysis of social,
economic or environmental challenges to which the technological solutions should
respond, either as a stand-alone solution or as an element of a comprehensive
package of policy measures (Buetschi et al., 2004).
• How to balance global vs local: “between scientific knowledge that speaks of
abstract global systems to a global audience, and knowledge that pertains more
closely to local settings where the drivers and impacts of global change are more
directly experienced” (Pearce et al., 2018, 128).
This is also an issue that TA has been dealing with in depth. Balancing out the
needs of regional development as part of national-level development is a common
focus of TA exercises, while more often than not, this upgrades to international (e.g.
European) versus regional balancing. As such, TA has identified the need to translate
scientific knowledge to lay language and has developed methodologies that aim at
converting abstract theories to applicable technologies at local level (Hennen, 2002).
Overall, TA can make significant contributions to the international STI governance
system. These contributions can take many forms, ranging from the establishment of
a TA-like structure such as the IPCC (see also Ashworth and Clarke, this volume),
48 M. Ladikas and A. Stamm
or as part of the existing UN system, like UNCTAD. The future form will depend
on many external factors, prominent amongst them being the political will to create
such a global policy advisory institution. We have shown that TA has the experience
and the tools to work effectively at a global level, which is evident in the existing TA
activities that are undertaken, unwittingly or not, in many multilateral organisations.
The TA community should respond to the tasks that global challenges are bringing,
and the needs of the global community to promote common STI approaches to deal
with them.
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Challenges for Global TA
Globalisation as Reflexive
Modernisation—Implications for S&T
Governance
Leonhard Hennen and Rinie van Est
1 Introduction
“Globalisation” refers to a process of growing interconnectedness of economies and
affects trade relations, production chains and labour markets. However, globalisa-
tion is about more than economics. It includes significant socio-cultural changes,
which induce as many challenges to policymaking and governance as the “global
economy”. These changes are technologically fostered by increasing options for
real-time exchange of data, news, money, chats, advertisements and videos about
all kind of subjects, from everyday problems and individual preferences regarding
fashion, to problems of international justice and socio-economic inequality or the
global condition of our environment. The changes connected with these develop-
ments have repercussions on every citizen of the world. The effects will be different
for each individual; some effects will be welcome, others may cause conflicts, social
upheaval or crises, sometimes of a global nature such as global warming or the
COVID-19 pandemic, each of which has specific local and personal consequences.
Thus, globalisation changes our life world and through this our reference system for
individual and political decision-making.
It is the purpose of this chapter to provide a frame for more specific contributions
provided in this volume on governance issues in science and technology (S&T),
and in particular the role of Technology Assessment (TA), by giving an overview
Contribution to: Technology Assessment in a Globalised World—Facing the Challenges of
Transnational Technology Governance.
L. Hennen (B)
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,
Karlstr. 11, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: leonhard.hennen@gmx.de
R. van Est
Rathenau Instituut, Anna van Saksenlaan 51, 2593 HW The Hague, The Netherlands
e-mail: q.vanest@rathenau.nl
© The Author(s) 2023
L. Hennen et al. (eds.), Technology Assessment in a Globalized World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0_4
53
54 L. Hennen and R. van Est
of developments in society, economy and culture that are related to the concept of
“globalisation”. Thus, by clarifying the meaning of globalisation, the needs, oppor-
tunities and challenges for developing global strategies, procedures and institutions
of TA will be set against a general background of global interconnectedness and
change. Technology plays an irrevocable role in this. “The pace of globalisation
and that of technological change have in fact been strictly interrelated and, from
a long-term perspective, it appears less important to establish which one should
be considered responsible for triggering the other rather than to establish that they
mutually enforced each other.” (Archibugi & Iammarino, 2002) S&T are thus drivers
as well as mediators and facilitators of globalisation. At the same time, they are a
source of global problems and challenges as well as options to address these. In
both respects, S&T are at the centre of global societal and political debates about the
needs and opportunities for global governance and world politics. We will touch on
the role of S&T when going through the history of globalisation and expanding on
the main features and problems of our current global situation.
By a tour of the central issues touched upon in the discourse on globalisation,
we hope to clarify the broad scope of questions and problems that challenge the
necessary global attempts to govern the process of globalisation. Approaches to and
concepts of science-based advice to policymaking such as TA are part and parcel of
governance on the national level (Hennen & Ladikas, 2019;STOA,
2012;van Est,
2019). We argue that it is necessary for this policy intelligence practice to transfer its
methods and institutional setting to a global level. This is a challenge in itself, and
what kind of solutions will be found remains open. The main task is to support the
reflexivity of global governance, its ability to learn and critically reflect on currently
established routines, as well as to take into account uncertainties of knowledge, and
ambiguities when taking action.
In the case of ambiguities, it is necessary to include a broad scope of differing
and sometimes conflicting values in the process of identifying problems as well as
viable and effective policies. The values to be taken into account imply a broad
scope of accounts of what has and can be done, and a broad scope of visions of what
the meaning and future of a “common good” at a global level might be. TA at a
national level works in an inclusive mode, by trying to provide for participation of
all relevant voices in deliberation on policymaking. To do this, TA needs to rely on
and address itself to an attentive public and an active civil society as central parts of
its “habitat” (Hennen & Nierling, 2015), which at best is in the making on a global
level. Each contribution to this volume discusses different aspects of the challenge
for S&T governance set by globalisation. This essay aims to make clear that the
latest stage of what has been called “reflexive modernisation”, which we understand
as globalisation, needs “reflexivity” in answers to its challenges.
The paper starts with a brief discussion of the long history of globalisation in order
to clarify what is characteristic of our current stage of globality. It then outlines some
central features of what globalisation currently comprises and sketches globalisation
as reflexive modernisation. Next, we present the ambiguities—in terms of goods and
bads—of globalisation and the associated challenges of a “cosmopolitan” perspective
on governance. We do this through a discussion of three fields or dimensions of
Globalisation as Reflexive Modernisation—Implications … 55
globalisation. The final section discusses the relevance and implications of these
trends for global governance and the role of scientific policy advice.
2 Globalisation—A Modern Phenomenon with a History
Globalisation encompasses a complex set of societal dimensions and thus is subject
also to scholarly debates on its sources, drivers and features, as well as its meaning for
and bearing on the future of culture and politics. Such controversies include debates
on whether what we experience as globalisation is altogether new. Without being
able to enter deep into this discussion, we briefly outline the history of globalisation
since this will aid understanding of what it means to be “globalised” nowadays.
Pre-modern globalisation
Some hold that globalisation can be dated to antique times since in these pre-modern
periods we can also find many examples of cross-border exchange or mutual influ-
ence in cultural, economic and political terms. Pre-modern Egyptian, Persian, Indian,
Mongolian, Chinese and Roman empires connected great and culturally diverse terri-
tories or regions under one power regime, implying intensified economic and cultural
exchange (Abu-Lughod, 1989). The development and global expansion of world
religions (Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam) can be regarded as a unifi-
cation of world views and moralities held in different regions of the world. Some
authors regard certain common features—such as individual ethical self-reflection—
as a possible fundament of cosmopolitanism and moral mutual understanding (see
the debate about the “axial age”, for an overview Bellah & Joas, 2012). Many of the
fundaments of Western modernity are based in cultural achievements from other parts
of the world and have been adopted in Europe as an effect of pre-modern interchange:
“Coins, paper money and complex bureaucracy were legacies from China. Monetary
policy and commercial credit came from Chinese and Arab mini-globalizations. The
Arabic numeral system allowed double-entry bookkeeping, essential in accounting,
while maritime regulation came from the East. These developments are central to
systems such as capitalism and bureaucracy that define modernity and modern glob-
alization.” (Martell, 2017, 61) Thus, modern globalisation owes a lot to pre-modern
cross-border and cross-cultural exchange, although it goes far beyond historic phases
in terms of its scope and the intensity of interconnectedness.
Capitalist globalisation
In addition, the modern state of globalisation is based in fundamentally new material
and cultural fundaments of modern societies—such as rationalisation of world views
and modes of social integration, democratic and authoritarian modes of government,
individualism, as well as the market economy, industrialisation and capitalist modes
of production. The global spread and relevance of these features are connected with
the European-driven colonialist expansion of circles of political and economic activ-
ities beyond regional boundaries since the fifteenth century. It presents a history of
56 L. Hennen and R. van Est
military violence and occupation, of political, economic, cultural and religious domi-
nation and of human exploitation, including slavery. This repressive and Eurocentric
process led to the fostering of a modern view of humanity and a universalistic mode
of morality. The ideas of universal human rights and individual freedom, as reflected
in moral and philosophical thinking of the European enlightenment (Rousseau, Kant,
Locke), are closely linked to perception and awareness of the multitude of cultures
and ways of life that was made possible by the connection of remote areas of the globe
driven by European political and economic interests and legitimised by ideologies
of European supremacy (see, e.g. Powell, 2014).1
Following Wallerstein’s (1980) account of the “world system”, globalisation is
an effect of capitalism, since striving for capital valorisation has an impetus in itself
to expand the scope of markets and investment opportunities. Thus, today’s global
system largely dates back to the sixteenth century when European capitalist actors
started to expand their reach to the Americas and Asia. These transatlantic and
Pacific explorations were enabled by significant progress in navigation technologies.
The next globalisation wave in the nineteenth century was also driven by economic
motives and supported by new technological developments. The intensified inter-
European and transcontinental interchanges in the area of “industrialisation” were
driven by new mass production technologies. New transport technologies such as
railways, steam ships and later aeroplanes also improved the means, reach and speed
of interchange. This wave of globalisation, which was closely linked to the struggle
between the colonial ambitions of Western countries, also introduced new conflicts
in social relations and politics, as was reflected in the Communist Manifesto of Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848 (Marx & Engels 1998). Their analysis is not too
far from descriptions of the dynamics of globalisation which we face nowadays (Katz,
2001). The Communist Manifesto describes the liberation of economic and cultural
activities from local embedding and the resulting “interdependencies”. Domination
and exploitation came about at the same time with opening up from local or national
“seclusion” and “self-sufficiency”.
The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of unprecedented economic
interchange and interdependence. The First World War destroyed the level of forma-
tion of a world economy, and it took until the 1970s to reach the same level (Strik-
werda, 2016). With World War I, the area of economic interchange experienced a
national backlash but nevertheless and ironically provided the start for a new “world
system” (Wallerstein), but with the United States rather than Europe at the centre.
It is possible to speak of globalisation since World War I in terms of geopolitical
thinking and attempts to establish global institutions of governance. As Eric Hobs-
bawm put it, the world, the globe, instead of nation states and national economies is
the “primary functional unit” to refer to economically and politically (Hobsbawm,
1998, 30).
1 A comparable “de-nationalisation” of world views had been observed in the late Roman empire,
with the dominant philosophical-religious school of the Stoa establishing “humanity” (enclosing
the whole “oikumene”—the then known inhabited world) as the reference for moral reflection.
Globalisation as Reflexive Modernisation—Implications … 57
With the end of the Soviet empire in 1991 and the end of the Cold War, the
bipolarized geopolitical shape of the world dissolved and Western Liberalism with
its democracy and market economy appeared to be the only alternative (which made
some observers speak—prematurely—of the “end of history”, Fukuyama, 1992). The
apparent “victory” of the Western system together with options provided by digital
technologies gave rise to the notion of a globalised world in terms of socio-political
order, as well as socio-cultural closing of ranks (“the global village”, McLuhan,
1962). At the same time, people became aware of global problems, such as global
economic crisis and climate change. It was these developments that made the term
“globalisation” a salient subject of political and scholarly debate in the 1980s and
1990s (Martell, 2017, I ntroduction).
Although colonialism no longer exists (in its historic manner of political expan-
sion), and power relations have shifted significantly since the nineteenth century,
economic interests and the capitalist economy still foster global interdependencies
and establish new centres and peripheries in terms of economic power and benefits.
Globalisation can be regarded as a project driven by economic motives and to a great
part facilitated by technological progress.
This is not an exhaustive characterisation of today’s global state of affairs and
of the variety of political, cultural and economic aspects that have been the subject
of scholarly debate on the push of globalisation since the 1980s. Those discussions
are busy reflecting on the new aspects and features that discern the recent wave of
expanded global interchange and interdependence from historic phases of globali-
sation. Whilst we cannot go into the details of these controversial debates here, it is
necessary to develop some systematic understanding of what “Globalisation” means
or encompasses in order to better understand the need for and the options of global
technology governance and the r ole of TA.
3 Modern Globalisation and Reflexive Modernisation
What is “modern” about “modern globalisation”? In this section, we consider the
question of what, behind all the different features related to globalisation, can be
regarded as the core characteristics of our current state of global interconnectedness.
Current transnational interrelations show more expanded global outreach than
historical modes of transnational interconnectedness. Changes in production and
trade as well as politics or culture in one part of the world may have repercussions
beyond local, national or regional spheres. This implies interdependency of national
economies and politics, including in terms of the unintended side-effects of activities
such as global environmental problems or global risks (see Sect. 4.3). What is also
apparent is the speed and intensity of the exchange of knowledge and data. Global
communication today means real-time communication, ranging from huge financial
transactions to being connected live with all kinds of political or cultural events in all
parts of the world, and the possibility of posting your own thoughts and beliefs about
the latter to the “world” via social media. Ideas developed in one part of the globe can
58 L. Hennen and R. van Est
easily travel to any other part. The distinction between local and domestic experiences
and the global arena is losing relevance, and the impacts that the local might have
on the distanced and vice versa are magnified, and its effects are accelerated.
Thus, the core of modern globalisation might be caught by the term “supra terri-
torialism” (Scholte, 2005), which means that territory no longer makes a distinctive
difference, and social activities are not defined or bound by territories, due to the
shrinking of time and space based on technologies of exchange. Proximate local
issues and problems are caused by distant decisions or developments, and call for
a non-parochial perspective to address them. The relevance of local connections
remains, but people’s working relations, their private social networks, their welfare
and ultimately also their identities are no longer mostly defined by their local or
national environments, structures and institutions, but are dependent on—and partly
an effect of—global interconnectedness and interdependencies. This means that
everyday life is increasingly determined by structures set up by transnational corpo-
rations and policies, and problems of global relevance (such as climate change), as
well as by lifestyles whose element and forms are defined and shared globally.
Contemporary globalisation is thus accompanied by a consciousness of glob-
alisation that manifests itself both in the global discourse as well as in everyday
experiences, apprehension and expressions of globalisation in all layers of society.
We are not only objectively globalised, but we are also becoming increasingly aware
that local or national boundaries neither restrict our activities nor protect us to the
extent they might have in former times. Because of the increasing interdependence
and consciousness of the global whole (see, e.g. Robertson, 1992), globalisation has
become a “new symbolic experience” (Martell, 2017, 53) embedded in our identities
and the ways we understand the world and our future (for the good or the bad), and
thus is referred to in almost every discourse on politics, culture and economy.
From a sociological perspective, all this is not in the first line based on some inde-
pendent dynamics of trans-local interchange but are fundamentally features related
to modernity. For Anthony Giddens, who provided one of the first influential soci-
ological accounts of globalisation (Giddens, 1990), globalisation is a feature of the
general process of modernisation (and vice versa), which is characterised by “dis-
embedding” social relations, and reflexivity of social institutions. Social activities
are increasingly dependent on remote activities, provisions and institutions—not
as a result of globalisation as such—but as a result of different dimensions of the
process of modernisation, i.e. rationalisation, scientification, devaluation of tradi-
tional knowledge, trans-local division of labour, capitalist market economies and
monetarisation. Thus, the reorganisation of the social dimension of space and time
which appear to be an effect or the essence of globalisation is basically a feature of
modernity. When regarding socialisation (the forces of integrating and constituting
societies) at its core as a problem of organisation of time and space, it is apparent
that “… in the modern era, the level of time space distanciation is much higher than
in any previous period, and the relations between local and distant social forms and
events become correspondingly ‘stretched’.” (Giddens, 1990: 64). What the previous
section described as a feature of globalisation—the “dis-embedding” of the local and
Globalisation as Reflexive Modernisation—Implications … 59
its dependency on widely dispersed structures in time- and space—is for Giddens an
aspect of “reflexive modernisation”.
Contemporary globalisation is the latest consequence of this process. It is charac-
terised by “intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities
in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles
away and vice versa” (Giddens, 1990, 64). This implies economic dependencies, but
might simultaneously bring about contradictory cultural shifts. Giddens believes that
a global “stretch” of social relations might loosen the mental bounds to socio-cultural
and political dimensions of the nation state and at the same time “be causally involved
with the intensifying of more localised national sentiments” (ibid., 65). Modernity
is not only a structural process but also affects individual and social identities which
become “a reflexive project” (ibid., 124) in the sense that they are no longer pre-
stabilised by local traditions and commitments, but have t o be constructed individ-
ually, and become a subject of “life politics” (Giddens, 1991). This might lead to
cosmopolitan attitudes as well as to a reaffirmation and demarcation of group identi-
ties, the conflictive effects of which we nowadays see in fundamentalism, nationalism
and identity politics.
Giddens discerns four dimensions of globalisation: the nation state system, the
world capitalist economy, the world military order and international division of labour
(Giddens, 1990, 70f.). The division of labour dimension refers to industrialisation—
transformation of nature, development of a created environment (ibid.: 59)—and
includes a focus on production technologies and the environmentally negative conse-
quences. In this volume and in TA, we are concerned with S&T in general and its
socio-cultural meanings. Cultural globalisation is driven by communication tech-
nologies (from letterpress to modern communication technologies), which, according
to Giddens, are the driving forces behind central features of modernity such as social
expansion, loss of traditions and local perspectives, rationalisation and reflexivity.
At this point, we arrive at what the terms “reflexive” or “second” modernity, as
applied by Giddens, Ulrich Beck and others (see Beck et al., 1994) actually mean:
the confrontation of (first) modernity with its “non-intended” consequences and
side-effects, as well as the process of applying reflexivity and critical scrutiny—the
heritage of enlightenment—to the fundaments of modernity itself. This includes the
promise of scientific rationalisation (and its material outcome: modern technology)
as a guarantee for increasing social wealth and security. The success of modernisation
in bringing about relative wealth for a greater part of society and increasing the reach
and effectiveness of human intervention in nature unavoidably brings negative side-
effects and systematically comes with risks and new uncertainties which lead to new
conflicts and legitimisation problems for governments and experts. Modern forms of
technology governance and problem-oriented research like TA can be regarded as an
answer to these problems. The idea, mission and practice of TA can be understood
as emanating from reflexive modernisation (Delvenne et al., 2011; Hennen, 1999,
Grunwald, t.b.p). Although it is quite obvious that globalisation, with its achieve-
ments and problems, is part of or an enactment and consequence of modernity, it
must be seen also as underlying the problems of “reflexive modernisation”, which
60 L. Hennen and R. van Est
explains much of its ambivalent character. We will touch on examples of these issues
in the next section.
4 Three Dimensions of Modern Globalisation: Culture,
Economy and Risks
The debate on globalisation is not just a debate about its sources or about the level of
interconnectedness and interdependency; it is essentially a debate about what globali-
sation has brought about or will bring about in the future. A positive normative conno-
tation of globalisation as a vision of cosmopolitanism, global exchange across world
views, global joint problem-solving and global democracy might be widespread, but
this vision is not uncontested, and those in favour of it are also aware of the prob-
lems that globalisation brings and the challenges ahead in this cosmopolitan vision
of globalisation. The debate on globalisation is not only concerned with and driven
by the question of how globalisation proceeds, but always also evolves around the
question of whether it is for good or for bad.
4.1 Cultural Globalisation
As well as capturing the often contradictory and diverse developments that can be
regarded as features or effects of globalisation, one of the central problems is the
question of “global culture”.2 Are we on the way to cultural homogeneity, to a
global culture, i.e. a worldwide alignment of ways of life, world views and normative
orientations? Opinions are strongly divided and range from bold statements on the
increasing homogeneity of culture across the globe to a diversification or even a
“clash of cultures” (Huntington, 1996). In the latter notion, globalisation is regarded
as the cause of conflicts and terrorist activities of cultural fundamentalism. This clash
can also be observed from a different angle when national governments perceive
criticism based on Western notions of human rights and democracy as illegitimate
interventions in their internal affairs and cultural traditions. It is not our intention
here to give a consistent analysis of the debate on global culture; the point we want
to make is that technology matters.
Since the 1960s, electronic mass media (namely TV) and the economic Western
hegemony in the production of media content have enabled the diffusion of (mainly)
the American way of life and norms and values around the globe, by means of movies,
TV soaps and advertisements, but also political news broadcasts. This has led to the
notion of the homogenisation of cultures: globally, people are watching the same TV
shows and formats, play the same video games and consume the same products. This
2 The following paragraphs owe much to Martell (2017) where a more detailed analysis of the
complexity of cultural globalisation is available.
Globalisation as Reflexive Modernisation—Implications … 61
has often included the notion that Western culture is about to erode local or regional
cultures and that authentic cultural identities are substituted by an “impoverished”
global consumption culture. So cultural imperialism and commercialisation are often
seen as the drivers of homogeneity (see, e.g. Bourdieu, 2003).
However, salient phenomena referred to as “glocalisation” can also be observed.
There are means to adopt formats as well as content to local or regional traditions,
needs and values. And some of the changes in global culture obviously travel the
other way—i.e. cultural production of Asia and Africa (lifestyle, music, movies, as
well as world views, philosophies, religion) are adopted in Western countries. These
phenomena lead to the notion of a “hybridisation” (e.g. Nederveen Pieterse, 2004)
of global culture. Due to the intensified and extended exchanges made possible via
new media as well as by i nternational tourism and massive migration, we arrive at a
global culture which is a mix of inputs from all parts of the world. “Global cities” such
as London, New York or Hong Kong are regarded as knots of globalisation, where
cultures are mixed and identities are manifold (Sassen, 2001). The same process may,
however, also imply a loss of ability for local communities to keep their identities or
produce meaning for their members whose identity is shaped more by foreign influ-
ences than by local experiences (Bauman, 1998; Beck, 2017). The Internet allows
for a diversification of the cultural content produced and dispersed. Thus, there is an
abundant space to express cultural identities and political views which are opposite
to dominant political cultures and interests. The migration from Asia and Africa to
Western countries (often from formerly colonised territories) leads to introducing
new cultural elements into Western nations that may be either acknowledged as
“multi-culturalism” or opposed by xenophobic right-wing populist groups. So, it is
not clear whether hybridisation of culture is leading to an increasingly shared global
culture or to a (peaceful or conflictive) coexistence of hybrid cultures and ways of
life.
As discussed above, communication technologies, migration and global travel
currently create global interconnectedness on the symbolic level. Economic calculus
and commercialisation are important drivers which shape the content and values that
make up the cultural exchange. At the same time however, this interconnectedness
allows for a diversity of cultural expressions to come into dialogue with one other in
a way not previously possible. This involves options for creativity and enrichment of
cultural experience and also presents a source of conflict about identities. The central
question is to what extent our economic interdependence, as well as the ways in which
we are affected by global problems, is accompanied by developing a cosmopolitan
perspective, or at least a widespread feeling of global citizenship. And further, to
what extent can global digital exchange contribute to a sense of global citizenship,
or in contrast lead to strengthening group identities that experience themselves as
exclusive and superior to others? The political implications of cultural globalisation
are pivotal to this.
62 L. Hennen and R. van Est
4.2 Economic Globalisation
History shows that specialisation and rationalisation of production, including national
and later international division of labour and the search for new markets and prof-
itable trade relations, have been central driving forces for global interchange. This
process has always been facilitated by technical and social innovations opening up
new options and allowing the expansion of the exchange of goods and of resources
all over the globe. In the 1990s, this culminated in technical options for real-time
exchange and dislocation of finance. Technical innovations, like the Internet, have
facilitated salient features of globalisation such as migration (of labour and tourism),
the availability of information and news from all parts of the globe to everybody,
globally integrated production chains, and global markets, as well as the socio-
cultural modes of globalisation. According to McKinsey (2019, 72), cross-border
data flows have grown 148 times larger from 2005 to 2017 (measured by used cross-
border bandwidth: from 5 terabits in 2005 to 704 terabits in 2017). Innovation is the
driver of the global integration of production and trade, in terms of facilitating global
transactions. Innovation also fuels the production and exchange of commodities. At
the same time, economic rationalities and increasing international competition are
driving the innovation system through internationalisation of technology develop-
ment and knowledge exchange. The big players of the digital economy are multi-
national tech companies using integrated production and supply chains all over the
world.
Since the 1980s, the global exchange of goods and services has been growing
significantly, and the production chains have become more and more complex. In
2019, the global trade value of goods exported throughout the world amounted to
approximately 19 trillion U.S. dollars at current prices, compared to around 6.45
trillion U.S. dollars in 2000 (www.statistica.com, 26-07-21). Foreign direct invest-
ments have been growing massively from 1990 (239.4 billion $) to 2007 (3.134
trillion $) (data.worldbank.org/27.07.21). The financial crisis of 2007 brought about
a slowdown of economic globalisation. Foreign direct investments went down to
1.744 trillion $ in 2019. But still, world trade has been growing significantly,
although not faster than industrial production (Felbermayer & Görg, 2020, 264).
Most significant for globalisation is the relevance of knowledge-intensive goods
and services. Although globalisation is often identified with the global exchange of
labour-intensive goods, with China as the current largest producer, value chains in
this sector represent only 3% of global gross output and employ only 3% of the
global workforce. Value chains of knowledge-intensive goods production (automo-
bile, computers, machinery) account for 13% of gross output and even 35% of trade
(McKinsey, 2019,2).
The interconnectedness of the world economy brings about not only an increase in
international trade and production, but also new insecurities and vulnerabilities. As
shown by the financial crisis of 2007/2008, the international mobility of finance—
driven by the real-time exchange of money and investments made possible by the
Internet—induces repercussions on the world economy from local or regional events
Globalisation as Reflexive Modernisation—Implications … 63
(like the breakdown of the American real estate market). The central question that
sparks fierce political and scientific debate is: who benefits from economic globali-
sation? This question is closely related to the effects of neoliberal politics as well as
to changes in international power relations.
The push of the globalisation of economic exchange in the decades after World
War II (which took over from the phase of European colonialism in the nineteenth
century) was clearly dominated by the US and its Western partners, who in the 1980s
shifted to neoliberal politics demanding the abandonment of market regulations and
protectionist barriers (see, e.g. Crouch, 2018). The effects of this policy pushed
advanced economies significantly, but also led to pressure on the Western welfare
system, inducing new inequalities within Western economies. This pressure increased
with the entry of China into the global market, which together with the countries of
the former Soviet Union had formerly been excluded from globalisation. Low-wage
production was shifted to China and other Asian countries, and Western economies
had to foster economic activities in high-wage production and service activities, with
problems for the low-wages sector of their home labour markets. This was connected
with an increasing tendency of parts of the population to apprehend “globalisation”
as a menace to their economic situation. This has contributed to strong nationalist
and (in connection with global migration of workforces and refugees) xenophobic
tendencies, indicating a countertendency towards cultural globalisation (see above).
With regard to international relations, Asian countries whose economies had been
pushed by global economic exchange—especially China—could increase their inter-
national weight drastically, thus ending the phase of Western (US) domination. For
people in emerging economies, the globalisation push of the 1990s has come with
stronger participation in world trade and a higher level of welfare for a growing
sector of the population, especially in China. Since 1990, a billion people outside
the advanced economies have emerged from poverty, which for critics of current
international politics like Crouch (2018) is a reason to dismiss any attempt to return
to national protectionist policies. Compared to 1995, in 2017 developing countries’
(excluding China) share in the world market as regions receiving goods and services
increased from 20 to 29%, with China’s share increasing from 3 to 12%. In terms
of production, the share of non-Western countries in the global economy has also
been increased (although mostly for developing countries in low-wage value chains).
China’s share in global output grew from 6% in 2000 to 33% in 2017 (McKinsey,
2019, 64). In China today, only 1.9% of the population live in poverty. However, as
in other new economies, economic development is unequally distributed within the
country: the inequality of the distribution of wealth in China nowadays is (according
to the Gini coefficient) greater than in the US (Crouch, 2018 24).
The pressure of neoliberal politics—executed for a long period by the Interna-
tional Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank—on developing countries to open their
markets for international trade often worked out negatively for emerging economies
because they could not compete with stronger economies. Thus, while South-East
Asia was able to benefit from globalisation, most African countries could not. And
moreover, less advanced economies are more vulnerable than advanced economies
to critical developments of the world economy. For example, the reduction of foreign
64 L. Hennen and R. van Est
direct investments (see above) during the recent COVID-19 pandemic years hits tran-
sition economies much harder than advanced ones (UNCTAD, 2021). The oppor-
tunities for emerging economies to actively participate in global markets (not only
as a provider of raw materials or as an extended cheap work bench for advanced
economies) strongly depend on access to technologies. To achieve this, support
is required in assessing options to adopt new technologies in an environmentally
and socially sound way to limit negative repercussions for societies—meaning that
concepts like Technology Assessment would have a role to play (Ely et al., 2014).
Despite the positive effects of globalisation for many people in emerging and
transition economies, it is still the case that the countries which benefit most from
globalisation are the advanced OECD economies (paradoxically often those with the
biggest problems with national-populist reactions among their populations). The UN
World Social Report “Inequality in a changing world” (2020) states (taken from the
report’s summary):
• Although the income inequality between countries did improve during the last
25 years (mainly due to strong growth in China and other emerging economies),
the gap between countries is still considerable. Average income of people in North
America is 16 times higher than of people in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Income inequality between countries has improved but inequality within countries
has grown. Today, 71% of the world’s population live in countries where inequality
has grown.
• Income and wealth are increasingly concentrated at the top. In 2018, the 26 richest
people held as much wealth as half of the population (the 3.8 billion poorest
people), down from 43 people the year before.
• Although gender inequalities have been shrinking for some woman in certain
occupations, at the same time women and girls put in 12.5 billion hours of unpaid
care work each day, a contribution to the world economy 3 times the size of the
global tech industry.
• If climate change continues to be unaddressed, it will increase inequality within
and between countries.
• With a global trend towards urbanisation, cities will find “high levels of wealth
and modern infrastructure coexist with pockets of severe deprivation often side
by side”.
4.3 Globalisation of Risks
The relation between science, technology and society and the question of bringing
the ever-accelerating pace of technology development and use into relation with
the needs and values held by different groups in society has been at the centre of
political and scientific discourse for many decades. The debate about how to come
to terms with often negative effects of technology on society and the environment
can be said to have changed the political landscape in terms of issues that are high
on political agendas, and in terms of relevant political actors and parties, at least in
Globalisation as Reflexive Modernisation—Implications … 65
Western societies. TA is a product of this development. What is absolutely necessary
in order to provide a full picture of globalisation, and has a special bearing for TA
and technology governance, is the fact that the science and society discourse and
its main reference, i.e. the problem of managing ethical ambiguities and social and
environmental risks, has become a global discourse due to the global character of
the problems to be dealt with, and the global strategies required to deal with these
problems.
Global warming and the fiercely discussed need for global strategies to reduce
the CO2 footprint of our economies is only the most salient example of how we are
not only globalised in economic or cultural terms. We are also a global community
both producing and affected by risks. The risks that we necessarily take while we
are shaping our futures through our growing capacities for action and intervening
in the world are of global character, as is the uncertainty of the knowledge that
we necessarily produce and have to deal with when trying to manage these risks
and decide on safe enough, ethically viable options to pursue, on the individual
as well as the societal level. Globalisation in this respect also proves to be the most
advanced state of “reflexive modernisation”, of the process of undermining the hopes
and rationales of modernity, and its belief in the unambiguous benefits of technical
progress as well as the application of its heredity of rational criticism and scrutiny
to the achievements of modernity itself (Science, Technology, Rationalisation of all
kinds of human activities).
What have been discussed as features of the “risk society” on a national level since
the 1990s (Beck, 1986/1992) have now become issues of the “world risk society”. In
the 1980s, the depletion of the ozone layer of the atmosphere caused by the world-
wide use of chlorofluorocarbons was one of the first phenomena to be perceived as
an effect of global production of environmental risks. The finite nature and insta-
bility of fossil fuel supply had become obvious in the 1970s, making it clear that
global natural resources are limited. Nowadays, the planetary boundaries of various
fundamental resources, such as arable farm land or freshwater, are acknowledged
(see, e.g. Rockström et al., 2009). Air and environmental pollution could never be
regarded as phenomena that end at national borders, and the pollution of the world
oceans with plastics, the remainders of the essential material of modern lifestyles as
well as the global reduction of biodiversity make this all too obvious.
Conflicts about the distribution of the benefits and risks of innovations (whether
in terms of environmental risks or the effects of new production technologies on
economies and labour markets) are now global conflicts. The question of “who will
be the losers, who are the winners of modernisation?”, the questions of access to
resources, knowledge and markets all need to be addressed on a global scale. There
is also the question of who should contribute, to what extent and how, to developing
the necessary strategies of reduction of resource consumption and outputs. The prime
example is the much-needed reduction of CO2 emissions by changes to sustainable
production and lifestyles, where it is important to note that the carbon emissions of
the richest 1% are more than double the emissions of the poorest half of humanity
(see, e.g. Oxfam, 2020).
66 L. Hennen and R. van Est
As regards to ethics, it appears to be difficult to align the challenges of innovation
such as human in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and the promises of embryo research
or of genome manipulation with relevant values and religious beliefs at the level
of national policymaking. Reaching a consensus on ethical barriers and effective
legal regulations in biotechnology, synthetic biology or nanotechnology is a global
challenge for which mutual respect and productive exchange of cultures are needed
(Ladikas et al., 2015). Not least, the push of global real-time exchange of data and the
related risks for privacy, and of abuse of the Internet for manipulating political debates
are issues induced by the global character of digital networks that demand global
political reactions. The social networks are as global as the sources of manipulation
and misuse that are driven by digital warfare and criminal activities. The list of global
risks seems endless and includes challenges attached to global migration, cultural
globalisation and global terrorism.
Thus, we are a global community with respect to the central challenges we face in
our everyday lives and in politics. Beck (2017) argued convincingly that we are facing
a “metamorphosis of the world” that asks for a new global perspective, including
social scientific analysis, since the societal structures, interdependencies and prob-
lems as well as political options that we have to take into account in our private
and political lives can no longer be restricted to the perspective of the nation state.
Central concepts of societal change, societal revolution and transformation that are
tied to the concept of the nation state are no longer valid or useful and have to make
room for what Beck calls “methodological cosmopolitism”, that is, the systematic
account of the cosmopolitan character of modern society and its problems.
The driver of this “cosmopolitan” metamorphosis is the world risk society and
its “comprehensive, and profound failure” indicated by global environmental prob-
lems, world poverty, global inequality, global economic crisis and the related global
conflicts (Beck, 2017, 32). But the other side of this, Beck holds, is the fact that
a new cosmopolitan consciousness is growing alongside the problems. The global
complaints and allegations regarding these problems are indications that also subjec-
tively we are cosmopolitans—we are aware of the global character of our situation
and we know that we can only deal with them by taking up a cosmopolitan perspec-
tive. Also, our risk perception and the normative horizons we apply in our search for
solutions are becoming (or must become) “cosmopolitan”.
5 The Need for Reflexive Global Governance
Now that we have become a global “community of fate” (Beck, 2017), it still needs
to be proven whether we are able to form a global community of action, a political
community. And this, first of all, is a question of global awareness of the global
character of the challenges ahead and the willingness to take joint action on a global
scale. Is there a potential for (democratic) world politics based on a common civic
culture allowing for open global exchange about joint problems and their possible
solutions?
Globalisation as Reflexive Modernisation—Implications … 67
With regard to policymaking in the field of environmental risks, technolog-
ical innovations and their ethical and socio-economic implications, the question is
whether it is possible on a global level to implement adequate structures and processes
of deliberation and decision-making. This would require institutions and procedures
that allow for “reflexivity”. “Reflexivity” means to reflect on the uncertainties we
face and critically assess the knowledge at hand, including different cultural views
as well as the variety of needs and capacities that are given by differing environ-
mental conditions (such as climate or access to water). Reflexivity includes taking
into account the existing inequalities and asymmetries of the global economy.
Sheila Jasanoff (2007) speaks of “global civic epistemologies” that comprise the
ways, procedures, institutions and rules of societies to achieve consensus about what
we can hold to be certain or legitimate as arguments, what uncertainties we actu-
ally are faced with and what are realistic options for problem-solving. This involves
formal as well as informal structures of exchange and deliberation. It involves institu-
tions of representative democracy that are informed by the best science as well as by
their citizens. It asks for an open public sphere, a space accessible to everybody for
the exchange of information and arguments. It needs an active civil society providing
for a system of articulating needs and problems and monitoring the performance of
political decision-making with regard to these. It depends on a variety of sources
of knowledge production that can serve as independent and trustworthy references
for societal reflection and discourse. It also would include all kinds of informal
political communications such as fora and meetings, as well as online and offline
deliberations. All of these would be needed on a global level. Some exist already
or are emerging alongside growing awareness of global risks, such as global fora of
problem definitions and mutual understanding as well as more manifest negotiations
about mutual commitments or agreements that come close to globally binding legal
regulations. The shape and functionality of a global system of civic epistemologies
are however a desideratum which has to face many challenges.
With a view to global discourses as well as social movements regarding central
aspects of the world risk society (climate change, environmental pollution and
sustainable use of global resources, equal access to technologies and knowledge,
economic inequalities and unequal development, migration and refugees), there
is reason for some humble optimism. There are indications that a cosmopolitan
consciousness and a feeling of global citizenship is evolving and is able to put
pressure on institutions of governance at the national as well as the global level.
The growing involvement of civil society organisations in the activities of interna-
tional organisations and global phenomena of public awareness—such as Fridays for
Future, a youth-led and -organised global climate strike movement—indicates that a
central feature of democratic problem-solving can function on a global level. This is
the observation and criticism of politics by attentive publics, and the awareness and
responsiveness of decision-makers to such global publics and their manifestations
in their home countries. Thus, there are some indications that Beck was right when
stating that “… global risks bring about globalised public spheres – these again make
global risks visible and equip them with political relevance” (Beck, 2017, 168, see
also the chapter on the global public sphere, this volume).
68 L. Hennen and R. van Est
At the same time, we have seen in the section about cultural globalisation that
“globalisation of minds” is an ambivalent and conflicting process. People have the
means to communicate in real time across the globe and are aware of the situation and
mind-sets of other regions of the world like never before. But we should not overlook
that the great bulk of communication around the globe is of commercial character, and
the commercialisation of culture globally appears to function as a vehicle to spread
Western lifestyles and consumerism (see, e.g. Bourdieu, 2003). The means of global
communication can be misused for disinformation and also bring about counter-
reactions of fostering nationalism and populistic movements that regard globalisation
as a menace to cultural identities. Due to disparities and asymmetries in the world
economy, there are also asymmetries in the opportunity to articulate one’s views. In
addition, hegemonic cultural structures benefit disproportionately from means and
technologies of cultural globalisation. This clearly affects the normative foundations
of options for global governance of S&T. Even ideas as universalistic as global human
rights can serve as vehicles for Western hegemony when connected with neoliberal
concepts of economy. They can be used to hide or justify the continuing existence
of discrepancies in access to markets, and thus to welfare and participation in the
benefits of globalisation. How do Western accounts of individual rights relate to other
more collectivist or economic ideas of rights, such as the right to food and water?
Thus, despite strong indications of an emerging “cosmopolitan” perspective on the
goods and bads of globalisation, there is a huge task ahead to provide for spaces and
opportunities where cultures can meet and discuss differences in what they regard
to be the problems of our time and world. These need to be meeting spaces where
people can reflect on the values they want to apply to evaluate the societal meaning of
innovations and the acceptability of risks, and on how widely accepted values such
as equality, justice, welfare, the common good and individual liberty and dignity
actually can be meaningfully applied to concrete problems.
Besides deliberative spaces, global civic epistemologies also need functioning
global structures of governance and decision-making. Globalisation has brought
about a decline of the governance powers of the nation state. And so far this is
counterbalanced only by weak structures of transnational governance. The increased
integration of the global economy has strengthened the ability of globally operating
transnational companies to direct investments to economies with conditions that fit
their purposes best in terms of the price of labour and resources, as well as low
levels of social-welfare restrictions and regulations. As a consequence, the abilities
of nation states to preserve the social contract based on welfare policies have become
restricted. For many, this represents one reason for the growth of populist movements
and policies over the last two decades. According to some, the increasing powers of
non-state actors in setting the rules of international economic exchange—which is
also manifest in the often neoliberal policies of international organisations such as
the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or World Bank—indicate the beginning of an
area of “post-democracy” (Crouch, 2004). In addition, global risks delegitimise the
national state: the foremost function of the national state i s to provide protection for
its population. Yet a national state’s capacities to do this are massively restricted by
global risks whose sources and effects it cannot control. National law is only valid
Globalisation as Reflexive Modernisation—Implications … 69
for the national population, but blind with regard to the effects, and those affected,
beyond its national boundaries (Beck, 2017, 132 ff.). The late British historian Eric
Hobsbawm in his account of globalisation concluded that we are facing the global
problems of the twenty-first century with a set of political mechanisms that are not fit
to help. Neither the counting of votes nor the measurements of consumer preferences
in a global market would help to solve the problems of a globalised world (Hobs-
bawm, 2009, 114 f.). Indeed, the international and transnational institutions of global
governance that have been built up since the Second World War—most salient are the
different programmes of the UN—lack democratic legitimation by not being directly
accountable to a global citizenry. With the exception of the European Union, citizen-
ship and related political rights are restricted to national boundaries. This democratic
deficit combines with the difficulties in coming to international agreements on crit-
ical matters that go beyond a minimum consensus, and the restricted powers of
transnational governance institutions to enforce the international observance of any
agreements reached.
At the same time, there are strong indications of transnational awareness of the
need for “cosmopolitan” policymaking in the light of global challenges and problems.
This is indicated by the growing number and importance of international agreements
on environmental, security and health issues supported by international organisations
such as the WHO, OECD, WTO and not the least by the UN. Since the Earth Summit
in 1992, the UN has made sustainable development a main issue in its activities and
has set up a global exchange on how to translate defined sustainable development
goals into international programmes of knowledge sharing, technology transfer and
national programmes of economic development and innovation (see chapter on global
governance, this volume). Other activities are related to health issues, to questions
of security of digital innovations or to ethical evaluation and regulation of the use
of biotechnology and human genome research. Most outstanding when thinking of
reflexive modes of governance is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), through which the UN has established a body of science and policy advice
whose reports are acknowledged as an independent and reliable source of informa-
tion all over the globe. Many of these achievements in establishing processes and
institutions of global governance are dealt with in more detail in chapters in this
volume.
The legitimation of transnational institutions of policymaking and transnational
agreements is a critical issue. Citizens have influence on politics in the framework of
the nation s tate but not at the level of the United Nations or other transnational insti-
tutes. For the moment, it appears to be utopian to think of a global democracy in terms
of global elections and government. The authority of international governance struc-
tures (institutions and agreements) is critical. Global governance structures cannot
rely on unquestioning recognition of rules and regulations by those who are expected
to comply. Its authority is not based on cultural traditions and cannot rely on coer-
cive means. The authority of global governance structures has thus been coined to
be “reflexive authority” (Zürn, 2016). The recognition of authority is not a given but
is a reflexive act, constantly open to critical assessment in the light of the legitimacy
of the procedures applied, the “epistemic authority” of knowledge references (such
70 L. Hennen and R. van Est
as, e.g. the IPCC), as well as the congruence between decisions taken and normative
expectations.
There might currently be little prospect for more global democratic decision-
making structures or institutions beyond the existing often not very powerful and
conflictual ones. It is therefore more necessary to support the “reflexive authority”
of existing structures. This can be done by providing for transparency and respon-
siveness in international decision-making and establishing strong connections with
civil society. Both might best be achieved by—involving civil society organisations
in global governance, as is already the case to some degree. But there is also a role
for intermediate “reflexive” organisations and initiatives of policy advice in the field
of science and technology. Such institutions—as among others the overview on TA
activities given in this volume shows—exist around the globe and nationally are often
already closely involved as an independent actor in policymaking.
The legitimacy of global politics can be supported with regard to the two central
dimension of its legitimacy. First, the quality of decisions taken, which is the appropri-
ateness and effectiveness of its output, and by this its acceptability by the addressees
(output legitimacy). And second, the quality and representativeness of the data, argu-
ments and articulated needs and demands that inform its decisions (input legitimacy).
Both dimensions are supported at the national level by a broad scope of indepen-
dent “knowledge brokers” (Pielke, 2007). Institutions like the IPCC do a similar
job on the global level. To join forces between organisations involved in TA and
policy advice for technology governance from all parts of the world would open up
additional means in the field of S&T policy. The central task would be to provide
problem-related normative knowledge, as well as factual knowledge based on TA
studies from national TA institutions, and organise co-operative work to develop
synthesis based on such studies. The central means would be to organise input from
the global public and civil societies around the globe for international negotiations.
Governance is a term for a co-operative rather than a top-down mode of reaching
policies and decisions in an increasingly complex policymaking environment. This
complexity is even higher at the global level. Global governance is about more than
just the relationship between states. It is about ways to involve a broad spectrum of
actors in governance issues in order to achieve a best and best-accepted solution for
problems by making use of the different sources of knowledge and the full spectrum
of the potential for action. Global governance of S&T with all its implications for
environment, health, the economy and social justice is, as has been stated by an expert
commission of the EU, “… faced with the challenge of rapidly-advancing possibili-
ties realized through research. Across borders the social contexts within which new
knowledge is generated, distributed and regulated will vary hugely. Science never-
theless remains a non-state and transnational social institution, so that its governance
is necessarily global, both internally and externally” (EU, 2016).
It is a complex task to make use of the many sources of knowledge that are provided
by the social institutions of science around the globe to come to a critical assessment
of both the state of research as well as of arguments in societal discourse. But this
is needed in order to come to legitimate decisions on a global scale with regard to
complex problems emerging from scientific and technological modernity, as there is
Globalisation as Reflexive Modernisation—Implications … 71
“… no sensorium for global risks, no direct perception and experience, no evidence
achievable based on common sense alone” (Beck, 2017, 133). It is mainly through
scientific evidence that global risks are testified and can be experienced. The issues of
justice and equal access to the economic opportunities of globalisation as well as the
challenges of aligning different cultural perspectives to problems and solutions need
support from reliable knowledge arrived at in scientifically supported modes of global
deliberation. This scientific mediation makes “reflexivity” and reflexive concepts like
TA salient. The high level of reflexivity involved in this endeavour is exactly the level
needed to face the risks and opportunities of globalisation. Reflexive modernisation,
of which globalisation is maybe the most complex feature, needs reflexive global
governance of S&T, where knowledge-based structures and institutions have a role
to play as intermediates between science, society and policymaking.
• The sources and effects of globalisation are often of local character. Identification
of problems and providing appropriate solutions is in need of “connecting the dots”
through global networks of independent problem-oriented research and advice.
• A reliable knowledge base is needed as input to the search for common policy
on a global level which affords reflexive and open exchange on the broad scope
of effects of S&T on society in different national environments, on the different
problems and perspectives in different parts of the globe as well as on different
values and conflictive demands and expectations.
• Reliable input has to be elaborated to ongoing global discussions as well as policies
(UN) on ways to achieve a sustainable, i.e. environmentally sound and socially
equal and inclusive development of societies and economies.
• “Science in Society” as a concept and reality has to be spelled out on a global
level. The existing systems and institutions of global governance lack democratic
legitimisation and input from a wide range of relevant actors. TA can serve as a
facilitator for inclusive formats in the mainstream zone of decision-making.
It is obvious that with these challenges ahead, TA has to think about its own role and
mission. Reflexivity in this respect also applies to TA itself. Just as globalisation in the
sense of cosmopolitan interchange cannot be about modelling the world according to
Western standards and formats, “Global TA” cannot be about just exporting Western
thinking about the central problems of the science and society complex to the rest of
the world. As a means of global reflexive technology governance, TA may have to
reinvent itself in the confrontation with problems, expectations and needs as defined
by many and various cultures or communities. Problems of access to technologies,
adopting these to local needs, and normative standards as well as economic and
political power relations implied in the adaptation of new technologies then might be
as much in the focus of standard TA studies as the assessment of risks and hazards,
and the discussion of generalised ethical standards.
72 L. Hennen and R. van Est
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Technology Assessment and Public
Spheres in the Context of Globalization:
A Blueprint for the Future
Rinie van Est and Leonhard Hennen
1 Introduction
While the private or domestic sphere is the realm of family life, friends, and personal
matters, the public sphere is where the expression and discussion of ideas occur
regarding common concerns and collective social interests. The term “public sphere”
is often used in the singular form, but “in large-scale, differentiated late modern
societies, not least in the context of nation states permeated by globalization, we have
to understand the public sphere as constituting many different spaces” (Dahlgren,
2005, 148). That is why we prefer to use the plural form here—public spheres—to
recognize that there are countless forms of fragmentation and contestation and both
off- and online public spheres. And within the global context there is a collection of
public spheres that can vary from deeply democratic to authoritarian (cf. Dukalskis,
2017).
Public spheres can arise when people express their personal experiences of partic-
ular problems and solutions in public. This may allow others to listen and recognize
those experiences as a public issue, and to develop a shared understanding of the prob-
lems and solutions, together with a collective will to address them. In these public
sphere processes, media of all kinds play a central role in the circulation of informa-
tion and the interactions and communication between people. This chapter reflects
on the relationship between public spheres and technology assessment (TA), which
addresses the relationship between technological and social change. In particular, we
Contribution to: Technology Assessment in a Globalized World—Facing the Challenges of
Transnational Technology Governance.
R. van Est (B)
Rathenau Instituut, Anna van Saksenlaan 51, 2593 HW The Hague, The Netherlands
e-mail: q.vanest@rathenau.nl
L. Hennen
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,
Karlstr. 11, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
© The Author(s) 2023
L. Hennen et al. (eds.), Technology Assessment in a Globalized World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0_5
75
76 R. van Est and L. Hennen
consider the connection between TA and public spheres from a global perspective,
that is, from the context of globalization. The globalization of science and technology,
among other things, impacts the theory and practice of TA, but there has been little
reflection on the significance of this.
We begin that reflection by stating that TA wants to make the social significance
of technological change publicly visible and open to discussion. TA assumes that
groups of people can be affected both positively and negatively by scientific and
technological developments. These (positive and negative) consequences can lead
to certain groups in society becoming politicized and thus becoming a public that
creates a public sphere. According to Dewey (2016, 69), “The public consists of
all those who are affected by the indirect consequences of transactions to such an
extent that it is deemed necessary to have those consequences systematically cared
for.”1 This is where the “all-affected” principle—also known as the “congruence,”
“symmetry,” or even “democratic” principle—comes into play, which generally says
that “all who are affected by a decision should have a right to participate into making
it” (Dahl, 1970, 64; quoted in Lagerspetz, 2015,6).
Based on this thought, TA should critically relate to the public sphere. For example,
which people, interests, visions and issues do or do not receive attention? In particular,
TA’s role is to make publics which are emerging from the influence of science and
technology visible in the public debate and give them a voice. When TA takes glob-
alization seriously, the global perspective provides an additional critical perspective
on the public sphere, especially the national public sphere. The Global TA network,
almost by definition, wants to take globalization seriously and therefore starts from
the awareness that it is important to take into account an international context when
performing a TA activity. In view of the all-affected principle and the fact that science
and technology and their social consequences are global phenomena, TA should
therefore, in principle, take into account the groups of people that are affected world-
wide, rather than only in the country where the TA is exercised or the countries where
TA is institutionalized.
The above first reflection already indicates the relevance of the global perspective
on public spheres and TA. This will be further elaborated in this chapter. We do
this by first examining the relationship from a national context, because both TA
and academic thinking about public spheres are mainly approached from the point
of view of national political decision-making. Given our interest in the connections
between public spheres and TA, we focus on those public spheres that deal with the
societal significance of technology, or the nexus between science, technology and
society (STS), which we call “STS-like” public spheres. We then reflect on public
spheres in a context of globalization and describe how TA institutes, networks, and
activities are organized beyond national borders. Informed by that, we look at the
link between public spheres and TA in a global context and finish by sketching a
blueprint for the future of global TA. But first we start by characterizing the public
sphere concept by means of six dimensions. This characterization is needed in order
1 According to Rogers (2016) Dewey’s language of ‘indirect consequences’ is “deceptive because
he appears to also mean harmful or unwanted consequences, indirect or not” (Rogers 2016, 35).
Technology Assessment and Public Spheres in the Context … 77
to interpret the academic discussion about the public spheres and their relationship
with TA in both the national and global contexts.
2 Six Characteristics of Public Spheres
The term public sphere is a contested (Tully, 2012), fuzzy concept. To make it more
precise, we will characterize public spheres by means of six characteristics: four
information and communication processes, the central role of media, and the public
sphere as a space between the private sphere and other societal domains such as
science and technology, economics, and politics.
Habermas (1989) used the German term “Öffentlichkeit,” which was translated
in English as “public sphere.” “Öffentlichkeit” refers to “publicity” in the sense that
what happens in the public sphere is to a certain extent visible, legible, accessible,
negotiable, shareable, debatable, and actionable to and by people. The term “public
sphere” refers to the fact that publics, i.e., groups of people, create that sphere.
The public sphere represents a multiplicity of publics, bringing different experi-
ences, opinions, types of knowledge, value orientations, and capabilities to iden-
tify and articulate public problems and propose solutions, and to take action. This
phenomenon, in which the human experience of what is happening in the world is
collectively interpreted, can be made more tangible by distinguishing four processes
in which the formation of publics can take place around collective issues, shared
public understanding, public will, and action. It is these activities that constitute the
public sphere.
Public expression and publishing of personal experiences
As Dewey (2016) clarified, problems, for example related to technologies or policies,
first have to be experienced or perceived by people who suffer from it now, or see
people around them suffering, or fear suffering in the future. Something similar
applies to solutions to problems, where their feasibility and desirability must first
be tested and experienced on a small scale. Such private experiences are not yet
public issues. For that to happen, personal experiences must be expressed—words
and images must be given to it—and made public so that they become visible for
others.
Public listening and recognition
Publicly voicing problems and solutions gives fellow human beings the opportunity
to listen to those outpourings. Informed in this way, other people may be able to
recognize the particular problems and solutions, by putting themselves in the shoes of
others and seeing the consequences of a certain development from their perspective.
Human empathy has the potential to connect with similar people and people close to
us, but also with citizens, non-citizens (like migrants), and non-humans (like animals
and trees) who are far removed from us in terms of physical distance, time, and social
context (Krznaric, 2010). If others recognize the problems and solutions in question,
78 R. van Est and L. Hennen
a public—a community of listening (Han, 2018)—may be formed around the relevant
issues by means of the exchange of information and ideas, and through deliberation.
Shared public understanding
This is the start of a phase in which public opinion formation may take place. If a group
of people can find one another and become attuned with regard to the perception of
problems and solutions, a shared recognition of problems that should be resolved in
a particular way can arise (Raile et al., 2018). According to Rosanvallon (2008, 307),
this also “involves the production of a language adequate to our social experience, a
language capable of describing social life and therefore of influencing it.”
Public will-formation and civic public action
Such an alignment of the understanding of problems and solutions can lead to a
collective commitment to address the situation in question. The term “public will-
formation” is often used to describe this process. According to Raile et al., (2014,
105), public will becomes meaningful when “a social system has a shared recog-
nition of a particular problem and resolves to address the situation in a particular
way through sustained collective action.” When we talk about collective action, it
usually refers to activities of the state in the public interest. In this case, however, it
specifically concerns activities of ordinary citizens to address certain concerns about
their collective lives. Public action thus also has a civic aspect to it (cf. Spink, 2019).
For example, Drèze and Sen (1991, vii) used public action to mean: “not merely the
activities of the state, but also social actions taken by members of the public—both
‘collaborative’ (through civic cooperation) and ‘adversarial’ (through social criticism
and political opposition).”
Civic public action is any form of organized action carried out by a group of
people in order to address their needs and/or improve a certain problematic situation
and achieve a common objective. These actions can be social, technical, economic,
or political. Peaceful protests, awareness-raising, and grassroots campaigns are all
forms of political action. Other forms of collective public action are, for example,
a community of farmers agreeing upon how to best ration water from a common
source, or forms of citizen science, like citizens measuring the severity of air pollution
from industry or car traffic in their neighborhood. A social movement is a loosely
organized but sustained “form of collective action that articulates a social conflict and
ultimately aims at transforming a social order” (Thörn, 2007, 900). To be successful,
social movements must be skilled in information politics, i.e., “the ability to quickly
and credibly generate politically usable information and move it to where it has the
most impact” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998: 16).
Central role of the media
Both traditional and social media play a central role in all of the above-described
information and communication processes. This dynamic is shaped by the political
economy of media and enabled and constrained by information and communica-
tion technologies (ICTs), and the control of and access to them. The technological
Technology Assessment and Public Spheres in the Context … 79
infrastructure of the public sphere plays an important role, because it strongly influ-
ences how people perceive and experience the world. While at the beginning of the
nineteenth century people’s experiences were largely limited to what was happening
locally, and news from other parts of the world often did not arrive until weeks later,
nowadays people can often follow what is happening in almost every other place in
the world in real time via satellite and Internet connections. Due to this intertwining
of our private lives and the mix of traditional and social media, our personal life
worlds have increasingly become sites of globalization (Volkmer, 2014).
The public sphere as an in-between space
The public sphere is positioned as a part of our society that fulfills a linking func-
tion, an intermediary structure or role between the life world of people and more
institutionalized societal domains, such as the private sector or economic sphere, the
scientific and technological domain, and politics. This last characteristic is referred
to as the “inbetween-ness” of the public sphere, or the public sphere as an in-between
space, a nexus between the unorganized private world of people and the organized
world of public and private institutions.
Starting with Habermas, scientific discussion of the public sphere has tradition-
ally focused on the role the public sphere plays between people’s private lives and
the national political system in democracies. This therefore involves an inbetween-
ness between “the nation state” and “the people,” in the capacity of citizens of the
respective nation. This concerns citizens indicating what their social wishes are
and expressing their confidence about a particular political course. However, it also
involves citizens critically monitoring and questioning existing policies, including
organizing social counter forces to prevent the implementation of particular political
decisions.
From the perspective of globalization, this dominant view of the public sphere as
the nexus between the people who are governed and the people who—or maybe better
the institutions that—govern, immediately raises a number of essential questions (cf.
Volkme r , 2014). For example, how can such a global public sphere arise and function
in a situation where in the legal sense there is no such thing as a world citizen, and
in the political sense there is no such thing as a world parliament (representing the
entire world population with powers to frame international laws for the entire world),
or world government (as a common political authority for all of humanity)?
Before dealing with such thorny questions, let us first consider the dominant model
of the national public sphere as the space between the life world of citizens and the
national democratic political system. We also look at the relationship between TA
and the public sphere, as the political and public role of TA is often discussed at
national level, in the way we have characterized the public sphere in this section.
And given our interest in the connection between public spheres and TA, we focus on
those public spheres that address the societal significance of technology, or the nexus
between science, technology and society (STS); so-called STS-like public spheres.
80 R. van Est and L. Hennen
3 STS-Like Public Spheres and TA in a National Political
Context
Above, we distinguished between collective action by ordinary citizens and public
authorities. In the academic literature, by far the most attention is paid to the way in
which public recognition of certain issues, and subsequent public opinion-forming
and will-formation can eventually lead to political action by governmental organiza-
tions. In order to achieve this, it is important that a sufficient set of decision-makers
become “committed to supporting a commonly perceived, potentially effective policy
solution” (Post et al., 2010, 659).
The basic premise of any political system—whether democratic or authoritarian
(cf. Dukalskis, 2017)—is that the people who govern must somehow find their legit-
imacy with the people they govern. Rosanvallon (2008, 328) speaks of the contin-
uous “crisis of political representation,” since there is a perpetual gap between the
governors and the governed. This requires constant interaction and communication
between the state and the people in order to reconcile societal needs and public
policy. To examine the functioning of democratic political practice, Habermas used
the concept of the public sphere to describe and reflect upon how this interaction
between the “people” (i.e., “society”) and the “state” takes place and should take
place. In essence, this is about enabling collective understanding of problems and
solutions, collective will-formation, and transforming the public will into political
will.
Habermas (1989) became famous with an historical study which situated the
emergence in the eighteenth century of the bourgeois public sphere in Germany,
Great Britain, and France. Informed by newspapers, citizens gathered mostly in
pubs, coffeehouses, and literary salons to discuss politics and society. According to
Kellner (2000, 3) “for the first time in history, individuals and groups could shape
public opinion, giving direct expression to their needs and interests while influencing
political practice.” In this way, which is at the crux of a democratic public sphere,
precisely by forming a public sphere, citizens changed from those who are governed
by the authorities to citizens who demanded a say in the issues and the way they were
governed. This shows that people can also affect the form, role and function of the
public sphere, and its link with the political system. In relation to this, a distinction
can be made between engagement in and with public spheres, where the stake of the
latter is the democratic transformation of the public sphere itself (Tully, 2012, 171).
An influential normative framework regarding the public sphere in democracies
is the Habermasian principle of an ideal speech situation. Habermas argues that to
arrive at an adequate picture of the realities of society, opinion- and will-formation
within the public sphere should be based on the free exchange of arguments and
rational-critical discourse. He named six conditions for such a “power-free” ideal
speech situation (Habermas, 2001). First, every citizen should have equal opportuni-
ties to participate in the public debate on a subject relevant to that citizen. Secondly,
participants in the audience sphere must be truthful and say what they mean. The
Technology Assessment and Public Spheres in the Context … 81
third requirement relates to the autonomy of citizens and suggests that communica-
tion must be free of external and internal coercion. The fourth relates to the public
character of the deliberations that take place in the public sphere. The fifth condi-
tion concerns the rejection of hierarchy between participants and demands equal
communicative rights for all, so that each can participate on an equal footing. The
final condition requires participants to have an intention to reach agreement, to be
oriented toward consent, and requires that “participants reciprocally impute an orien-
tation to communicative agreement on one another, this … acceptance can only occur
jointly or collectively” (Habermas, 2001, 44).
3.1 Three Factors Influencing the Autonomy of the Public
Sphere
The above normative ideal of the public sphere has never been fully achieved in prac-
tice. We can look at the first condition concerning equal access to the public sphere.
Habermas’ (1989) historical study situated the emergence in the eighteenth century
of the bourgeois public sphere in Germany, Great Britain, and France. Informed by
newspapers, citizens gathered mostly in pubs, coffeehouses, and literary salons to
discuss politics and society. However, that bourgeois public sphere was accessible
mainly to educated, propertied men, who conducted a discourse prejudicial to the
interests of those excluded, like workers and women (Calhoun, 1992, 3). Here, we
focus on the third criterion regarding the autonomy of the public sphere, and specif-
ically how its functioning is influenced by political rulers, science and technology,
and the media.
Political rulers—the problem of agenda-setting
It is often implicitly assumed that public issues are put on the political agenda via
the public sphere. The excluded groups mentioned above, for example, created their
own publics—or better counter-publics—and alternative public spheres in order to
politically claim their democratic voting rights and other rights. As a result, many
important social issues, like women’s rights and environmental protection, which
previously only played a role in alternative public spheres on the margins of civil
society, have been placed on the political agenda (Habermas, 1996). However, issues
are also put on the agenda via other routes.
Many political issues do not originate in the public sphere, but in politics. Govern-
ments can choose to submit these issues to the critical public sphere in order to
arrive at more adequate and legitimate problem perceptions and solutions. In some
cases, the interaction between the public and public authorities is regulated by law.
For example, since 1998 the United Nations Aarhus Convention grants the public
rights regarding access to information, public participation, and access to justice in
governmental decision-making processes on matters concerning the local, national,
82 R. van Est and L. Hennen
and transboundary environment. However, citizens are not always involved in a trans-
parent and fair manner. Snider (2010) sees fake public participation as a widespread
global phenomenon.
The manipulative orchestration of public opinion by political movements and
leaders may undermine the role of the public sphere in producing a legible world
for citizens, and articulating the real needs of society. Archetypical anti-democratic
populist leaders, like Perón in Argentina and Chávez in Venezuela, even aimed to
manufacture the will of the people (Bartley, 2017). And once in power they broke
down independent forms of civic organization, ranging from parliaments, govern-
mental agencies, and trades unions, to political parties. In this way, flawed democra-
cies can turn into authoritarian regimes (cf. The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2015).
The “authoritarian public sphere is characterized by the state’s efforts to establish
its foundations, delineate its boundaries, and monitor its content” (Dukalskis, 2017,
4). The authoritarian state manipulates the public sphere by positive legitimation
(i.e., crafting and disseminating messages legitimating the regime) and negative
repression, including blocking, censoring, or undermining viewpoints that might
threaten the state’s narrative (ibid.). The fact that the information environment is
imbued with aspects of reality prioritized by the state makes it difficult for citizens to
(individually and collectively) form an accurate picture of social reality. Dukalskis
(2017, 4) shows that despite this challenge, sometimes ordinary citizens do manage
to maneuver within the tightly controlled public discourse by taking advantage of
autonomous spaces or networks to articulate and discuss their ideas and even find
ways to seriously oppose the authoritarian political regime.
In the Internet age, countries may also have and use capabilities to influence the
information that reaches the populations of other countries. For example, the Russian
government “actively undermines the rule of law and free democracy both in the
domestic political processes and the political processes of other states” (Hamer et al.,
2019, 53). Russia uses espionage and disinformation to undermine the democratic
process and to destabilize a foreign society. The country is suspected of actively
spreading disinformation on various occasions, from undermining the American
presidential elections in 2016, to influencing the American mid-term elections in
2018, and targeting the Yellow Vests movement in France.
Media—the (technical) mediation of the public sphere
Above, we mentioned the central role that traditional and social media play in the
public sphere. Habermas considered the press to be the most important catalyst
of the bourgeois public sphere of the eighteenth century (cf. Peters, 1993). In the
twentieth century, besides newspapers, radio and television became influential means
to broadcast information. Habermas was highly critical of the role of such mass
media. In the early 1960s, he stated that in modern European nations mass media
had become “the gate through which privileged private interests invaded the public
sphere” (Habermas, 1989, 185). He argued that the acquisition of the control of mass
media—such as newspapers, radio, and TV—by private owners and their relationship
with the political class had made “manipulative publicity” common and had led to
the so-called refeudalization of the public sphere. Commercialization of the news
Technology Assessment and Public Spheres in the Context … 83
media also led to people being approached as consumers, and little attention was
paid to critical discourse and raising political awareness among citizens. As a result,
Calhoun argues that, “With the loss of a notion of a general interest and the rise of
a consumption orientation, the members of the public lost their common ground”
(Calhoun, 1992: 25).
We now live in the Internet age. In the early days of the Internet, the popular utopian
vision was that the Internet could serve as a global public sphere with the potential
to reshape democracy. It was thought that in contrast to the passive consumption of
mass media, the Internet would provide a new well-informed public sphere, where
citizens could form active Internet communities, with room for criticism, arguments,
and unmanipulated power-free discussion among all kinds of people and views. In
the meantime, various scholars worry that phenomena such as filter bubbles and
digital echo-chambers cause isolated self-referential public spheres that increase
ideological segregation. Flaxman et al. (2016) found that social networks and search
engines both increase the mean ideological distance between individuals as well as
increase an individual’s exposure to material from their less-preferred side of the
political spectrum. Also, much attention has been paid to the ways in which the
use of the Internet and social media in combination with big tech dominance can put
pressure on democracy. This discussion is fueled by the fact that the public debate has
turned into a revenue model by large social media companies, like Facebook, Twitter,
and Google. Moreover, the Internet has been flooded with “fake news,” or more
specifically: mis-information (incorrect information), mal-information (information
based on reality, used to harm a person, organization or country), and disinformation
(dissemination of misleading information with the aim of harming public debate and
democratic processes) (cf. Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017). For example, Myanmar
military officials misused Facebook to set up a systematic hate-speech campaign
to target a Muslim Rohingya minority, which has led to murder, rape, and forced
migration (cf. Stevenson, 2018).
Science and technology—knowledge as a resource and problem of modern public
spheres
In our technological culture, identifying and addressing public issues is often highly
dependent on scientific knowledge and technological expertise, capabilities, and
instruments. Science and technology play at least three roles (cf. Beck, 1992, 163).
First, the industrial use of science and technologies creates social benefits and risks.
Second, science and technology provide means to recognize and measure physical
risks, but also indicate and articulate social and ethical issues related to technologies.
And finally, science and technology can be used to deal with risks in the best possible
way. With his book The public and its problems (1927), Dewey (2016) was one of the
first to draw attention to the role of scientific and technological expertise in decision-
making and the citizen’s dependence on the knowledge of experts. Dewey identified
science and technology as a main source of public problems in modern societies
and thus as drivers of public debates and the emergence of new publics. As stated
above, citizens depend on the state to address their needs effectively. Often, however,
existing state institutions are incapable of addressing these new public needs and are
84 R. van Est and L. Hennen
hostile to those needs because they have been organized to serve the sometimes-
conflicting interests of other publics. As Dewey (2016, 80–81) puts it, “The new
public which is generated remains long inchoate, unorganized, because it cannot
use inherited political agencies. The latter, if elaborate and well institutionalized,
obstruct the organization of the new public. … To form itself, the public has to break
existing political forms.” Therefore, according to Dewey, publics must first develop
outside the incumbent institutions of the state, until they are powerful enough to
function as a counterweight to publics that are entrenched via the state and change
the institutions of that state. “This, for Dewey, is the essence of democracy’s radical
character.” (Rogers, 2016, 42).
At the same time, science and technology development is a challenge for publics
due to the complexity of the issues at stake. The difficulties in capturing the
complexity of problems and identifying possible options for action can stymie the
effective articulation of problems and thus the emergence of active public debates:
“The ramification of the issues before the public is so wide and intricate, the tech-
nical matters involved so specialized, the details are so many and so shifting, that
the public cannot for any length of time identify and hold itself” (Dewey, 2016:
166). With the new emerging roles of experts and laypeople, it becomes decisive
for citizens to fulfill their democratic role to be provided with reliable knowledge in
order to be able “to judge of the bearing of the knowledge supplied by others upon
common concerns” (Dewey, 2016, 225). It is at this intersection of expertise, public
opinion-forming, and policymaking where institutions such as (parliamentary) TA
organizations are situated, and through which they define their roles (see below and
Hennen, 2021).
3.2 STS-Like Public Spheres and TA
Since TA deals with the relationship between technological change and social prob-
lems, it has a strong public and political dimension (van Est & Brom, 2012). The
practice of TA thus recognizes the important role that science and technology play
in society and in political decision-making. Ganzevles et al. (2014) model (parlia-
mentary) TA as an activity at the interplay between society (including citizens and
civil society organizations), politics (including parliament and government), and
science and technology. TA thus functions as a mediator among the actors and their
knowledge claims in these spheres. So, interestingly, STS-like public spheres and
TA practices populate the same in-between spaces.
Related to this, it is important to recall that TA owes its existence to the emergence
in the 1960s and 1970s of a public sphere that was critical of science and technology
and the way politics dealt with it. Important new public issues included environmental
pollution, car safety, nuclear energy, and the impact of information technology on
employment. Societal criticism was that politics and policy failed to deal with the
negative effects of technological change in a timely and adequate manner. And there
was a social call for the democratization of science and technology and related
Technology Assessment and Public Spheres in the Context … 85
political decision-making. One of the political responses in various Western countries
was the establishment of parliamentary TA organizations. Parliamentary TA was
first institutionalized in the United States in 1972 with the founding of the Office
of Technology Assessment (OTA) as part of the American Congress. Inspired by
this event, in the 1980s, parliamentary TA took root in various European countries,
starting with OPECTS in France, which was established in 1983 by law “to inform
Parliament of the consequences of the choice of scientific and technological options,
in particular, so as to enable it to make enlightened decisions.”2
TA is often defined as “a scientific, interactive, and communicative process that
aims to contribute to the formation of public and political opinion on societal aspects
of science and technology” (Bütschi et al., 2004, 14). Given the intermediary role
of TA in the triangle between society, politics, and science and society, TA can thus
focus on studying these domains and their interactions, informing the players in those
domains and stimulating their engagement in the debate about the social significance
of science and technology. As a result, we can describe the relationship between TA
and STS-like public spheres (and also with politics and science and technology)
along three dimensions, namely from the perspective of studying, informing, and
engaging (cf. Hennen, 2021).
First, STS-like public spheres are objects of study for TA. This makes much
sense, since public controversies surrounding science and technology can be seen as
informal forms of TA that in many cases “provide partly conflicting assessments of
new technologies or of the impacts of actual or proposed projects, that are further
articulated and consolidated in the course of a controversy. Thus, informal technology
assessment occurs.” (Rip, 1986, 350). So, by studying the positions and discussions in
the public sphere, TA tries to gain insight into the way in which citizens, stakeholders,
and experts perceive the social significance of science and technology.
The classic role of parliamentary TA is to inform parliaments (representatives of
the people) about the state of public debate. But parliamentary TA may also be tasked
with informing the general public. In such a case, the public sphere is regarded as
the addressee of TA, based on the idea that insights from TA studies can contribute
to the quality of the public debate about science, technology, and society.
In line with this lies the third dimension, in which engaging society and thus
stimulating the public sphere is seen as an explicit task for a TA organization. This
is the realm of participatory TA, which deals with the interface between the (polit-
ical) decision-making arena and society (van Est & Brom, 2012). Participatory TA
intellectually connects to the Habermasian model of discourse ethics (Dalton-Brown,
2015, 109), and in general to a deliberative model of democracy, in which it is consid-
ered important to confront actors with the political views of other actors. The aim
of participatory TA is to broaden, and thus enrich, the political and public debate
around the social aspects of science and technology. This mode of TA organizes
the involvement of experts, stakeholders, and citizens to identify and evaluate the
2 See https://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/15/les-delegations-comite-et-office-parlementaire/off
ice-parlementaire-d-evaluation-des-choix-scientifiques-et-technologiques/articles-caches/about-
opecst.
86 R. van Est and L. Hennen
societal impact of technological change. A large toolbox of participatory methods
has been developed for this purpose, including citizens’ panels, scenario workshops,
and consensus conferences (Joss & Bellucci, 2002; Slocum-Bradley, 2003).
A question that arose in the context of public controversies surrounding biotech-
nology in the 1990s is when should citizens and societal actors be involved in the
development of science and technology? In the field of nanotechnology, it was feared
that this development could also lead to a great deal of public controversy. This gave
rise to the idea that civil society organizations and the general public should be
involved in the development of nanotechnology at an early stage. In this way, the
notion of “upstream public engagement” entered the existing discourse on public
participation (cf. Wilsdon & Willis, 2004). This created a window of opportunity in
the United States and Europe to organize social participation not only around tech-
nology that was already on the market, but also in science, and decisions about the
R&D agenda. Public engagement is thus not placed here between the public sphere
and politics, but between the public sphere, and science and technology.
4 Public Spheres in a Context of Globalization
In the previous section, we discussed public spheres and their relationship with TA in
the context of the political sphere of the nation state. However, the nation state and its
politics are part of a bigger world. Since each country depends on other countries—
politically, economically, environmentally, socio-culturally, and also with regard
to science and technology—interdependence defines the state of the world (see
Hennen and van Est, this volume). From that perspective, globalization refers to
“a trend of increasing transnational flows and increasing thick networks of interde-
pendence.” (Keohane, 2002, 15). This raises the question of how we can interpret
the relationship between the public spheres and TA in a context of globalization.
First, we will look at the public sphere in the context of globalization. We show
that the globalized media landscape provides tools for people around the globe to
make local issues visible at a global level. Then, we argue, on the basis of the political
European Community, that there is not yet a real transnational European political
space or public sphere, let alone a global one. At the same time, there is a so-
called internal globalization or cosmopolitanization of the identity and perception
of (in particular young) people all over the world. This condition implies that for
successful action, people and states must always take into account and make use
of the opportunities that so-called cosmopolitanized action spaces offer. We then
describe two examples of cosmopolitanized public spheres for collective action.
Visualized global media landscape
Originally, Habermas discussed public spheres mainly in the context of modern
democratic European nation states, territorially bounded political community,
national economy, national media, and linguistic and cultural homogeneity (Fraser,
2007). A quick reflection on these elements shows that globalization has radically
Technology Assessment and Public Spheres in the Context … 87
changed the context in which public opinion may form and lead to action. We now
live in a highly networked global-knowledge economy, in a multicultural society
(partly as a result of centuries of enslavement and decades of colonial, labor and
asylum migration). At the start of 2021, there were almost 4.7 billion active Internet
users worldwide, some 60% of the global population3 with a similar number of TV
viewers. The widespread use of television and Internet has created a visualized global
media landscape, where local or personal issues can become national or even global
concerns.
Increased means for global exposure
We can safely say that this media landscape has greatly increased the possibilities
for many people to publicize their personal experiences with particular problems and
solutions worldwide, accompanied by transparency about what is happening in the
world (the first requirement for creating public spheres). Think of Wikileaks, and
famous whistleblowers in the field of IT, like Edward Snowden, who in 2013 revealed
numerous American global surveillance programs, or Christopher Wylie, whose reve-
lations in 2018 prompted the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Another
interesting example is the online campaign called Ushahidi (“testimony” in Swahili),
which was launched by a group of concerned Kenyans (in and outside of Kenya) to
raise awareness about the violence that was spreading the country after fraudulent
elections took place at the end of 2007. This crisis-mapping tool was incorporated into
Google Maps and enabled the crowdsourcing of testimonies of ordinary people, who
could share what they saw and perceived almost in real time through SMS, tweets,
Facebook messages, mobile camera photos, Skype chat logs, and voice recordings.
The originator of the idea for such a platform, Ory Okolloh, a Kenyan female lawyer
in South Africa, stated: “the idea behind crowdsourcing is that with enough volume,
a ‘truth’ emerges that diminishes any false reports” (Okolloh, 2009, p). At the time,
this reporting of violence was a new form of public engagement of citizens in Kenya
and the Kenyan transnational diaspora (Goldstein & Rotich, 2008).
No generic pan-European or global public sphere
Citizens can thus obtain information about what is happening around the world and
make it visible via traditional and social media. But in what way does this trans-
parency also lead to collective understanding, collective public action, and perhaps
also political action? Let us first look at the European Union, because a transnational
European public sphere still seems to fit well with the Habermasian model (for an
overview of the discussion on the problems of a European public sphere see Hennen,
2020). While there are European citizens who have freedom of expression, the right
to vote, and the possibility to start a European citizens’ initiative, there is also a
European political sovereign, embodied by the European Parliament, the European
Commission, and the European Council which includes the heads of government of
the member countries. The opinion of EU law professor Alberto Alemanno is quite
3 See: https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/, website accessed
on August 12, 2021.
88 R. van Est and L. Hennen
sobering: “We don’t yet have a European politics – there’s no real pan-European
public opinion, no transnational political debate or dialogue on the issues that affect
our common interests as Europeans – unemployment, the environment, migration,
data protection. But as the need increases, it’s starting to come.” (quoted in Henley,
2019). Mak, a historian (2019, 152), agrees with this analysis and states (subtly refer-
ring to Habermas) that “the dreamed European coffee house, where a permanent
public street debate takes place, only slowly got off the ground.”
All transnational political bodies, including the European Union, face the
problem of institutionally restricted options to directly refer and relate to a specific
constituency. This causes problems in legitimizing its policies, as well as hampering
the emergence of a transnational public sphere to which it can relate. In order to
improve this situation, a democratization of transnational political institutions is
required, alongside the development of an active transnational civil society and a felt
transnational citizenship. As regards the latter, there are indications that together with
the globalization of political problems and issues, a cosmopolitan perspective and
identity of publics is emerging, which the technical options provided by the Internet
support (see Hennen and van Est, this volume).
Internal globalization of the public sphere
One signal that this process of Europeanization of the political and public sphere
is underway is the recent emergence of truly transnational, pan-European political
parties, such as Volt. In addition, many young people, fueled by global issues such as
migration, climate change, and security, and socialized in the sphere of the network
society, are forming a cosmopolitan identity (Volkmer, 2014). A study among 14- to
17-year-olds in mid-sized cities in nine countries (Australia, Germany, Japan, Kenya,
Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Trinidad & Tobago) shows that
this group “collectively share the engagement in social media (Facebook), partici-
pates through a transnational angle in transnational events, and engages collectively in
concerns of a globalized nature, human rights, the environment, … military conflicts
and war” (ibid., 183–184). About half of these youngsters perceive themselves as
citizens of the world, and half as citizens of their country, while a majority is inter-
ested in information about the world (ibid., 185). As a result, Volkmer (2014, 184)
positions this new generation “between the lifeworld ‘locality’ and the globalized
public.”
So we see that globalization leads to a reflexive process where (young) people
start to think and act, taking into account the position of themselves and their country
within a transnational and/or global context. Beck (2005, 143) speaks of “the ‘internal
globalization’ or ‘cosmopolitanization’ of nation state societies from within,” and of
cosmopolitan realism, which in order to be successful forces people and countries
to make strategic use of “cosmopolitanized spaces for action” (Beck, 2016). Below
we briefly discuss two examples of cosmopolitanized public spheres for collective
action: a pre-Internet and a post-Internet example. One example concerns the histor-
ical struggle against apartheid in South Africa, where activists purposefully built
incrementally a public sphere with global scope in order to increase foreign pres-
sure for change on the national political regime. The second example concerns the
Technology Assessment and Public Spheres in the Context … 89
contemporary formation of a global public sphere that includes, among other things,
a diverse global assemblage of climate activists who exert political pressure at both
the national and global political levels.
Anti-apartheid movement—building a global counter-public4
The anti-apartheid movement was increasingly globally active from around 1960
(the Sharpeville massacre occurred on March 21, 1961) to 1994, when apartheid
was formally abolished in South Africa (Thörn, 2007). The movement intentionally
contributed to that political regime shift by prompting disinvestments by global
corporations and stimulating nation states and supranational organizations, such as
the United Nations, European Economic Community (EEC), and Organisation of
African Unity (OAU), to boycott South Africa. Besides South Africa, the movement
took organizational shape in, among others, the United Kingdom. Its long history
shows that it took decades to build a global anti-apartheid counter-public and that
informal contacts and networks between anti-apartheid activists within South Africa
and in exile, and activists in other countries played a central role. The national,
international, and transnational dimensions of this social movement dominated its
global aspect (ibid., 911).
The anti-apartheid movement employed two interrelated information and commu-
nication strategies, before the Internet age: (1) influencing and achieving visibility
in the established media to communicate their message to the public and (2) devel-
oping alternative media and information networks with a global reach in order to
create an independent, “alternative public sphere that would make it possible to
address publics directly, thus freeing the movement from any dependence on global
media industries” (ibid., 906). For the second approach, archives of well-researched
information material and photographs were built up, and news bulletins, magazines,
films, and videos about the apartheid regime and resistance to it were produced and
distributed to members and sold publicly. These products created an important base
for attracting established media. The International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF)
played a central role in collecting and producing information material and made it
easily accessible for other anti-apartheid organizations, as well as to journalists and
a global public. Connected to the global media revolution, cultural events became
crucial means to attract global media attention to the movement during the 1980s.
Most important were the Nelson Mandela Tribute concerts in 1988 and 1990 that
filled the Wembley stadium in London and were broadcast globally by the BBC.
Influencing national and global decision-making on climate change
At the international and global level, there is not always a decision-making body
through and upon which the public sphere can exert political influence. However,
such a visible decision-making platform does exist in the field of climate policy.
The Conference of Parties (COP) is the highest decision-making body of the United
Nations Climate Change Framework Convention (UNFCCC), consisting of world
leaders from 189 nations. In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol—which operationalizes the
4 This section is based on Thörn (2007).
90 R. van Est and L. Hennen
UNFCCC by committing countries to limit and reduce greenhouse gases emissions
in accordance with agreed individual targets—was adopted during COP3 and entered
into force in 2005. Since 2005, civil s ociety organizations have collaborated world-
wide to influence decisions regarding the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.
Actions have taken place at country level all over the globe, as well as wherever a
COP-meeting took place.
The First Meeting of Parties (MOP1) to the Kyoto Protocol was held in conjunc-
tion with COP11 in 2005, in Montreal, Canada. This was the reason for environmental
organizations to begin organizing a Global Day of Climate Action; peaceful demon-
strations in many countries around the world, to influence the delegates to honor the
commitments made in the Kyoto Protocol.5 In 2015, these protests were given new
impetus by the contribution of young climate activists. On the first day of the Paris
climate summit (COP21), a worldwide Climate Strike was organized by students in
over 100 countries, in which over 50,000 people participated. In 2018, this global
youth movement was given impetus by the political actions of 15-year-old Greta
Thunberg, who, in the run-up to the Swedish general elections on 9 September,
started protesting every day during school hours for better climate policy in front of
the Swedish parliament. Her slogan “Fridays For Future” gained worldwide atten-
tion and inspired school students across the globe, leading to various Global Climate
Strikes. For example, in relation to the UN Climate Action Summit held in New York
on 23 September 2019, several million students participated in climate strikes across
150 countries.6
A kaleidoscopic image
We might say that many countries have a generic national public sphere that is
the result of many decades, if not centuries, of institution-formation, in the sense
of, among other things, the national education system, political system, and media
landscape. There is no such thing as a generic public sphere on a European scale,
let alone on a global scale, although this may be developing very slowly. Diverse
formative elements that have developed in recent decades include a global economy,
a global (youth) culture, and a global visualized media landscape. The latter offers
numerous possibilities for making local issues visible on a global scale, and for
making global issues visible locally, as well as to comment on and discuss these.
As a result, young people (in particular) increasingly see themselves as national and
global citizens, although from a political-legal perspective there is as yet no such
thing as a global citizen. Globalization is thus internalized in their thinking and also
in the national public sphere. There is still a large gap between awareness-building
and common understanding of certain global issues, and collective action to influence
political decision-making at national and international levels. But we have showed
two examples where this has succeeded.
5 See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Day_of_Action, website accessed on August 12, 2021.
6 See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_strike_for_climate, website accessed on August 12,
2021.
Technology Assessment and Public Spheres in the Context … 91
Archiving of events, evidence, and statements and connecting to the global cultural
public sphere via, e.g., pop concerts played an important role in the success of
the anti-apartheid movement. And in recent years, teens have played an important
role in the global climate movement. Both examples show a complex interaction
between local, national, international, transnational, and global dimensions of the
public sphere. In relation to this and in order to influence political decision-making,
the public sphere relates in many ways to different levels of government, again from
the local and national to the international and global level, whereby the messages
are also aimed at multinationals. The dimensions of the multi-level public sphere
surrounding a particular issue thus mirror the multi-level governance of the issue in
question. The political success of such complex-layered globalized public spheres
is still largely based on personal connections within and across countries. Although
the youth-organized global climate strike movement shows that conveying a global
message nowadays is relatively easier than in the days of the anti-apartheid move-
ment, achieving political and social change still takes a lot of time and energy, and
the slow, tiresome building of institutions (Olesen, 2005).
5 TA Beyond National Borders
Above, we reflected on public spheres in a globalized context. In this section, we
look at the organization of TA and its activities beyond national borders. In the final
section, we reflect on the relationship between S&T-like public spheres and TA in a
context of globalization. When thinking about TA in America’s twenty-first century,
Sclove (2010, 37f) identified two organizational routes. The first “Congressional
option” is where a TA organization is directly linked to Congress, or in general a
particular political decision-making body, which we will call the “Decision-Making
Body option.” According to Sclove (2010), a second option would be to establish an
“expert-and-participatory TA capability by connecting an appropriate set of indepen-
dent, non-partisan, and non-profit organizations into a nation-wide network” (ibid.
38), the so-called Institutional Network option. Both routes are used to organize both
expert-based and participatory TA capabilities at an international level (Table 1). We
will look at Europe first, before discussing the TA situation at a global level.
5.1 European Level
The classic role for (parliamentary) TA of informing political decision-making bodies
is also organized at the EU level. STOA, the TA office of the European Parliament,
is an example at central European political and administrative level. In addition
to this Decision-Making Body option, the Institutional Network option is also used.
Since 1990, international cooperation has taken place within European Parliamentary
Technology Assessment (EPTA), a network of national TA institutions specialized
92 R. van Est and L. Hennen
Table 1 Some examples of how expert-based and participatory TA are organized at European and
global political level
Organizational options Type of TA European level Global level
Decision-making body Expert-based STOA of the European
Parliament (est. 1987)
IPCC of the United
Nations (est. 1988)
Participatory – –
Institutional Network Expert-based EPTA network (est.
1990) & EPTA reports
Global TA network
(est. 2018)
Participatory Meeting of minds
(2005–2007)
World wide views on
global warming
(2008–2009)
in advising parliamentary bodies both in, and partially outside, Europe. The EPTA
network has a light organizational structure, and each year its members produce
jointly an EPTA report which provides an up-to-date international overview of
policies linked to a current TA topic.
This Institutional Network option has been used several times to organize partic-
ipatory TA at European and global level. The first transnational participatory TA
project was Meeting of Minds, the European Citizens’ Deliberation on Brain Science,
which aimed to rectify the lack of public debate on brain research in Europe (Rauws,
2010). The two-year pilot project was led by a panel of 126 randomly selected citizens
from nine countries. A partner consortium of TA bodies, science museums, academic
institutions, and public foundations launched this initiative in 2005 with the finan-
cial support of the European Commission and the King Baudouin Foundation. The
participating citizens discussed matters in their own national panels, but also gath-
ered together in two meetings in Brussels. At the end of the second international
meeting in January 2006, the citizens’ report was presented to the European Parlia-
ment. The panel’s results have also been presented and disseminated at individual
country levels.
5.2 Transnational and Global Level
TA is also organized at a global level on the basis of the Decision-Making Body
option (Ladikas and Stamm, this volume). Part of the work of the IPCC also fits this
option. The IPCC serves as the core scientific advisory board delivering evidence-
based climate policy recommendations based on global scientific data to international
climate negotiations. A key element of the advice from the IPCC is to assess the
potential societal impacts of mitigation technologies, which is at the heart of TA
(Ashworth and Clarke, this volume). The work of the IPCC also greatly influences
the public debate in many countries around the world.
Considering the Institutional Network option, there has been a Global TA network
since 2018. This network now consists of 28 non-profit institutions from around the
Technology Assessment and Public Spheres in the Context … 93
world, working together in the area of science and technology, to promote respon-
sible and sustainable research and innovation to tackle global grand challenges. The
development of this book is the first joint TA-related activity, which aims to better
understand the idea of global TA, contemporary practices, and its desired future. The
big challenge for the Global TA network is to find organizations in developing coun-
tries with experience in the field of TA, as TA is much less common in non-OECD
countries, while the need for TA is certainly no less.
The Institutional Network option has also been deployed to organize participatory
TA on a global scale. The World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews) project
represents a globe-encompassing participatory TA exercise (Bedsted & Klüver,
2009). WWViews enabled citizens from all over the world to define and communicate
their positions on issues central to the UN Climate Change negotiations (COP15),
in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009. The project was coordinated by the
Danish Board of Technology (DBT) and implemented by a global alliance of indi-
viduals and institutions, including governmental and non-governmental organiza-
tions, parliamentary TA organizations, and universities. On 26 September 2009, the
various partners hosted one-day face-to-face deliberations in 38 nations, including
Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Russia, the United States, and various European
and African nations. Each deliberation included about 90 people, so that about 4000
people worldwide were involved.
In the field of participatory TA, it is not easy to find suitable partners in devel-
oping countries. However, there are some examples of participatory TA events. For
example, in 2010, the Ministry of Environment and Forests undertook a large-scale
public consultation for the first time ever in India, concerning the commercial release
of the first GM food crop in that country. Ely et al. (2014) list some examples of
participatory TA activities, such as citizen’s juries, that have taken place in particular
in the field of agricultural biotechnology in Brazil, Mali, and Zimbabwe, and reflect
on three international participatory TA projects:
• The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Tech-
nology for Development (IAASTD) cost some $15 million and was funded by the
World Bank, UNDP, FAO, and other institutions. Its aim was to provide a global
consensus for investing in agricultural science and technology, setting priorities
for both national and global organizations. The four-year TA project started in
2003 was global in scope and resulted in five regional reports and one global
report. It involved some 900 stakeholders across 110 countries from multiple
institutions in public, civil, and private sectors.
• The second TA project was sponsored by the British Royal Society and organized
by the British think-tank DEMOS and Lancaster University, to explore the role
of new nanotechnologies in clean water provision, through stakeholder events
in Nepal, Peru, and Zimbabwe. The Royal Society wanted to look beyond the
perspective of Western societies and take account of how people in developing
societies might respond to nanotech-developments and their impacts.
• Finally, in 2008 the UK Research Council sponsored a TA project to identify
maize-based farming strategies in Kenya as a means to respond to climate change.
94 R. van Est and L. Hennen
This participatory TA project included discussions with farmers, plant breeders,
policy-makers, extension workers, and executives in commercial seed companies.
6 STS-Like Public Spheres and TA in a Context
of Globalization
In Sect. 3, we saw that globalization affects local and national levels and even impacts
personal identity and opinion-formation. The public sphere is becoming globalized,
especially through the globalization of the national public sphere. This means that the
international expansion of public spheres and the internal globalization of national
public spheres are taking place simultaneously. However, the latter process seems to
be developing more quickly as it is embedded in existing national public, media, and
political institutions. This is often not the case internationally, as illustrated in the field
of TA in Sect. 4, where we described the weakness of the institutionalization of TA
in developing countries and at the international level. This final section looks at the
relationship between STS-like public spheres and TA, in a context of globalization.
In Sect. 1, we introduced the all-affected principle, which in the TA context means
that all who are affected by science and technology should have a right to participate
in decision-making about it. Based on the all-affected principle, globalization sets
additional demands on the theory and practice of TA, both at the national level
and beyond. Since science and technology and their social consequences are global
phenomena, TA should, according to the all-affected principle, take into account the
groups of people that are affected worldwide, and not only in the country where TA is
organized. Below, we reflect on how globalization, including science and technology
and the public sphere, challenges TA and its connection to the public sphere on both
a national and international level. Analogous to Sect. 2, we use the tripartite division
between TA activities that study the public sphere, inform the public sphere, and
stimulate and involve the public sphere (cf. Hennen, 2021).
6.1 National TA as a Site of Globalization
TA is institutionalized in many OECD countries, but not in many developing coun-
tries. So there is literally still a world to win. Here, we focus on countries with TA
capacity. Like the nation state and national public spheres, national TA has become a
site of globalization. Based on the all-affected principle, globalization forces national
TA, which also values inclusivity, to broaden its field of view with regard to public
spheres (cf. Ely et al., 2014).
Central questions for TA activities are which scientific and technological develop-
ments to address and which groups affected by those developments will be included
in a TA study. The globalization perspective calls for special attention for groups
that are often not included, such as cultural minorities or new immigrant citizens,
Technology Assessment and Public Spheres in the Context … 95
young people with an internalized global perspective, and groups in other countries,
especially developing countries, who experience the consequences of new scientific
and technological developments. Minorities can be much affected by developments
such as ethnic profiling and AI, and the robotization of warehouses, but may lack
the time, language skills, and organizational capacity to organize themselves into
an active public and make themselves heard in the public debate. It is perhaps even
more difficult to make visible and audible those groups from other countries who
are affected by, for example, the testing of medicines, the dumping of electronic
waste, or IVF through international surrogacy. A category that is easily left out are
those migrants who do not have civilian status in any country. This means that the
globalization perspective should also be taken into account when selecting topics
for TA studies—such as the role of technology in migration policy (Dijstelbloem &
Meijer, 2009).
Paying attention to the groups identified above also has consequences for
informing the public sphere and the various audiences within it. Informing them
may require translation of results into specific languages, and the use of interpreters
during debates. Translations into English in particular ensure that the results can be
disseminated worldwide.
With regard to the stimulation of S&T-like public spheres through participatory
TA activities, the choice of topics and participating groups also plays a role. Above,
we saw that the Royal Society choose a global perspective on nanotechnology and
organized stakeholder discussions in Nepal, Peru, and Zimbabwe. Reflecting on the
transnationalization of the public sphere, Couldry wonders how Polish minorities
can be given a more prominent place in the British public debate and states: “Don’t
the voices of migrant workers in Britain, and indeed their families abroad that depend
on their remitted income, need to be heard more in British media than at present?”
(Couldry, 2014, 55). Modern media makes it possible to give people from all over
the world a voice in a national debate. When involving the viewpoints of people
internationally, cooperation with TA practitioners in other countries can be sought.
In this way, the TA capacity in such countries can also be strengthened. This brings
us to the topic of TA and public spheres beyond national borders.
6.2 TA and Public Spheres Beyond National Borders
A reflection on TA and public spheres beyond national borders should start with
two observations. First, there is as yet no such thing as a European, let alone global,
political, and public sphere. From a global perspective, there is a patchwork from
democratic to authoritarian public spheres. At the same time, we have shown two
examples—the anti-apartheid and climate change movements—in which civil society
actors succeeded through sustained effort in building public spheres of global scope
96 R. van Est and L. Hennen
that have had cultural and political influence at national and global levels. Both move-
ments simultaneously constructed national counter-publics and a global counter-
public, which both interacted and also acted autonomously (cf. Thörn, 2007, 912).
Moreover, these movements democratically transformed public spheres.
The second remark concerns the global state of TA. Overall, the institutional-
ization and financing of TA in many developing countries and at an international
level are still relatively weak. At the same time, we outlined a wide range of expert-
based and participatory TA activities carried out by TA organizations and networks
at both European and global level. Table 1 therefore shows what is possible in prin-
ciple in the field of international TA and thus outlines a kind of blueprint for the
future of global TA. That blueprint consists of a mix of Decision-Making Body and
Institutional Network options to organize expert-based and participatory TA at an
international level. Unfortunately, the Decision-Making body route is currently not
used to organize participatory TA activities.
So what are the possibilities for TA at an international level to research, inform,
and stimulate S&T-like public spheres? The need and potential for TA to do such
things beyond national borders are strong, but are used far too little, because the lack
of political vision and capacity means that both institutionalization and funding lag
behind. As the history of the anti-apartheid and climate change movements shows,
building a public sphere with global reach can take decades. The same goes for Euro-
pean and global TA. The first forms of expert-based TA according to the Decision-
Making Body option at European level (see STOA) and global level, including both
democratic and authoritarian states (see IPCC), arose in the second half of the 1980s.
Expert-based TA according to the Institutional Network route was set up in Europe in
1990 (EPTA) and was recently established on a worldwide scale in 2018 (Global TA
network). Participatory TA was organized at the European level between 2005 and
2007 (Meeting of Minds) and at the global level between 2008 and 2009 (World Wide
Views on Global Warming). All such international TA activities can in principle be
expanded and should be expanded from the perspective of globalization of science
and technology and its consequences. According to the blueprint of Table 1, we can
think of expanding the Global TA network and its funding so that the network can
carry out international expert-based and participatory TA activities. Or, by analogy
with the IPCC, we can think of setting up an Intergovernmental Panel on Artificial
Intelligence or Synthetic Biology. So although much is desirable and possible, a lack
of political vision will often stand between dream and action.
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Technology Assessment in Developing
Countries: The Case of India—Examples
of Governmental and Informal TA
Krishna Ravi Srinivas and Rinie van Est
1 Introduction
Technology assessment (TA) has a rich history of more than fifty years. Especially,
in many developed countries, TA is part of the institutional framework surrounding
science, technology, and innovation (STI), or part of the policy advice system that
enables parliaments to understand, debate, and decide on STI issues. TA is a generic
term and there is a broad variety of different types and practices of TA (cf. van
Est & Brom, 2012). TA can be considered as a stand-alone exercise or policy tool,
or may be used with other policy tools, including analysis of ethical, legal, and
social issues (regularly abbreviated as ELSI). According to Grunwald, TA should
“enrich technology governance by integrating any available knowledge on possible
side effects at the early stage of decision-making processes, by supporting the evalu-
ation of technologies against a broad set of societal values and ethical principles, by
elaborating strategies to deal with the inevitable uncertainties, and by contributing
to the constructive handling of societal conflicts” (Grunwald, 2019, 702). He also
suggests anticipation, inclusion, and complexity as three conceptual dimensions of
TA (Grunwald, 2019, 704).
In most developing countries, TA is weakly institutionalized, or not at all. This
has little to do with the fact that TA is not relevant for developing countries. For
example, in the context of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Ely et al.
(2011) underscored the need for TA for developing countries. Moreover, UNCTAD,
Contribution to: Technology Assessment in a Globalized World—Facing the Challenges of
Transnational Technology Governance.
K. R. Srinivas (B)
RIS, CORE IVB, India Habitat Center, Lodi Road, New Delhi 110003, India
e-mail: ravisrinivas@ris.org.in
R. van Est
Rathenau Instituut, Anna van Saksenlaan 51, 2593 HW The Hague, The Netherlands
e-mail: q.vanest@rathenau.nl
© The Author(s) 2023
L. Hennen et al. (eds.), Technology Assessment in a Globalized World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0_6
101
102 K. R. Srinivas and R. van Est
which is the part of the United Nations Secretariat dealing with trade, investment,
and development issues, currently sees a growing interest in TA and points out its
relevance for sustainable development. In 2021, UNCTAD (2021, 82) launched the
project, “Technology assessment in the energy and agricultural sectors in Africa to
accelerate progress on Science, Technology and Innovation,” which aims to build
capacity in three African countries to carry out technology assessments in the energy
and agricultural sectors, and to utilize technologies as catalysts for sustainable devel-
opment. If TA is to contribute to sustainable development, particularly in meeting
the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), what needs to be done? If we see
TA as an important practice for developing countries, then how can that practice
be institutionalized? And if developing countries do not have robust STI policies,
and have weak institutions for doing TA, will the typical TA approach work, or is a
modified form of TA needed?
This chapter examines TA in India, as an example of a developing country, and
describes various types of TA being undertaken by different actors. It is argued that
in developing countries like India, where the state plays a major role in stimulating
and regulating STI, civil society may provide an important alternative perspective
on STI, which may lead to STI becoming a contested terrain. Societal engagement
may also support alternative forms of innovation that are not initially recognized
by the formal innovation system. In this way, civil society may pave the way for
more participation in STI and/or may lead to a further institutionalization of TA
practices—similarly to what happened historically in European countries such as
Denmark and the Netherlands.
As Rip (1986) and Cambrosio and Limoges (1991) have argued, both societal
deliberations on and controversies surrounding STI can be considered as informal
processes of TA. Such informal TA activities may open up spaces for citizens and
societal stakeholders to intervene in the development and decision-making processes
around STI. Moreover, formal TA can be considered either as a social process working
largely in a space created by societal controversies, or as the wish to prevent such
controversies. The role of public controversies around STI is relevant in each country,
but likely even more so in developing countries, where formal TA is weakly insti-
tutionalized. We will argue, therefore, that both formal and informal TA are needed
and can complement each other. So any study on TA in developing countries should
go beyond the traditional view of TA. This is exactly what we want to do in this
chapter.
For this, we can use the institutional perspective provided by Ganzevles et al.
(2014) on the TA landscape. These authors model TA as an activity at the interplay
between four spheres: parliament, government, science and technology, and society.
TA can act as a mediator of knowledge and actors between these spheres. In the litera-
ture, there is relatively more attention for TA directed towards members of parliament,
known as Parliamentary TA (PTA), that is: “technology assessment specially aimed
at informing and contributing to opinion formation of the members of parliament as
main clients of the TA activity” (Enzing et al., 2011, i) But actors from the three other
spheres can also act as clients of TA. In cases, where scientists and engineers are the
Technology Assessment in Developing Countries … 103
main addressees, TA can be used as a means to guide research and technology devel-
opment from a societal perspective. The term constructive technology assessment is
regularly used to pinpoint TA that is aimed at influencing technological choice and
design processes (Schot & Rip, 1997). Policy-makers are also potential clients of
TA. The task of TA is then to inform them about the societal aspects of science and
technology. TA activities can also be aimed at the general public in order to stimulate
the public debate on science and technology in society.
India has no parliamentary TA organization. Most TA-like activities and prac-
tices are organized by and for governmental agencies. Such policy advising TA has
been somewhat en vogue, although the term TA is not usually explicitly mentioned.
Section 3 describes three examples of governmental TA in India. First, the central
role played by the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council
(TIFAC) under the Department of Science & Technology (DST) (Ministry of
Science & Technology) is described. In addition, the role of health technology assess-
ment and TA for pollution control and prevention is described. Section 4 provides
an example of constructive TA, whereby TA plays a role in the social shaping of
technology. This type of TA has been used to evaluate and adopt crop varieties.
Section 5 provides various examples of formal and informal TA activities that are
directed towards the public domain. In Sect. 6, we draw some conclusions. But first,
we reflect on the role and relevance of TA for developing countries in general.
2 Some Reflections on TA for Developing Countries
Over the past two centuries, economies and societies have been reshaped by succes-
sive waves of technological change. Global technological change clearly has two
faces, in particular for developing countries. On the one hand, STI is seen as a driver
of economic and social inequalities between and within countries. On the other hand,
STI has helped to reduce poverty in low-income countries, like China and India, but
also including countries in Africa, as shown for example by the impact of smart-
phones. Regardless of whether more attention is paid to the opportunities or risks of
STI, it is widely acknowledged that STI has key roles to play in achieving the MDGs
and thus are of great importance for developing countries. It is, therefore, crucial that
developing countries have the capacities to avoid or mitigate the risks of STI and to
seize its opportunities, especially from the perspective of the many challenges that
exist in the field of poverty reduction, the need for sufficient healthy food, social
justice, and sustainability (cf. Pansera et al., 2020). According to UNCTAD (2021,
102), foresight and TA initiatives may help “to better understand the socio-economic
and environmental implications of new and innovative technologies,” and “to identify
the risks and benefits of technologies and the policy options for steering innovation
so as to leave no one behind.”
104 K. R. Srinivas and R. van Est
2.1 Technology Transfer and Needs Assessment
Since there remains a large technological gap between developed and developing
countries, one important way to interpret the importance of TA for developing coun-
tries is to place it in the context of technology transfer. Kebede and Mulder (2008,
91) state that “The dominant mode of thinking in most developing nations is that
one should try to obtain the sophisticated technologies from industrialized countries,
with very often a l ack of understanding for the preconditions for these technologies
to be successfully applied.” The authors state that needs assessment and TA could
greatly increase the chances of success of technology transfer. However according to
Kebede and Mulder (2008, 91) “… both formal and informal TA are almost absent
in most developing nations. … So in general, not even an informal TA takes place.”
Given this current situation, they have developed an accessible TA framework for
developing countries in order to link technology transfer with TA and needs assess-
ment (Table 1). This framework identifies four types of relevant factors—technical,
economic, institutional, and ecological—that should be addressed before a specific
technology is transferred to the respective country and social practices.
A major advantage of this framework is its simplicity and the identification of
practical aspects that are important for a TA in the context of technology transfer. As
many developing countries are also major importers of technology, this framework
can be used to perform TA in a rudimentary manner. The framework, however, pays
little attention to legal issues (except for patents and licences), and basically ignores
ethical issues, and issues related to access, equity and inclusion, which are crucial
for developing countries.
Ta bl e 1 Technology assessment factors (source Kebede & Mulder, 2008)
Technical factors • Physical facilities (infrastructures and support technologies)
• Services and systems (operation and maintenance)
Economic factors • Human resources (both technical and non-technical expertise)
• Capital, land, and raw materials
• Macro-economic conditions
• Market and property right (patents and licenses)
Institutional factors • Organizational factors (structure, flexibility for change, and
decision-making)
• Social factors (religion, taboos, language, concepts of time and
honour, respect, and work ethics)
• Cultural factors (taste and habit)
• Political factors (political instability and corruption)
Environmental factors • Geographical and climatic conditions
• Ecological systems imbalance, and human health effects
• Effects of pollution
• Resource depletion and environmental destruction
Technology Assessment in Developing Countries … 105
2.2 TA for Access, Equity, and Inclusion
Recently Cozzens (2021) cautioned that STI policies tend to enhance inequality,
unless they are particularly designed to be otherwise, and this should be analysed by
practitioners of STI policy. She has pointed out that alternative designs are possible
to address this. Seen in this light there can be a role for TA in assessing whether inno-
vation can be designed to be inclusive or reduce inequality caused by STI policies.
TA combined with what is known as equity assessment may offer a solution here. For
example, in the field of health TA (HTA), Benkhalti et al. (2021) developed a check
list for equity considerations. Moreover, we may be inspired by forms of inclusive
innovation (UNESCAP, 2021), grassroots innovation (Smith et al., 2016), and frugal
innovation (Hindocha et al., 2021) that are specifically aimed at promoting equity
and broad access to the benefits of technology, an objective often not met by the
traditional forms of innovation.
Finally, we want to draw attention to the access, equity, and inclusion (AEI)
framework, which is under development at the Research and Information System for
developing countries (RIS) in India (Chaturvedi et al., 2015). The basic idea is that
the assessment of the societal benefits of STI needs to be based on a set of broadly
accepted public values and norms. Since from a societal perspective, access, equality
and inclusion are particularly relevant for developing countries, the framework uses
AEI indicators to assess the impact of STI in these areas. This is under development
and more work is required, particularly regarding indicators. Linking this with STI
policy has been proposed, and some of the suggestions have been identified as useful
for developing further (Srinivas, 2020). This framework can contribute to the existing
theorization and literature on equity, inequality, and inclusion in STI, and design of
policies that antidote trends that result in inequitable distribution of outcomes and
benefits (c.f. Cozzens, 2021; Mirza et al., 2019; Bozeman et al., 2011).
2.3 Participatory TA
Ely et al., (2011, 7) hold that conventional TA studies are often not sufficient, since
“They provide inadequate accounts of the social, technical, and ecological complexi-
ties and uncertainties at stake, and pay insufficient attention to the power relations that
often drive directions of technological change.” They claim that more participatory
models of technology assessment that combine citizen and decision-maker partic-
ipation with technical expertise are required, which “position technologies within
dynamic pathways of change at the system level, recognize alternative understand-
ings of these systems by different groups within society and attempt to build resilience
in the face of pervasive uncertainty” (ibid.). As such, these participatory TA activities
“can contribute to more democratic governance—not only of science, technology,
and innovation, but also more widely.” (Ely et al., 2011, 10).
106 K. R. Srinivas and R. van Est
We are sympathetic to this appeal for the use of participatory methods of TA in
developing countries. However, it is important to ask, in which political and institu-
tional situations will and can such methods actually be used? A first crucial issue is
whether there is a political will to engage with participatory TA. In cases, where a
technocratic model of development is dominant there may be no support for public
and multi-stakeholder engagement. Besides the will to use participatory TA, such
methods also presuppose the organizational TA capacity and, maybe more impor-
tantly, the presence of organizations that can represent various stakeholders. So the
use of participative TA methods is particularly desirable in socially controversial
technology. But if that option is not politically feasible or practically impossible
to realize, due to a lack of organizational TA capacity or the lack of organizations
that can bring relevant societal perspectives, then conventional TA may be a feasible
fall-back option. Analysing TA in theory and practice in India can give some ideas
and insights into t he adoption and adaptation of TA in developing countries.
3 Governmental TA in India: For S&T, Health,
and Pollution Policy
In India, the state is the dominant player in STI, playing multiple roles including
regulator, policymaker, promotor, and agenda-setter. The same counts for TA, a field
where private organizations are absent. Thus, given its prominent role, describing
governmental TA is essential for understanding the s tate of TA in India and exploring
potential future pathways. This section provides three examples of governmental
TA. We will first describe the S&T policy advice role played by the Technology
Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), which is the primary
agency for TA in India. Secondly, the emerging role of health technology assessment,
which is strongly promoted by the government, is described. Finally, we will cover
the application of TA for pollution control and prevention.
3.1 The S&T Policy Advice Role of TIFAC
S&T ecosystem and policy
For a long time in India, the private sector invested little in S&T, which made the state
the prime mover, in terms of funding S&T development. The state has funded both
basic and applied research through different ministries and research councils (see
Box 1). In 1991, India embarked upon a series of reforms that reduced governmental
control over technology imports and opened up the economy for greater investment
and capital flows from abroad. Technology liberalization, removal of restrictions
on royalty payments, reduction in tariffs of capital goods imports coupled with the
implementation of WTO Agreements, gave much scope for the private sector in
Technology Assessment in Developing Countries … 107
technology acquisition and transfer. Since then, the S&T ecosystem in India has
grown and diversified. And the focus of S&T policy has shifted to incentivizing
innovation in both public and private sectors, and leveraging start-ups and venture
capital as new sources for innovation. Over recent years the share of the private
sector is steadily increasing. India has emerged as a major destination for R&D
centres set up by multi-national companies (MNCs). Bi-lateral and multi-lateral co-
operation in S&T has been expanding and is also diversifying. India is also a member
of, or associated with, various mega-science-projects, such as CERN, the European
Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva.
Box 1. Key Departments/Agencies Dealing with STI (Source: Srinivas
et al., 2018)
• Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) under the Ministry of
S&T
• Department of Science & Technology (DST) under the Ministry of S&T
• Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) under the
Ministry of Defense
• Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) under the Prime Minister
• Department of Space (DoS) under the Prime Minister
• Department of Biotechnology (DBT) under the Ministry of S&T
• Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) under Department of
Agricultural Research
• Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) under the Department of
Health Research.
S&T policy in India is strongly guided by the techno-positivist idea that S&T is
a non-controversial tool for modernizing and developing the country. India is quite
committed to centralize planning in S&T and uses five year plans for targeted devel-
opment in different sectors. So-called “Missions” are presented in specific medium-
to long-term programmes to build capacity, develop self-reliance in specific sectors,
and harness technologies to meet national objectives. There have been many missions,
ranging from the peaceful use of atomic energy, to exploring Mars. Since 1988,
the activities of the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council
(TIFAC), under the Department of S&T, have played a central role in developing
these plans.
S&T policy advice: TIFAC
The Advisory Committee for Coordination of Scientific Research (ACCSR) was
active from 1948 to 1955. Since its establishment, there have been many commit-
tees and institutional mechanisms to provide S&T policy advice. Until 2014, the
Planning Commission which prepared the five year plans and evaluated their perfor-
mance had a division on S&T. Its successor, NITI Aayong, also has a division on
S&T, while in 2018, the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor was created.
108 K. R. Srinivas and R. van Est
There are internal ministerial mechanisms in place to evaluate and assess various
S&T programmes, study the impacts and examine the outcomes vis-a-vis the costs
and estimated benefits. External evaluations by agencies like the Comptroller and
Auditor General of India is limited to the functioning of regulatory frameworks and
administrative activities (e.g. CAG, 2016).
The Technology Policy Statement of 1983 signalled a need to undertake systematic
technology forecasting and assessment on a continuous basis and make it compulsory
for ministries and departments involved in large investments or large volumes of
production. Three years later, the Cabinet approved the formation of the Technology
Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) under the Department
of S&T. And in 1988, TIFAC was set up as an autonomous organization. Its broad
mandate emphasizes conducting studies and giving policy advice.1 TIFAC was to
work with stakeholders including industry, and conduct studies in forecasting and
assessment. It has undertaken technology missions besides conducting feasibility
studies. As an autonomous organization its mandate and operational freedom are
broad, and there is no other institution in India that plays a role similar to TIFAC.
The then Secretary of the Department of S&T (DST), Vasant Gowariker, hoped
that with the creation of TIFAC and the TIFA network “… the national capabilities
in the area of technological planning and assessment will be strengthened. This will
contribute to the much needed inputs and advice for improved socio-economic and
industrial planning” (Gowariker, 1988). At the time, it was envisaged that there would
be TIFAC Groups at various ministries and industry levels.
TIFAC’s approach
The founding of TIFAC was based on a strong belief in technology and centralized,
top-down expert-driven policy advice, planning, and implementation in the field of
S&T. As a result, TIFAC’s approach is expert-driven and technology-oriented. At the
same time, TIFAC’s approach has been holistic, covering the entire innovation chain,
including commercialization and upgrading, economic benefits, and meeting soci-
etal needs. A five step process is employed: (1) brainstorming, (2) defining the scope
of assessment, (3) defining the time horizon to be covered, (4) assessing the effects
of technology, and (5) analysing policy options. Given its broad mandate, TIFAC
uses forecasting and integrated that with TA. This integration was done “with prac-
tical goals in mind, namely to create alternative technology trajectories for various
important sectors with broad acceptance from stakeholders, ranging from scientists
to industrial and technical personnel, to business leaders and government” ( Bhat-
nagar & Jancy, 2003, 24). As such, TIFAC needed to look at available technologies,
and alternatives, and situate TA in the larger context of using S&T for national
development.
According to Bhatnagar and Jancy (2003), TIFAC focussed on capacity-building
and global competitiveness, evaluated emerging technologies, and assessed tech-
nologies for promoting sustainable development. TIFAC worked across sectors
and managed technology missions concerning the utilization of bamboo, fly ash,
1 See: https://www.tifac.org.in/index.php/about-us/mandate.
Technology Assessment in Developing Countries … 109
construction waste, and nicotine waste, and the commercial extraction of potash
from sea water. TIFAC has been doing TA with the motto of “make technologies
work for people” in different sectors of the economy. For this, the council assessed
technology readiness levels, societal needs, and the socio-economic and technology
import or development needed to provide for those needs. Given the importance
of developing alternative technologies and substituting imported technologies with
indigenous ones, TIFAC played a key role in technology assessment and absorption.
In 2012, TIFAC claimed that it had completed more than 500 technology assess-
ment, demonstration and development projects, involving more than 1500 experts.
Although TIFAC’s TA is done to assess utility and relevance for the users, it seems
to be driven more by the institution than by users or society. There is hardly any
reference to participatory TA or constructive TA in its work.
Although TA was one of the key initial mandates of TIFAC, TIFAC is now more
focussed on technology forecasting exercises. TIFAC developed a Technology Vision
2035 and follow-ups to that and is involved in scaling up of technologies. However,
its work on emerging technologies does not seem to have a TA dimension. With focus
on forecasting and foresight studies, and on ideation and scaling up, TIFAC is active
on many fronts. According to Goswami and Selvan of TIFAC, TIFAC has employed
TA in a particular mode.2 In the Technology Vision 2035 program, technologies
were assessed based on their technology readiness levels and to what extent they
were able to address the needs of citizens of India.3 Similarly, for preparing their
Technology roadmaps, TIFAC has identified many technologies after carrying out
TA-like processes. Recently, TIFAC did a comprehensive TA exercise and identified
technologies in 10 key sectors for the governmental climate change mitigation and
adaptation agenda. Currently, TIFAC prepares a database of Global Technologies
and assesses India’s needs by means of a quantitative multi-criteria decision analysis
(MCDA). Moreover, an assessment of technologies developed in Indian R&D insti-
tutions is underway, which analyses the scale of their adoption, economic feasibility,
and commercial potential.
3.2 Health Technology Assessment
The government supports health technology assessment (HTA) in India, which is
emerging as an important component in decision-making on medical technologies
and treatments. In 2017, the Government of India proposed setting up a Medical
Technology Assessment Board (MTAB).4 But later this idea was replaced with the
health technology assessment in India network (HTAIn).5 HTAIn comprises of three
2 Based on e-mail communication with Janice Selvan and Gautam Goswami, 13 December 2021.
3 See: https://www.tifac.org.in/index.php/programmes/activities/technology-vision-2035.
4 See: https://nhm.gov.in/New_Updates_2018/Innovation_summit/6th/Health_Technology_Asse
ssment_in_India_Deptt_of_Health_Research.pptx.
5 See: https://pib.nic.in/newsite/mbErel.aspx?relid=157976.
110 K. R. Srinivas and R. van Est
organizations, including HTAIn Secretariat, HTAIn Technical Appraisal Committee
(TAC), and HTAIn Board. The HTAIn Secretariat collaborates with identified tech-
nical partners (TPs) and regional resource hubs (RRHs). Requests to conduct a HTA
study can emanate from health departments in central and state governments. The
HTA study goes far beyond cost–benefit analysis and has to be rather comprehensive;
it should also include systematic literature reviews, economic evaluations, measuring
and valuing the health outcomes, and analyses on equity and access issues. An HTA
also has provisions for stakeholder consultations. For example, the “HTA of intraoc-
ular lenses for treatment of age-related cataracts in India” published in 2018 addresses
equity issues through literature survey, compares different technological options and
makes recommendations.6 Finally, the HTA report, together with a policy brief, is
sent to the department that requested it (Jain et al., 2018).
3.3 Governmental TA for Prevention, Control,
and Abatement of Pollution
In the National Clean Air Program (NCAP 2019), the Ministry of Environment, Forest
and Climate Change (MoEFCC) announced that a Technology Assessment Cell will
be established. According to NCAP (2019, 60f.) the Technology Assessment Cell is
envisaged to:
• evaluate significant technologies with reference to prevention, control, and
abatement of pollution;
• to focus on both indigenous and international monitoring and abatement technolo-
gies, ranging from engineering and chemical to biological technologies, including
extensive development of plantations
• contribute towards evaluating the technology and devising the mechanism of
technology transfer under various bilateral and multi-lateral agreements.
This is a welcome development given the need to curb pollution and address issues
related to climate change. The Technology Assessment Cell will use the existing
mechanisms and programmes of the Department of Science & Technology and the
India Innovation Hub (NCAP 2019, 61). Moreover, it will involve the Indian Institutes
of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), major universities and
industries. However, the involvement of other stakeholders is not mentioned, nor does
a consultative mechanism seem to be envisaged. Thus, it seems that a technocratic
exercise is envisioned, involving experts, academic institutions, and industry.
From the above, it is clear that TA is growing in India, in terms of themes and
as a relevant input for policymaking, particularly in the field of health. Some of the
activities on TA are linked with other objectives such as transfer of technology (ToT)
and diffusion of technology.
6 See: https://dhr.gov.in/sites/default/files/htaincataract_0.pdf.
Technology Assessment in Developing Countries … 111
4 Constructive TA: Evaluating and Adopting Technologies
in Agriculture—ICAR
4.1 Extension and Technology Assessment and Refinement
In India, there are many agricultural research organizations and activities, such as
agricultural universities, private sector entities, farmers doing research, and civil
society-supported initiatives. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)
is the premier research agency in agriculture in India. ICAR engages in technology
development and assessment through research laboratories and extension centres.
Extension is a service or system which assists farm people, through educational
procedures, in improving farming methods and techniques, increasing production
efficiency and income, bettering their standard of living and lifting social and educa-
tional standards. The agricultural extension system was developed in the 1960s and
was expanded on account of the Green Revolution. At that time, the focus was on
adopting technology, and not on TA.
In 1995, ICAR institutionalized technology assessment and refinement (TAR)
as part of the extension services, through the Institute Village Linkage Programme
(IVLP), in 42 centres linking with 42,000 families (ICAR 1995, 6). TAR is meant
to assess technologies at the field level and refine them in such a way that they will
fit the ecological, social, and technological context of farmers. Important questions
within the TAR, therefore, are (ICAR 1995, 10): What are the constraints in the
farming system? Which indicators do farmers use to assess the various technologies
for their worth, or relevance, and could there be rationality in adopting, rejecting,
or modifying a technology? Are there differences among the indicators chosen for
technology assessment by big, small, and marginal farmers? (ibid). The objective of
the TAR is thus to produce and transfer technologies that are suitable, based on the
needs and aspirations of the farmers.
4.2 Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) as Extension Centres
The Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) act as extension centres and disseminate tech-
nologies. As part of their work, they do technology assessment, technology evalu-
ation, and refinement. KVKs are the key component of TA in agriculture in India
although their work goes beyond TA. For ICAR, TA is part of its mandate to help
farmers and society through the development, dissemination, and adoption of tech-
nologies. As a public sector research institution, ICAR is funded mostly by the
Government of India and also collaborates with stakeholders, in particular farmers,
in TA-related activities.
Spread across different states and climatic zones of India, there are 722 KVKs that
play a part in the testing of crop varieties and other technologies in farmers’ fields
(ICAR, 2020). In 2019–2020, more than five thousand technologies were assessed
112 K. R. Srinivas and R. van Est
in some thirteen thousand locations through more than twenty-five thousand trials.
For different assessments, different criteria, like drudgery reduction, and purposes,
like resource conservation, value addition and production of planting materials, are
included. Regarding livestock, 1034 “technological interventions” were made in
3338 locations, with 5156 trials related to different themes, such as disease manage-
ment, breed evaluation and production management. KVKs are involved in demon-
strating the potential of new plant varieties and technologies developed by ICAR
(ICAR, 2020, 143). Besides analysing samples for farmers, KVKs produce seeds
and planting materials. Thus, in ICAR, TA is integrated in many developing techno-
logical activities. This type of TA is known as constructive TA, which implies that
ICAR is both the developer and assessor of technology. Similarly, both assessment
and adaptation are done by ICAR, or under its aegis through the KVKs.
ICAR also does participatory technology assessment (pTA) in a limited way. But
the issue is complicated by the fact that TA activities are linked with adaptation,
since “Technology assessment is one of the main activities of KVKs to identify the
location specificity of agricultural technologies developed by the National Agricul-
tural Research System (NARS) under various farming systems.” (ICAR, 2020,6).
Refinement, therefore, is linked with TA, and TA results in refinement. For example,
according to ICAR, demonstration in a participatory mode resulted in adoption of
pineapple as an intercrop as it scored 86.6 in the Sustainable Livelihood Index (ibid.,
138). However, it is not clear how this Index was developed or whether the same index
is used for different agro-climatic zones with the same methodology and data set.
Other projects have made use of the Sustainable Livelihood Security Index, developed
by the Department of International Development (DFID) for different agro-climatic
zones, to assess the livelihood of cassava and rice paddy-growing farmers in Tamil
Nadu, and used this assessment to suggest which crops and farming methods are
preferable.
4.3 Gender Assessment of Technologies
ICAR’s Central Institute for Women in Agriculture is the leading institute in gender
assessment of technologies. ICAR links TA with gender empowerment by assessing
how technologies could help women to reduce their drudgery and enhance liveli-
hoods. According to the Annual Report “Farm women related 280 technologies
were assessed through 2,797 trials at 699 locations. Major themes under this cate-
gory were drudgery reduction (technologies 92, trials 880, locations 126), and health
and nutrition (technologies 59, trials 492, locations 74).” (ICAR, 2020, 153). In this,
ICAR evaluates the available technologies, “Drudgery experienced by women was
assessed on a 5 point scale, with the highest score given to drudgery experience
during marketing of fish (28.01). Two model prototypes of disc ridger—aprimary
soil tillage machine—were tested and developed based on the anthropometry and
strength of farm women. As a part of livelihood improvement of tribal farm women
through secondary agriculture, technological interventions in the processing of ragi,
Technology Assessment in Developing Countries … 113
mango, tomato, and cashew nut were given to tribal women of Ganjam district and a
schematic model for establishing small scale enterprise was developed.” How exactly
the notion of gender is integrated in TA is not clearly known. Moreover, there has
not yet been an external or independent evaluation of ICAR’s role, and that of the
KVKs, in TA and how successful its TA activities have been.
In summary, ICAR has institutionalized TA in agriculture and has been sensi-
tive to women’s issues and concerns. This shows that formal systems for TA are
widely used in India. The TA methodology is oriented towards adapting a technology
which is developed elsewhere, to suit local conditions. Such a locally construc-
tive TA approach is valuable, but not sufficient for controversial technologies, such
as GM crops, which need a more comprehensive socio-economic impact analysis,
which include the perceptions of all relevant stakeholders. A locally constructive
TA should be able to weigh technological options and alternatives. ICAR’s TA is
oriented towards adapting the technology in question. For controversial technologies,
a different type of constructive TA is needed that pays attention to the usefulness and
necessity discussion surrounding such technologies.
In such cases, firstly, there is a more generic usefulness and necessity discussion
needed, in which conflicting visions can play a role, and secondly, there are various
social issues that go far beyond the local application level, such as dependence on
large biotech companies, and the future role of organic farming in India.
5 Formal and Informal Participatory TA in the Public
Domain
India has a rich history of civil society engagement with S&T. In this section, we
discuss the case study of Bt brinjal in which the government experimented with partic-
ipatory TA. Next, we describe some examples of the engagement of civil society with
STI. These examples could be described as informal participatory TA-like activities
(cf. Rip, 1986). In order to contextualize these examples, it is important to first
outline three relevant Indian political-cultural visions of the social role of science
and technology.
5.1 Three Political-Cultural Visions on the Relationship
Between S&T and Society
Prior to 1947, civil society initiatives were focussed on science education, commu-
nication, and popularization. Post-1947, such engagements include people’s science
movements (PSM), movements against specific policies, projects, and institutions,
as well as initiatives for promoting the development of alternative technologies. At
114 K. R. Srinivas and R. van Est
the risk of simplification, the responses to S&T in India can be organized into three
categories: Nehruvian, Gandhian, and the leftist vision of the PSM.
The Nehruvian approach represents the dominant understanding and thinking
based on state-led S&T, and faith in its power and potential for socio-economic
development. S&T is also regarded as an alternative mode of thinking and practice,
and the Nehruvian scientific temper is part of this. This understanding had an almost
unquestionable faith in S&T, and saw only the positive aspects of S&T, ignoring the
negative ones as exceptions, or failures of individuals and organizations, rather than
as a quality inherent in S&T. Hence, it supported large dams, nuclear power, green
revolution, and other technology missions.
The Gandhian thinking inspired institutions and individuals who accepted the
view that science without morals is a form of sin, and that S&T should be used for
people, and decentralized production and consumption. Its rejection of the idea of
endless growth is in a sense a harbinger of the current notion of de-growth. This
response to S&T is concerned with an uncontrolled expansion of S&T that results
in a concentration of wealth, growing inequities, and centralization of power and
control. As a result, its supporters sought human-centred alternatives that focussed
on community concerns and technology in the hands of communities. There are
many institutions that are inspired by Gandhi and his ideas on S&T. Some of them
are supported by the state—in particular, the Science for Equity Empowerment and
Development (SEED) Division of DST—while others are based in institutions of
higher learning and research. While these institutions are more focussed on devel-
oping alternatives and getting adopted, the people’s science movement has provided
both a critique and suggestions for alternatives.
The leftist PSM in India is critical of S&T policies. It favoured linking science
with social revolution and alternative approaches to S&T. It took positions that were
critical without romanticizing village life or questioning technology solely on the
basis of size and impact. Inspired by the USSR and China in the initial years, the
PSM later built an indigenous discourse on S&T that accepted people’s knowledge
without romanticizing it.
While the Nehruvian approach and the leftist PSM give importance to the modern-
izing potential of S&T and its use for societal transformation, the Gandhian approach
emphasizes rural industrialization that meets people’s basic needs of through decen-
tralized production and consumption, and the use of small and intermediate technolo-
gies. These approaches have had their share of influence in S&T policy. In terms of
TA, Nehruvian and leftist PSM consider formal TA as important. Moreover, the PSM
sees public engagement and assessment as important. In the Gandhian approach, TA
will be based on ethics, values, and the realization of societal goals, and how tech-
nology enables democratic sovereignty of the people, in particular the poor and
vulnerable.
Technology Assessment in Developing Countries … 115
5.2 Governmental Participatory TA: The Case of Bt brinjal
A major exercise in TA involving the public at large was undertaken in the case of
Bt brinjal. This genetically modified brinjal (also known as eggplant or aubergine)
was created by inserting a crystal protein gene (Cry1Ac) from the soil bacterium
Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) into the genome of various brinjal cultivars. For example,
the University of Agricultural Sciences in Dharwad, in the Indian state of Karnataka,
chose six varieties (malapur local, majari gota, udupi gulla, rabkavi local, kudchi
local, and GO-112) for Bt transgenic conversion (Krishnaraj et al., 2009). The initial
work was started in 2000 and it took about nine years for trials to be completed
and evaluated. After multi-state, multi-trials, and assessments of performance of the
outcomes, Bt brinjal was recommended for commercial cultivation in 2009 by the
Genetic Engineering Advisory Committee (GEAC).7
But this development was contested by many civil society organizations. The
extensive debate on Bt brinjal brought into sharp focus the divide on the use of
GMOs in agriculture, as well as questions on the regulation of agricultural biotech-
nology. Then, the Minister for Environment and Forest, Jairam Ramesh, called for
a public consultation and sought comments and inputs from the wider public. The
consultations were held in 2010, from January 13 to February 5. And on 9 February
2010 the Government of India declared a moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal for
commercial use and cultivation, which is still in force. The government cited lack of
evidence of safety as the reason.8
Another reason might have been that states like Karnataka, Uttarakhand, and
Himachal Pradesh, had already decided to not allow cultivation of Bt brinjal, to avoid
a confrontation in the absence of a consensus. Commenting on this controversy, Shah
(2011, 37) pointed out that “The social and scientific appraisal of Bt brinjal, thus
needs to be based on a methodology that can combine … scientific expertise with
democratic participation, and such an appraisal also needs to include the issues of
injustice in the assessment of insecurity.”
This broad public consultation could be considered as a pTA, as it opened up for
the first time a broader process of public engagement with technology, instead of
narrowing it to issues of safety as decided by scientists and expert views. But this TA
conducted by the government was the first and last one on agricultural t echnology, or
for that matter on any technological intervention. Interestingly, while opening up the
consultation to the public, the government did not indicate any preference, neither
in support of nor opposition to Bt brinjal. So this exercise in TA, if we can call it so,
reinforced the view that such forms of pTA are feasible in developing countries.
Despite the moratorium, the research on genetic engineering applications in agri-
culture has not stopped, and the divide in opinions continues. Although there have
been no further approvals for the commercial use or cultivation of GM, India has not
yet taken a clear stand on not using GM technology. Moreover, there is no official
policy on adoption of gene-edited crops in agriculture. Thus, while this exercise in
7 See: https://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/pocketk/35/default.asp.
8 See: https://prsindia.org/theprsblog/to-eat-or-not-to-eat-bt-brinjal.
116 K. R. Srinivas and R. van Est
TA resulted in a decision, it neither opened up opportunities for such exercises in the
future, nor brought clarity in policy.
5.3 Civil S ociety Engagement with S&T—Informal TA
There have been many examples of technology development and evaluation centred
on the needs of the poor, with the objective of developing and adopting pro-poor inno-
vations. Abrol (2014, 373–374), however, holds that “pro-poor innovation generation
and diffusion in India have not been successful, because … Technology platforms,
ecologies, and pro-poor innovation systems were not constructed with the prag-
matic aim of achieving ecological and social justice and economic empowerment of
the poor—but as a residual socio-technical system without ensuring any systemic
competitiveness.”
But we can look at controversies as types of informal TA, using examples like
the Silent Valley controversy. The Silent Valley Movement started in 1973 to save
the Silent Valley Reserve Forest from being flooded by a hydroelectric project. As
a result, the government abandoned the power project on account of assessments
by civil society group KSSP, whose concerns were shared by others. In terms of
technology development and adoption, a first example is the system of rice intensifi-
cation (SRI), which is a farming methodology aimed at increasing the yield of rice.
It is a low-water, labour-intensive method that uses younger seedlings singly spaced
and typically hand-weeded with special tools. Although at first the S&T establish-
ment ignored it, SRI later became widely accepted as a workable model. A second
example is the promotion and adoption of community seed banks as an alterna-
tive approach to institutionalized S&T seed banking. Community seed banks were
promoted by Deccan Development Society (DDS) as part of its response to techno-
logical changes in agriculture induced by the Green Revolution and the introduction
of GMOs in agriculture, particularly Bt cotton. DDS works with women’s groups
in about seventy-five villages in Telangana State. DDS promotes natural farming
and organic agriculture as an alternative to GMOs. The 5,000 women members of
DDS have developed community-based food sovereignty systems based on local
knowledge, including grain, and seed banks.
In all these instances, there were no formal TA activities. Instead, technologies
ignored by the formal innovation system were adopted and popularized. Although not
all such initiatives were successful, it is not unknown for attempts by civil society
actors result in a certain reorientation in thinking. Thus despite the lack of state
support, various informal TA-like activities have resulted in the development and
adoption of technological and/or organizational alternatives through demonstrating
their viability and feasibility.
Technology Assessment in Developing Countries … 117
6 Conclusion
This chapter has provided an overview of the TA landscape in India, as an example
of TA in a developing country. The example of India shows that despite the lack of
a specialized TA organization or institution, TA activities are included in a broad
spectrum of governmental STI initiatives and agencies, as well as in STI-focussed
activities of civil society. We described five formally institutionalized governmental
TA-like activities (Table 2) and three informal TA-like grassroots activities (Table
3).
6.1 Governmental TA Activities
Since the end of the 1980s, India has set up governmental TA-like capabilities for
technological foresight in general (via TIFAC), and for agricultural, medical and
pollution abatement technologies in particular (Table 2). Such activities are mainly
performed by experts and aim to strengthen India’s technological capacities in the
above-named fields. While there is s till some focus on the utilization phase of tech-
nology, in particular technology transfer, India nowadays is involved with the entire
innovation chain; from research, development and demonstration towards market
introduction and upscaling. Because of its tradition in the field of technology transfer,
India has gained a lot of experience regarding the fact that technology is only useful
if it matches the needs and the technological, economic, environmental, and social
context of the user. In particular, TA in the field of agriculture (TAR) and medical
technology (HTA) has given serious attention to issues of access, equity and inclusion.
The various governmental TA activities show a mix of top-down expert- and
technology-driven studies on the one hand, with attention to the needs of users and
the social context on the other. This seems to reflect a mixture of the Nehruvian
and Gandhian views on the relationships between science, technology, and society.
Finally, the government only once employed participatory TA, as a response to the
public controversy around the introduction of a genetically modified eggplant (Bt
brinjal). This is despite the fact that the S&T and Innovation Policy of 2013 mentions
public engagement, and the Economic Survey of 2018 has highlighted the need for
public engagement in science and by scientists (DoEA 2018, 129).
The governmental TA-like activities take into account technical, economic, insti-
tutional, and environmental factors, but none of them assess or take into account all
four. For example, in the case of GMOs, it was questioned to what extent all relevant
scientific factors were considered (Aga, 2022, 170–172). The TA cell and HTAIn
are new TA-like initiatives. It would be valuable and timely to assess to what extent
these TA-like activities meet the needs of society and to what extent the methods
employed are adequate for assessing emerging technologies.
118 K. R. Srinivas and R. van Est
Ta bl e 2 Overview of characteristics of five governmental TA-like activities in India
Characteristics TIFAC (1988) TAR (1995) Bt brinjal
(2010)
HTAIn (2017) TA cell (2019)
Performance
by
Technology
Information,
Forecasting and
Assessment
Council
(TIFAC)
Indian Council
of Agricultural
Research
(ICAR);
KVKs;
Central
Institute for
women in
agriculture
Ministry for
Environment
and Forest
Health
Technology
Assessment in
India network
(HTAIn)
Technology
Assessment
Cell as part of
the Ministry of
Environment,
Forest and
Climate
Change
(MoEFCC)
Directed at Government
departments
dealing with STI
(see Box 1)
Farmer
community
Genetic
Engineering
Advisory
Committee
(GEAC)
Health
departments in
central and
state
governments
Department of
Science &
Technology
and India
Innovation
Hub
Type of
technology
All kinds Agricultural
technology
GMO in
agriculture
Medical
technology
Pollution
abatement
technology
Stage of
technology
Entire
innovation chain
Entire
innovation
chain, in
particular
technology
transfer
Market
approval
Utilization
phase
Utilization
phase (e.g.
technology
transfer)
Institutional
goal
Strengthen
national
capabilities in
technological
planning and
assessment for
improved
socio-economic
and industrial
planning
Strengthening
capacity to
assess
agricultural
technology
Dealing with
societal protest
Strengthen
institutional
capacity in the
field of health
TA (HTA)
Strengthen
technological
capacity to
prevent,
control, and
abate pollution
Policy goal Global
competitiveness,
sustainable
development
Produce and
transfer
technologies
that are
suitable, based
on the needs
and
aspirations of
(female)
farmers
Clarifying
regulation of
GMO in
agriculture
Public health Prevention,
control, and
abatement of
pollution
(continued)
Technology Assessment in Developing Countries … 119
Table 2 (continued)
Characteristics TIFAC (1988) TAR (1995) Bt brinjal
(2010)
HTAIn (2017) TA cell (2019)
TA-like
activity
Technology
forecasting and
needs
assessment
Technology
Assessment
and
Refinement
(TAR)
Public
consultation
Health
technology
assessment
(HTA)
Evaluating
technological
potential
Engagement Experts Experts,
(female)
farmers
Experts,
stakeholders
(incl. civil
society
organizations),
citizens
Experts Experts
Factors
addressed
Technological,
economic,
societal needs
Technological,
economic,
ecological,
gender,
livelihood
Safety, social Technological,
economic,
health gain,
access and
equity
Technological,
economic
Ta bl e 3 Overview of characteristics of three informal TA-like grassroots activities in India
Characteristics of
TA-like activity
Silent valley
movement
System of rice
intensification (SRI)
Community seed banks
Performed by Civil society
organization KSSP
Farmer organizations Deccan Development
Society (DDS)
Directed at State Farmers Female farmers
Type of technology Hydroelectric project Agricultural technology Agricultural technology
Stage of technology Implementation Development and
implementation
Development and
implementation
Goal Save the Silent Valley
forest
Increasing the yield of
poor farmers with poor
soil
Promoting
community-based food
sovereignty systems
Policy goal State stops
hydroelectric project
Strengthening livelihood
of poor farmers
Natural farming and
organic agriculture
TA-like activity Societal movement
and controversy as
informal TA
Informal constructive
TA: Grassroots
development of
technology suitable to
the needs of poor
farmers
Informal constructive
TA: grassroots
development of
technology suitable for
female farmers
Engagement Silent Valley
Movement
Poor farmers Female farmers
Factors addressed Technological,
ecological, social
Technological,
economic, ecological,
social
Technological,
economic, ecological,
social
120 K. R. Srinivas and R. van Est
6.2 Informal Societal TA Activities
Besides governmental TA-like activities, we described three informal TA-like grass-
roots activities in India (Table 3). These activities are driven by civil society organi-
zations, which often choose one or more of the following three strategies (cf. Cramer,
1990, 145):
(1) educating or mobilizing the public and stimulating the public debate on STI,
(2) putting an emphasis on influencing governmental STI policy or trying to stop
governmental projects (as in the case of the Silent Valley movement), or
(3) developing exemplary alternative technologies and organizations (as in the cases
of the system of rice intensification, and the community seed banks).
As noted above, Rip ( 1986) denotes public controversies, which are related to the
first two strategies, as informal technology assessment. In line with that argument,
the third strategy could be described as informal constructive TA.
The informal TA-like grassroots activities provide a contrast to the governmental
TA-like activities. While informality is one aspect, these grassroots activities often
represent and give voice to marginalized stakeholders, and in some cases provide
an alternative option in terms of technology and organization. The system of rice
intensification (SRI) is now recognized by the formal agricultural research and
extension system of the state. The Silent Valley Movement questioned the logic
of generating electricity at any cost. Community seed banks are part of informal
seed and germplasm conservation and various development initiatives. But there are
not many such informal TA-like initiatives in India. Moreover, there is often a weak
linkage between informal TA-like activities and the formal innovation ecosystems
of universities or institutions of higher learning.
6.3 Lessons from India for Developing Countries
So India does have both formal and informal TA, which according to Kebede and
Mulder (2008) are almost absent in most developing nations. In terms of TA, there-
fore, India cannot be seen as a typical developing country. We should note, however,
that Kebebe and Mulder made their observation in 2008 and a lot may have changed
since then. This certainly applies for India, which has expanded its TA capacity,
especially in the field of HTA and pollution TA. Moreover, the Indian government
organized a participatory TA event on the introduction of Bt brinjal in 2010.
In Sect. 2, we identified three important TA topics for developing countries: tech-
nology transfer and needs assessment, TA for access, equity and inclusion, and partic-
ipatory TA, including the role civil society or informal TA can play. The developments
in the field of TA in India indeed show the importance of these three TA topics. Below,
we briefly review these three topics and identify a set of parameters that are important
for the deployment of TA in developing countries.
Technology Assessment in Developing Countries … 121
Historically, TA was first given a place at the end of the 1980s in the field of
technology transfer, and in particular in determining which technical areas India
needed, related to societal needs and challenges (see Sect. 3.1 on TIFAC). It is
interesting to note that this desire to put state-led innovation policy more at the service
of societal challenges is a relatively modern turn of events in the European Union (cf.
Mazzucato, 2015, 2018). It also shows that for such state-led socio-technical mission
oriented innovation, TA is a natural partner. The following parameters, therefore, play
a crucial role in determining the desired role of TA for developing countries:
(1) government-driven or market-driven innovation;
(2) phase of the innovation chain: beginning, middle or end;
(3) type of grand societal challenges; and
(4) institutional capacity in STI, including TA.
Access, equity and inclusion are important social issues within TA that are espe-
cially relevant for developing countries. In India, within governmental TA activities,
we see attention to these issues, in particular in the fields of agricultural TA and HTA.
Of course, the three described informal TA-like grassroots activities are strongly
driven by the above three public values.
Finally, governmental TA in India is characterized in particular as expert-driven
and technocratic, and by a lack of approaches that seek the participation of societal
interest groups or citizens. This is despite the fact that the following aspects form a
good breeding ground for organizing participatory TA activities:
(1) the existing attention within government institutions in the field of STI towards
societal needs and issues such as access, equity, and inclusion are in principle a
good breeding ground for participatory TA;
(2) the identified need for public engagement in science in various policy docu-
ments;
(3) the critical self-reflective Indian political culture with regard to the relationship
between STI and society—especially the Gandhian and the leftist vision of the
PSM; and
(4) the presence of an active public debate on the societal role of STI, as evidenced by
the three described controversies surrounding technology and related informal
grassroots TA activities.
Finally, institutional capacity in the field of participatory TA is an important
precondition for the implementation of participatory TA. It could have significant
impact on STI if India, and other developing countries, would choose and be able to
develop such a capacity in the coming years.
122 K. R. Srinivas and R. van Est
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Global Challenges and TA
Climate Change—Does the IPCC Model
Provide the Foundation for a Potential
Global Technology Assessment
Framework?
Peta Ashworth and Elliot Clarke
1 Introduction
Climate change has been identified as the “perfect moral storm”—global in nature
with long-lasting intergenerational impacts (Gardiner, 2011) with a lack of the polit-
ical will necessary to address the issues. The anticipated damage that ecosystems and
society will bear because of adverse climatic events will place a significant burden
on people, societies, the environment and the global economy unless greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions are significantly reduced. While there is now, a dedicated move
towards net-zero emissions through stated aspirations of various industries and the
laws of some governments, there is still a need for a pressing upheaval of existing
systems, if the world is to remain well below the 2°C target of the Paris Agree-
ment (UNFCCC, 2015) or the 1.5°C target outlined in the Special Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2018a).
Beyond the hard science, climate change has become much more than just an
aggregation of scientific data from the natural sciences. As Hulme (2010a, 267) states,
the adverse impacts of a changing climate include “political, social and psychological
functions”, requiring important consideration of cultural interplays, value systems
and regional differences that exist between the global north and south, and developed
and developing countries.
Contribution to: Technology Assessment in a Globalized World—Facing the Challenges of
Transnational Technology Governance.
P. Ashworth (B)
School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
e-mail: p.ashworth@uq.edu.au
E. Clarke
School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland, Brisbane,
Australia
e-mail: elliot.clarke@uq.edu.au
© The Author(s) 2023
L. Hennen et al. (eds.), Technology Assessment in a Globalized World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0_7
127
128 P. Ashworth and E. Clarke
Integral to the global response to climate change are two international bodies.
The first, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was established
by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environ-
ment Programme (UNEP) in 1988. The IPCC serves as the core scientific advisory
body delivering evidence-based climate policy recommendations from global scien-
tific data into international climate negotiations convened by the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC comprises
197 countries and entered into force in March 1994 with the aim of preventing
“dangerous human interference with the climate system” (UNFCCC, 2015). Under-
standing the potential societal impacts of mitigation technologies and supporting
science that unpacks the use of resources and practises across sectors is a key func-
tion of the advice from the IPCC. Such a process of providing independent scientific
advice is also at the heart of technology assessment (TA).
Here, we examine the structure, practises and methods of the IPCC as a legitimate
scientific institution and its interplay with the global political decision-making forum
of the UNFCCC and compare it with TA theory and practice. The principal aim is to
investigate if such an institutionalised process of co-design, between governments
and the researchers who gather scientific evidence for policymakers, could serve as
a potential global TA model that can be applied to other global challenges. Through
examining successes, shortfalls and some criticisms of the IPCC process, we identify
how these challenges may be mitigated. We use TA analytical and impact frameworks
(Belluci et al., 2002; Hennen et al., 2004) to investigate whether an image of legit-
imacy can be realised from a global governance perspective, and whether this can
also help to build trust in science advice at the country and community level (Sanz-
Menéndez, & Cruz-Castro, 2019). In short, this chapter applies a critical lens to
the IPCC as one potential global TA model, arguing for the inclusion of grass-
roots participatory TA alongside traditional governance and reporting frameworks
to deliver holistic solutions to climate change outcomes, and ideally other global
challenges.
2 Technology Assessment
There is a long history that outlines how TA aims to support policymakers, and ulti-
mately society, when making decisions surrounding the value of existing or emerging
technologies and the potential risks and challenges they may present (Michalek et al.,
2014). Historically, it originated as a science-led policy consultation device within
economically developed institutions (Scherz et al., 2019). Framed as neutral decision-
making advisories, immune from ideological or political interference, the use and
prevalence of TA frameworks has varied across societal, geographical and temporal
scales. This has resulted in a r ange of TA methods being developed over decades as
a way of finding solutions to controversies and associated risks with the introduc-
tion of new scientific breakthroughs and technological innovations (Cruz-Castro &
Sanz-Menedez, 2005).
Climate Change—Does the IPCC Model Provide … 129
At its core, TA provides the knowledge and processes to help society cope with
innovation and mitigate potential social and environmental risks in future. The focus
on societal outcomes has mutually implicated a strong reliance on political elements
and influences (Ladikas & Hahn, 2019; Van Est & Brom, 2012). In so doing, TA as
a source of advice, “must compete—and try to co-exist—with many other sources
of information that politicians, governments, bureaucrats or parliaments use” (Cruz-
Castro & Sanz-Menedez, 2004, 106). Competing sources of data for global prob-
lems like climate change are complex and require a global TA response at the
corresponding scale. However, what often happens is that the experts that consti-
tute TA advisories and policymakers as target audiences, often disagree about what
path to take (Ladikas, 2019). This may result in a standoff, total inaction, or inef-
fective untested solutions being implemented-often decided in efforts to win votes
and remain in power rather than being truly solutions oriented as recommended by
the science. Evidenced in the climate change domain, this can have dire and often
irreversible consequences.
The call for TA to be applied as a global model stems from the ever increasing
need to address real-world problems through international cooperation and dialogue
(Ladikas & Hahn, 2019). While some technological solutions have resulted in posi-
tive impacts, it is also evident that there can be unintended consequences across
geographic regions of the world (Scherz et al., 2019). This is further influenced by
the type of political system in which the technology is being deployed (i.e. liberal
versus autocratic) and the country’s level of economic development,1 as this limits
or enables capacity to respond. Van Est and Brom (2012) also refer to the importance
of normative frames and an openness to consider and include alternative views as
part of TA responses. Despite leading TA scholars acknowledging the need to bring
together diverse cultural and societal nuances into a global framework (Ladikas &
Hahn, 2019), there remains limited consensus on what a TA model at the global scale
should look like, and how, or who by, it should be implemented.
While global TA has merit for dealing with complex challenges, there is also
some discussion about its inability to accommodate different levels of scale. For
example, some concerns remain surrounding how the deployment of TA solutions
transpire locally. Currently, TA remains a high-income state-driven pursuit in more
economically developed regions of the world (Ladikas, 2019). While there is a clear
need for a global TA framework that transcends socio-economic and neo-liberal
considerations, there is also recognition that local problems will require solutions
that exist beyond a global TA framework to “consider contextual circumstances and
aid decision-making in different settings” (Ladikas, 2019). The EUROPTA analytical
framework (Bellucci et al., 2002), with a focus on participatory TA, provides a
starting point for identifying necessary elements of what may constitute a global
TA framework. It does this through recognising the interplay between society and
institutional contexts and how participatory systems are organised. The solutions,
1 The World Economic Situation and Prospects classifies all countries of the world into one of three
broad categories: developed economies, economies in transition and developing economies.
130 P. Ashworth and E. Clarke
outputs and corresponding advice generated from TA can be understood in terms of
impact.
The connotations applied to “impact” within TA are often described as subjective.
For decades, TA scholars have strived to balance the need to reflect normative endeav-
ours without rigid expectations in the form of hard policy as its impact. Hennen et al.
(2004) describe impact in the form of a three-dimensional typology aimed at policy-
makers that includes: (1) raising knowledge and/or awareness, (2) forming opinions
and attitudes and (3) initialising action.
Raising knowledge can be viewed as an increase in the visibility of technical
knowledge, or a broad overview of potential societal outcomes as a consequence
of a new technological development (Hennen et al., 2004). This is because it is
important to understand the social impacts of advances in technology, rather than
solely an assessment of implications through scientific data. This can be further
extended to an exploration of existing policies and objectives (Hennen et al., 2004).
Second, forming attitudes and opinions helps in agenda-setting t hrough influencing
public discourse or stimulating public debate. This is invaluable when the public
and other stakeholders are exposed to new technology and ideas with a relatively
high level of uncertainty. These can be further explored through participatory TA
activities such as scenario constructions or deliberative processes, which both present
imagined futures of the technology as well as meeting expectations of procedural
fairness through democratic deliberation (Hennen et al., 2004). The third dimension
to the proposed impact typology references initialisation of action that may result in
policy development, delivery and decision-making. There are also pathways towards
introducing new models of governance, process implementation and other tangible
initiatives (Hennen et al., 2004).
These understandings of impact aim to include varying outputs and lend them-
selves to a wider definition of impact: “Impact of TA is defined as any change with
regard to the state of knowledge, opinions held, and actions taken by relevant actors
in the process of societal debate on technological issues” (Hennen et al., 2004, 61).
This is also true when considering climate change.
Across the world, the public are increasingly exposed to the potential social and
ecological impacts of climate change, with those countries least able to respond to
climate change being the ones most vulnerable to its impacts (UNFCCC, 2020).
To overcome this, there are a range of mitigation and adaptation solutions being
generated, particularly, as the urgent need to mitigate GHG emissions becomes even
more apparent (IPCC, 2021a). Some of these are challenging the status quo, or tradi-
tional ways of working, as well as associated cultural rituals. Given the complex
and global nature of the climate crisis, a global TA response has been positioned
as a necessary framework to address the corresponding risks. The IPCC offers a
substantive global TA model that not only provides scientific advice to policymakers
but may also be applied to other grand challenges. Understanding the influence
of the IPCC and climate change on real-world outcomes requires further investi-
gation of the constructed and definitional nature of ‘impact’ as a consequence of
distributed climate assessments. The impact of IPCC advice through Hennen et al.’s
(2004) typology holds true for how advice is received and inserted into public debate,
Climate Change—Does the IPCC Model Provide … 131
particularly when attempting to measure its influence on policy. Reflecting on the
current state of play for climate change mitigation suggests the IPCC framework,
while not perfect, provides one potential model for an effective global TA framework,
as detailed below.
3 The IPCC Model: Potential as a Global TA Framework
3.1 History of the IPCC
Established by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UN Envi-
ronment Program (UNEP), the IPCC was endorsed by the UN General Assembly on
6 December 1988. Its initial task, as outlined in UN General Assembly Resolution
43/53, was to review and prepare climate change science and outline the ecological,
social and economic costs of environmental degradation (IPCC, 2021b). The IPCC
brings together scientists from approximately 80 countries across the world. Crit-
ical to its relevance to governments is its recognition as a government institution,
as demonstrated in its name; “Intergovernmental”. The IPCC releases an update on
the l atest science every 5–7 years. The first assessment report (FAR) was released in
1990, which “underlined the importance of climate change as a challenge with global
consequences and requiring international cooperation” (IPCC, 2021b). The second
reporting cycle was released in 1996, and directly guided decision-makers prior to
the finalisation of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. These were subsequently followed
by a third report (2001) aimed at addressing adaptation, and a fourth report (2007)
that laid the foundations for a post-Kyoto world. The fifth report, issued in 2013,
directly advised what would become the Paris Climate Agreement on December
12, 2015. Currently, in its sixth assessment period, the IPCC has recently produced
“AR6 Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis” from Working Group
1 (IPCC, 2021a), along with technical papers, methodology reports and special
summary reports (IPCC, 2021b).
Throughout these periods of assessment, releases and reporting cycles, the IPCC
asserts that their advice has accelerated peer-reviewed literature on climate science,
increased public awareness, and fostered collaboration and participation between
different actors to achieve the targets set by the global community. In its view,
this consistently leads to international climate change decision-making and policy
reforms (IPCC, 2021b). Notably, in 2007, IPCC authors, in conjunction with Al Gore,
were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to build up and disseminate
greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for
the measures that are needed to counteract such change”. There is possibly no higher
recognition of their contribution and policy impact on the world.
132 P. Ashworth and E. Clarke
3.2 IPCC Structure
The IPCC has a sophisticated structure which is integral to its success and oper-
ations. It comprises three core working groups: Physical science basis, impacts,
adaptation and vulnerability and mitigation of climate change; and a Task Force
Bureau that oversees the National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme (IPCC,
2021c). The nature of these working groups in many ways resembles what has been
described as expert TA, where experts come together to gather scientific informa-
tion in relation to an identified problem (Van Est & Brom, 2012). Using Hennen
et al.’s (2004) typology, much of this early work would fit under the first stream of
raising knowledge and awareness of the issues at hand. Each working group consists
of lead authors, review editors, and chapter scientists who are tasked with collating
and presenting relevant research. As experts in their own fields, IPCC authors have
been approached by member governments to participate and, if accepted, volunteer
theirtimetodoso(IPCC,
2021c). There is also a large external cohort of government
representatives and researchers who operate as expert reviewers, based on their fields
of expertise. All of this i s underpinned by a secretariat which coordinates the wider
IPCC organisational, administrative, and planning matters.
The IPCC 195 member governments, along with representatives from observer
organisations, convene at least once a year (more during assessment cycles), in the
form of Plenary Sessions. This government mechanism is known as “the Panel” and
is critical to the overall functioning and success of the IPCC. “The Panel works by
consensus to decide on the organisation’s budget and work programme; the scope
and outline of its reports; issues related to principles and procedures of the IPCC; and
the structure and mandate of IPCC Working Groups and Task Forces. The Panel also
approves and adopts IPCC reports and elects the IPCC Chair, other members of the
IPCC Bureau and the Task Force Bureau.” (IPCC, 2021c, 1). Whether the structure
and mandate of the Panel can be replicated will be an important consideration for a
global TA model.
3.3 Processes
The IPCC processes, and any subsequent reviews, are advised by a set of 10
sub-principles (IPCC, 2018b). These include reaching consensus amongst working
groups for decisions relating to procedures; deciding when IPCC findings are made
official; matters relating to time-frames for participating actors; issues surrounding
how reports are made available, by when, and in what languages; process scheduling;
financial procedures; and how elections are conducted (IPCC, 2018b). The resulting
processes can be understood in terms of (a) reporting, (b) writing and reviewing, (c)
error protocol, (d) conflicts of interest, (e) funding, (f) communication, (g) gender
and (h) observer organisations.
Climate Change—Does the IPCC Model Provide … 133
Firstly, IPCC publications consist of three sub-channels to deliver climate advice.
IPCC Reports include “Assessments, Synthesis and Special Reports, their Summaries
for Policymakers, and Methodology Reports” (IPCC, 2021d). These are supported by
technical papers and other materials inclusive of workshop proceedings and databases
to assist other generational processes. Second, writing and review processes are
subject to Review Editors that include the “consideration of the range of scientific,
technical and socio-economic views” (IPCC, 2021d). Third, error protocols were
introduced whereby concerns surrounding reporting can be investigated. Fourth, a
conflict-of-interest component of the procedural process is designed to protect the
legitimacy and integrity of the IPCC’s reporting and associated activities: “individ-
uals must disclose circumstances that could lead a reasonable person to question
an individual’s objectivity, or whether an unfair advantage has been created, consti-
tute a potential conflict of interest.” (IPCC, 2021d). Fifth, IPCC funding is sourced
from member organisations and parent bodies, the WMO and the UNEP. Further
support is provided as in-kind contributions from governments providing experts to
produce the advice generated by unpaid member-sponsored experts (IPCC, 2021d).
Finally, communication constitutes who the audience is, that is, which policymakers
are viewed as important in the global climate discussion and which are not. This can
be problematic throughout the internalised decision-making process when selecting
authors and editors (IPCC, 2021d).
3.4 Technologies
Relevant to any TA discussion about the IPCC are the technologies being assessed.
Within the IPCC there is a focus on both mitigation and adaptation, which means there
are a range of technologies being examined. With mitigation, the IPCC reports synthe-
sise the latest peer-reviewed information on each of the technologies and the scenarios
which model their potential deployment, to make an assessment on their potential
for effective GHG mitigation. Most of the work to assess these technologies, i.e. the
early TA component, is undertaken by other reputable external bodies, including the
International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency
(IRENA) and various other regional or country-specific researchers and research
groups. This TA work tends to be funded by the different bodies who are subse-
quently referenced within the reports. However, at times the UNFCCC will issue
calls for specific technological reviews to inform their work. The range of technolo-
gies for mitigation includes renewable energies such as solar, wind, biomass, biofuels,
nuclear energy, energy storage, hydrogen and other more contentious technologies
such as carbon dioxide capture, utilisation and storage.
Work is also undertaken specifically around technologies for developing coun-
tries, through the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll), for example.
These programmes tend to focus on technologies for improving energy access and
reducing harmful effects of more polluting and inefficient technologies (e.g. biomass
cookstoves and kerosene lamps), prevalent in many developing countries. Coupled
134 P. Ashworth and E. Clarke
with this work, is the identification of necessary government support and trialling the
effectiveness of various financial mechanisms to achieve greater technology deploy-
ment. Most of the SEforAll work is funded from philanthropic organisations and
large aid initiatives such as UK Aid and USAid Power Africa.
For adaptation, the technologies can include anything from new land management
practises, livestock systems and management of their ruminants, agroforestry, irriga-
tion efficiencies, waste management and more novel technologies such as molecular
biology, genome modification, new marine and freshwater flora and fauna and so
on (de Coninck et al., 2018). The specific types of TA activities vary, depending on
the level of technological development, where the TA activity is being undertaken,
and what the assessment need might be. All of this information feeds into specific
country targets.
4 Climate Change State of Play
Following the Paris Agreement, all countries were obligated to set national targets
known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which outline the ways in
which they will reduce their GHG emissions. NDCs have been “at the heart of the
Paris Agreement” (UNFCCC, 2021), and represent the initialising action stage of the
typology of impacts discussed earlier (Hennen et al., 2004). It is the responsibility of
each member country to set targets to reduce emissions at the nation state level and
report these through the UNFCCC every five years. Other critical elements relate
to adaptation, finance, transparency and accountability mechanisms for emissions
trading.
Despite all these processes, the world continues to do poorly in delivering the goals
and targets required by the Paris Agreement. Today, the world is 1.1°C warmer when
compared to pre-industrial levels, and on a decadal average in 2020, was 1.24°C above
pre-industrial level (IPCC, 2021a). This clearly requires an immediate coordinated
global response, as often highlighted by the UNFCCC and other concerned scientists
(UNFCCC, 2020; Union of Concerned Scientists, 2020). More recent climate data
also underscores the urgency for mitigating climate change and to stay within the
Paris Agreement targets of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, or at most 2°C, and
achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 (UNFCCC, 2021). The International Climate
Energy Related Developments Review (UNEP, 2020) and others have determined
that emissions have continued to rise since the Paris Agreement and are mostly
attributed to the burning of fossil fuels (Le Quéré et al., 2021).
While there is some optimism that certain countries are projected to make posi-
tive inroads towards decreasing their emissions, there is consensus that no country
is doing enough to keep temperatures well below the required 2°C increase (IPCC,
2018a). Even with the countries who committed to the Paris Agreement fully imple-
menting their NDCs, the world is falling well short of meeting the required GHG
emissions reduction (Roelfsema, et al., 2020). This of course is leading to substan-
tial consequences for the environment and the global community (IPCC, 2021a). In
Climate Change—Does the IPCC Model Provide … 135
particular, the most vulnerable and marginalised people, who are least likely to be
able to withstand the potential impacts of climate change, are unfortunately often
the ones who are most exposed (UNFCCC, 2020; Rigoud et al., 2018). This places a
burden on more developed countries to find solutions which, often, are technological
in nature.
Accelerating the support, advice and access to information provided to vulner-
able regions from wealthier states, which are tasked with fostering resilience across
varying societal scales, is critical to mitigate climate change impacts. Such conclu-
sions have real-world implications for ecosystems and livelihoods when determining
vulnerability and accountability. For example, while China remains the world’s
leading emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, contributing 28% of global emis-
sions, its contribution per capita remains relatively low, particularly when compared
to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nation
states (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2020). This brings into question the respon-
sibilities of more developed regions when measuring per capita carbon emissions,
and how best to ensure the necessary climate change action, by whom and at what
level (World Bank, 2016; World Bank et al., 2016).
In Europe, the European Parliamentary Technology Assessment (EPTA) network
has undertaken a number of TA-focused activities in relation to climate change.
Its 2015 report was designed to provide politicians with climate change informa-
tion containing “…new and rigorous insight on these challenging and far-reaching
questions, generally not presented by medias in proper ways for political decisions”
(EPTA, 2015, p.8). More recent activities have included the Norwegian Board of
Technology’s focus on Norway’s emerging capacity to produce green hydrogen
through the availability of cheaper sources of renewables (NBT, 2021). Germany
continues to focus on energy efficiency in building construction to discern adequate
cost–benefit results (TAB, 2021). And, Greece has been working on tools for inves-
tigating the effects of natural disasters arising from climate change (GPCRT, 2019).
Despite activities such as these, progress on mitigation remains low.
5 Reflections on the IPCC Model: Successful or Not?
Given the slow progress towards mitigating climate change impacts, there is an oppor-
tunity to unpack the interplay between the IPCC and the global political decision-
making processes and the policy implementation of the UNFCCC and nation states.
Acknowledging both the IPCC’s successes and shortcomings provides an opportunity
to understand whether the structure of the IPPC model could be more successfully
developed into one possible global TA framework to be applied across multiple grand
challenges. It evokes the question whether building such a model of trust and legit-
imacy through global science can better serve advisory outcomes for international
policymakers, and ultimately broader society, around contentious issues.
Indeed, it has been a global success that an assessment of scientific data and tech-
nology to combat climate change was cooperatively established in the form of the
136 P. Ashworth and E. Clarke
IPCC. Certainly, there have been more nuanced successes when measured against
the impact typology outlined by Hennen et al. (2004). The first, raising knowl-
edge, can be evidenced through the visibility of technical knowledge via the reports
that are created and distributed to policymakers and made accessible to the public.
Second, these reports are regularly inserted into public debates surrounding action on
climate change by various actors, including NGOs, community groups, journalists,
industry and policymakers. Third, states have initialised action by making commit-
ments towards net-zero emissions as a consequence of IPCC reporting. These have
manifested into policies that subsidise renewable energy projects at both a household
and commercial scale, along with other mitigation and adaptation policies. However,
are these successes enough? While these accomplishments can be understood and
mapped to Hennen et al.’s (2004) impact typology, most countries which are signato-
ries to the Paris Agreement will miss their reduction targets. There remains a serious
discord between softer impacts and initialising collaborative real-world policies to
mitigate climate change, although this does fall outside the mandate of the IPCC.
Although many are supportive of the IPCC/UNFCCC process, there remain some
areas of contestation surrounding it. These include: lack of impact in achieving global
emissions targets, mainly due to a lack of political will; the degree of autonomy the
IPCC has when conducting a reporting cycle and communicating its findings; whether
seeking consensus results in obscuring or making invisible the crucial differences
between diverse global communities; the minor historical errors in reporting advice
which diminished perceptions of the integrity of the advice at the time; and finally,
whether the IPCC publications, at times, have been too technical, thus compromising
their ability to be accessible to policymakers and other actors. These critiques aimed
at the top-down model of the IPCC are expanded upon below.
5.1 A Requirement for Increasing Impact Through Initiating
Action
The IPCC process was established to inform policy without being policy prescriptive,
which is what allows it to gain support within government processes. However, a
vacuum in mandatory oversight combined with the observed inability to initialise
action at the global level, appears to be a major obstacle in generating and maintaining
trust in the effectiveness of the IPCC process. Questionable and misleading claims
of enforceability through the UNFCCC have also complicated the translation of the
IPCC advice into real-world policy actions. Whereas in other issue areas such as
the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (UNEP, 2020),
marine dumping laws through the 1996 London Protocol which entered into force
in 2006 (IMO, 2006), and the General Data Protection Regulation in the European
Union (European Commission, 2016), international compliance remains high. It
appears that the complex nature of climate change poses a significant barrier to
Climate Change—Does the IPCC Model Provide … 137
international cooperation in meeting targets to mitigate GHG emissions, particularly
if governments choose not to respond to the IPCC’s advice.
An example of this is the problematic nature of the Kyoto period climate targets.
The targets were thought to impact economic competitiveness, be too complicated
to ensure compliance, and ultimately difficult to monitor and enforce (Victor, 2011).
Without binding commitments through the decision-making arm, the UNFCCC,
or some other governance mechanism, this raises an important question of legiti-
macy, and whether public confidence in such processes can be maintained, and more
importantly if they will ever be effective.
The complications come in two forms. The first, the flexible set of country-based
actions determined by each individual state (NDCs), makes serious targets difficult
to enforce; and second, a lack of binding penalties (Denchak, 2021) further compli-
cates mechanisms to penalise or encourage non-conforming states which are party
to the Paris Agreement. While there have been instances of the UNFCCC enforce-
ment branch issuing notices of Paris Agreement compliance breaches for reporting
failures (UNFCCC, 2020), the examples do not recommend any action other than
submissions or reviewing internalised reporting protocols. It has been suggested that
implementing such a mechanism would likely undo the ability of governments and
scientists to reach agreement in the first place.
While enforceability, and lack thereof, at the global level through the UNFCCC
is outside the remit of the advisory role of the IPCC, the failure to meet current
global mitigation targets suggests the need for additional measures alongside the
scientific advice and recommendations of the IPCC process. This corresponds with
the initialising action stage of Hennen et al.’s impact framework, which implies there
may be a role for regulators which are not involved in steering the science to play
a role in mitigating poor outcomes (Van Est & Brom, 2012). Alternatively, another
peak body could be established for this purpose, but either way, it is a question that
will need consideration when trialling any global TA model in future.
5.2 Consensus and Situated Knowledge
The scientific community has conferred support for the overarching consensus on
climate change knowledge claims, including the advice and modelling by the IPCC.
Agreement can also be found outside the domain of science within government
institutions. For example, US, UK and other European officials are charged with
providing direct advice to politicians and committees. The IPCC has found allies in
civic society, activists, and NGO groups aligned with environmental matters (Ray,
2011). However, the push for consensus through the UN process has been accused
of simultaneously “making invisible” localised challenges and individual struggles
at the community scale. How climate knowledge is created or discarded, respected
or shunned, or determined to be of value within the scope of the IPCC reporting
cycle may exclude some knowledge into the periphery. However, given the nature of
138 P. Ashworth and E. Clarke
the synthesis, which combines the work of over 50,000 research outputs, this is not
unexpected.
Researchers are not arguing against the need for a global model to approach
TA and climate change, rather Kunelius et al. (2016) and Hulme (2010a, 2010b)
are mindful of presenting knowledge as a universal truth determined by consensual
processes that ignore key concepts such as identity, sense of place and time (Hulme,
2010a, 2010b). “Rather than seeking a consensual global knowledge which erases
difference and allows the most powerful to determine what is “known”, we need to
pay greater attention to the different ways knowledge comes to be made in different
places and how different kinds of knowledge gain hold in people’s minds, traction in
different cultures and assent in global fora. This is spectral knowledge which emerges
from a cosmopolitan perspective.” (Hulme, 2010a, 2010b, 563).
Potentially “washing over” situated knowledge of climate change in the quest
for consensus may curb nuanced understandings. This is especially true for indige-
nous knowledge and other cultural representations that are often neglected in the
IPCC reporting in favour of positivist Western ways of knowing and understanding
a changing climate (Corbera et al., 2016; Ford et al., 2016). Ford et al., (2016, 351)
argue the importance of prioritising indigenous knowledge in the next round of IPCC
reporting. This highlights an important challenge confronting the IPCC that has not
been solved. How does the IPCC maintain a global purview while acknowledging
the diverse cultural and situated experiences and knowledge at the community scale?
This is particularly so if not all indigenous knowledge has been published in the more
traditional literature formats, which is also a requirement of the scientific approach to
knowledge. Ladikas and Hahn (2019, 10) acknowledge this challenge as important
to any global TA framework that may be developed.
5.3 Public Trust in Reporting: Integrity, Errors, and the Need
for Transparency
Similar to the discussions on TA, the IPCC is not always considered a neutral knowl-
edge base. Authors, editors, reviewers and the UNFCCC which responds to the advice
of the IPCC are all compromised by their own norms and values that determine what
knowledge is valuable and what is not (Corbera et al., 2016; Ford et al., 2016).
While Ford et al., (2016, 349) acknowledge the importance of the IPCC in delivering
climate advice, they also argue that applying a critical lens to IPCC reporting reveals
inequalities hidden by a specific technocratic approach to knowledge and consensus:
“… it has also been noted that the procedural rules governing how the IPCC oper-
ates and the positionality of the author teams (for example, disciplinary background)
has resulted in the privileging of positivist science and technocratic perspectives, the
marginalisation of other ways of knowing (for example, local, traditional and indige-
nous knowledge) and the prioritisation of scenarios and modelling approaches” Ford
et al., (2016, 349).
Climate Change—Does the IPCC Model Provide … 139
Arpino and Obydenkova (2020) concede there has been a decline in trust in
the United Nations and its associated bodies since the 2008 financial crisis. This
coincides with ongoing miscommunication problems that destabilise or erode trust
between the scientific community and the general public (Rabinovich et al., 2012).
These concerns are exacerbated by the ever-increasing complexity of the inter-related
nature of climate change and the evolving consequences that need to be absorbed by
the public in order to take effective action (Rabinovich et al., 2012).
The IPCC as an international organisation is no different to others of equivalent
standing, and has been subject to various criticisms. For example, it has been chal-
lenged about the lack of transparency in assessment models and questionable funding
agendas within the research community (Robertson, 2020); the “Climategate” issues
associated with the email hacking of the Climate Research Unit at the University of
East Anglia in 2009 which impacted overall trust in the process (Nature, 2010); and
issues challenging the ambiguity of its assertions in relation to Himalayan glaciers
and Amazon rainforests which were later clarified (Ray, 2011). Clearly, issues of
transparency need to be proactively addressed and considered for any global TA
model.
5.4 Accessibility: Understanding and Scale
Harold et al. (2020) suggest that some of the IPCC information and data is, at times,
considered too technical for policymakers, and therefore requires improved presenta-
tion to make the information more accessible. Criticisms have focused on the infor-
mation being difficult to understand and inaccessible to non-specialist audiences,
especially policymakers, primarily based on poor readability of the text (Barkemeyer
et al., 2016; Budescu et al., 2014; Mach et al., 2016) and the structure of documents
(Stocker & Plattner, 2016).
This challenge can be further extrapolated to the overall process of national
country actors identifying their nationally determined contributions (NDCs). While
the NDCs may be developed with the best intentions, they too can become inacces-
sible to those at the state and local government level, not to mention local communi-
ties. This has been attributed to both a lack of clarity surrounding the information, and
also the required mechanisms for implementation. This suggests that while there is a
need for a global TA model, attention must also be given to making the information
accessible across different scales, rather than leave it solely to national governments.
Since the 1990s, there has been a long history of change in TA practises from
more expert-centred advice to more participatory practises (Joss & Belluci, 2002),
implementing methods such as consensus conferences, citizens summits, and future
panels, for example. In climate change, citizens’ panels provide a model that enables
local communities to engage with the science and technological innovations in an
evidence-based way. Implementing local deliberative panels could easily work in
unison with the global and national level TA models outlined above to ensure trans-
lation at the local level. Key authors in the field have long argued for new and
140 P. Ashworth and E. Clarke
innovative ways to include citizens in decision-making. They assert the need for new
pathways and innovative TA models that create cooperatives of experts, citizens,
and policymakers (Ladikas & Hahn, 2019). Similarly, Van Est and Brom (2012,
312) contend that TA can be “positioned as a more general and open process for
involving the public in policy dialogues and building societal consensus on issues of
technological change.”
What is not clear is how this may be accomplished in developing countries with
varying levels of capacity to participate. If the underlying assumption of participatory
TA implies participation of the range of stakeholders impacted by the technology,
then careful consideration must be given to involving developing countries in these
processes. Fortunately, the IPCC funding model, which sponsors developing coun-
tries to attend the range of meetings that form the process of the assessment period,
has allowed for the participation of some key representatives from the developing
countries at these meetings. However, whether such sponsorship is all inclusive,
allowing equal participation from the range of developing countries remains to be
seen. There is also a need to consider how to engage at local sites to maximise stake-
holder participation within countries. Fortunately, the experiences gained from the
development literature is also of value here, presenting tried and tested processes for
engaging with local communities across developing countries (Gaventa & Barrett,
2012; Najam, 2005).
One example of how collaboration has been facilitated between the developed
and developing world through multilateral funds is seen in the Kigali Amendment
to the Montreal Protocol (UNEP, 2021). In the amendment, where countries “agreed
to phase down Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) over the next 30 years and replace them
with more environmentally friendly alternatives” (UNEP, 2021), it was agreed that
developed countries would take the lead from 2019 and then, through a phased
approach, developing countries agreed to “freeze” their HFC levels in subsequent
years beginning from 2024. All countries participated in reaching the decision, but the
roll-out approach provided greater consideration to the needs of those in developing
countries. This provides an example where the developed world took the lead to
learn the process and then assist developing countries through capacity-building and
shared knowledge. Such knowledge-sharing across all scales is a key part of the
successes of the IPCC.
6 Discussion
The IPCC model of bringing together scientific experts from across the world to
synthesise scientific evidence that relates to climate change, provides an encour-
aging framework for one possible global TA model. However, given the slow progress
towards climate mitigation goals we recommend there is a need to address the iden-
tified deficiencies to ensure a truly effective model. There is also scope to better
understand what the barriers to change have been and then assess whether informa-
tion or political and economic processes are the best ways of addressing these. A
Climate Change—Does the IPCC Model Provide … 141
global TA model ideally needs to have some influence on both policy and real-world
outcomes to be considered as having impact-providing leadership and direction for
appropriate and long-lasting solutions to persistent problems. Further, there will
always be other institutions or actors that produce competing information, including
regulatory bodies, think tanks and lobby groups on contested issues which govern-
ments and individuals must grapple with (Oreskes & Conway, 2010). TA needs to
compete with these other forms of information if it is to have a significant influence
on decision-making at the highest levels, and of course be based on the best scientific
evidence. The interplay between governments and researchers in the IPCC process
provides hope for this.
The four central challenges of the IPCC identified were: (a) lack of impact
through initiating action based on current government commitments; (b) the pursuit
of consensus-based and situated knowledge; (c) reporting inaccuracies leading to
mistrust; and (d) accessibility of information across different scales. While these
deficiencies lead to matters of legitimacy, they are not dissimilar to the ongoing
discussions of TA scholars. We suggest there is potential for each of these deficien-
cies to be addressed using lessons learned from TA scholarship and frameworks that
may result in more authentic and accepted outcomes.
For example, establishing legitimacy through TA processes has been fostered
through the inclusion of participatory TA and deliberative democracy as grassroots
ways to address matters of scale, inclusivity and knowledge production. Admit-
tedly, there are challenges with translating deliberation in social trust, and results
can vary depending on how strong a country has been at conducting deliberation
historically (Jørgensen et al., 2016). This is made even more challenging in poorly
organised civil societies or in political environments closed from public participa-
tion (Jørgensen et al., 2016). Such considerations are reflected in the EUROPTA
analytical framework (Bellucci et al., 2002), which recognises that within social
and institutional contexts Participatory TA has three dimensions. These include:
(i) set-up and process—ultimately focusing on the design and interaction arrange-
ments; (ii) values assumptions and goals—that relate to the problem definition and
justification for participation; and (iii) outcomes—directly referring to communica-
tion of the results and impact. Importantly, herein remains a normative challenge.
Neither shared visions nor values result in tangible impact or political outcomes by
default, and therefore cannot be guaranteed (Delvenne & Parotte, 2019). This could
be due to a lack of reflexivity amongst actors, or an explicit or implicit preference
towards a matter within TA communities for political reasons (Delvenne & Parotte,
2019). Whether shared visions or values are aligned or divergent is also a matter for
consideration across scales.
Similarly, when considering participatory TA models across jurisdictions, there
has been extensive debate around whether the processes developed for one country
can be simply introduced into another country without modification (Joss & Torg-
ersen, 2002). Whether this is possible or not, will be influenced by the role the
participatory TA method is expected to play. What is the issue being investigated,
and who should participate to ensure the process is truly inclusive and representative
across scales? What assessment is being sought and for whom? When considering
142 P. Ashworth and E. Clarke
a global TA participatory framework, it will be important to acknowledge where
governance systems either converge or diverge, as this will impact the likely success
of the process and its perceived legitimacy. Similarly, how marginalised groups are
treated within such participatory processes will also significantly affect outcomes
and whether the results are valued. Trying to extrapolate these considerations across
scales is not without its challenges, and should not be underestimated.
In relation to climate change, Michalek et al. (2014, 17) suggest that: “A lack
of consensus on the global level greatly affects the local, where, for example, the
negative effects of climate change are often mostly visible. In this sense, sustainable
behaviour can only be fostered by participation of the general public in local policies
(e.g. the e2democracy project, 2012).” This global versus local impact is relevant to
many global challenges beyond climate change, and is why considerations of other
TA activities that work at different scales is important. This confirms the need for
an expanded role for participatory TA at the grassroots level while continuing to
deploy global TA based on either the IPCC or other models. Such a process would
allow for broader political debate and directly manage the linkages between science,
policymakers and society more generally (Van Est & Brom, 2012). Subsequently, it
develops a deeper understanding of the social dimensions of technology (Van Est &
Brom, 2012), and can foster more viable visions for the future use of technology
or issues across the different scales and through discussion, helping to facilitate
knowledge acquisition across broader society, beyond the experts (Ely et al., 2011,
2).
Rabinovich et al., (2012, 11) also highlight the value of the interactions and delib-
eration between actors when reconciling trust in science between those communi-
cating the message and those receiving it. “…the success of communication often
does not reside within the message itself (however masterfully it may be constructed
and framed), but within the dynamic interaction between the communicating partners
… Of paramount importance to such interactions is communication partners’ ability
to recognise each other’s position and the fact that this position may be different from
one’s own.” This applies for almost any contested topic. It reinforces how the commu-
nication of scientific information can benefit from public deliberation between actors
and citizens. Ultimately, this allows for a broader TA model that is inclusive of public
input, leading to less confusion on the topic. In addition, where scientific information
is localised and contextualised this could also improve its accessibility across scales:
geographical, societal and temporal.
Outside the IPCC and participatory TA models, there is a clear shift away from
the linear historical understanding of how technology is incorporated and used in our
lives. This is important, as technology and society are in a mutually fluid, dynamic
relationship. Van Est and Brom (2012, 316) note: “During the mid-1980s, the central
tenet of science and technology studies (STS) became that technology and society
co-construct each other. This implies that technology not only effects society but is
also shaped by society.” This interplay is heavily reflected in more recent discussions
surrounding the legitimacy of TA. It is therefore critical that social, economic and
political dimensions are acknowledged across IPCC processes to further develop
legitimacy through transparency. This advice is similarly suggested by other scholars
Climate Change—Does the IPCC Model Provide … 143
advocating for ongoing awareness of the political role of science across all forms of
TA (Delvenne & Parotte, 2019;Van Est, 2019).
A word of caution is required in relation to translating the IPCC model into
one potential global TA framework. One example that shows the difficulty in repli-
cating the IPCC is the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). This began with the intention of being a science-led
arrangement. However, as it failed to gain traction, it subsequently tried to integrate
governments using the IPCC model, but failed (Larigauderie & Mooney, 2010).
Criticisms of the IPBES suggest this is because governments saw it as the research
community attempting to gain influence over policy rather than a legitimate approach
to co-design. Other criticisms surrounding the IPBES include the difficulties of trying
to gain consensus over the very localised and regional nature of specific biodiversity
loss, compared to the global need to reduce GHG emissions. This need for consensus
is exacerbated by the increased demand for diversity (i.e. youth, other stakeholders,
knowledge systems) amongst those participating in t he process, beyond just the expert
view (Diaz-Reviriego et al., 2019). This lack of unity across the scientific commu-
nity of biodiversity experts has exacerbated its ability to influence policymakers and
has negatively impacted its overall credibility (Masood, 2018). However, those from
within the IPBES are proactively working to overcome these challenges in an attempt
to maintain the legitimacy of an important scientific area (Borie et al., 2020).
A final consideration, if the IPCC framework is to be applied more broadly as a
potential global TA framework, is the issue of funding. In 2017, the IPCC formed an
ad hoc task group to reflect on its financial stability because of a concern about the
overall drop in long-term funding. The establishment of the IPCC Trust Fund early in
the life of the IPCC has helped it to be sustainable over the longer-term (IPCC, 2017).
However, this success is very much based on the generous contributions of member
organisations, combined with the large in-kind contributions from governments who
provide not only experts and their associated advice and attendance at meetings,
but also host IPCC events at no charge (Takashima et al. 2010). Reliance on such
generosity is perhaps one of the greatest weaknesses for the IPCC model if it is to have
potential as one such global TA model. While this will need special consideration, the
existence of the EPTA network suggests some governments are already supportive
of TA, and therefore provides hope that this might be extrapolated to a more global
approach to funding. As always, consideration for how developing countries are
provided for within these frameworks must remain a priority.
7 Conclusions
The IPCC process as a TA model has achieved significant success in raising
public awareness and informing attitudes towards climate change. Recent reporting
corresponded with clearly discernible responses from the international community
charged with policy construction and delivery. This continues to instal optimism in
the ongoing quest to mitigate climate change impacts. However, despite wider public
144 P. Ashworth and E. Clarke
awareness and engagement across different scales and between diverse actors, there
are known barriers that have impaired the IPCC’s progress. The problems identi-
fied in this chapter included measuring the effectiveness of impact through commit-
ments, the problematic nature of consensus and accommodating situated knowledge,
transparency and reporting accuracy and accessibility of information across scales.
Applying TA analytical and impact frameworks to these problems suggests these
challenges are not insurmountable, especially when the global successes of the
IPCC are taken into consideration. Improving transparency through participatory
approaches across scales is at the heart of TA. There are examples of TA participa-
tory practises in both democratic and non-democratic states which provide further
insights for building a global TA framework that will help in overcoming the concerns
surrounding trust, inclusivity and communication across scales.
All grand challenges, including climate change, need a sustained social and polit-
ical commitment to overcome them. Integral to the IPCC process is the influence of
the Panel and the unique co-design elements between government and researchers
in setting parameters for ongoing assessment and reporting. Coupling these insights
with the analytical TA framework underscores a process that accommodates the
fluid nature of how humans and society interact with technology. Using participa-
tory processes, which are mindful of situational and institutional contexts and allow
stakeholders to co-create their own understandings provides hope for demonstrating
a concrete way forward: One, that is inclusive of cooperation between the state,
industry and citizens to inspire and strengthen innovation fairly. The reflexive nature
of participatory TA, combined with the learnings from the IPCC process and its
interactions with the UNFCCC, solidifies a point of departure for delivering one
such practical global TA framework more broadly in future.
Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge the extremely helpful reviews from Professors’
Mark Howden, Rinie van Est and Leo Hennen. Their sage advice and input has been extremely
helpful in finalising this chapter and some of their words echo directly in the paragraphs—it was
difficult to say it any better.
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Challenges of Global Technology
Assessment in Biotechnology—Bringing
Clarity and Better Understanding
in Fragmented Global Governance
Sophie van Baalen , Krishna Ravi Srinivas, and Guangxi He
1 Introduction
Biotechnology deals with a matter that is fundamental to each person on earth:
life itself. Worldwide, there may be different views on how we deal with different
forms of life, and to what extent we, as human kind, are at liberty to alter and use
animals, plants and other organisms for our own benefit. However, the (possible)
impacts of developments in biotechnology touch on fundamental and universally-
shared concerns such as our (shared) genetic heritage, illness and health, the safety
and availability of food, and even the continued existence of our planet. In the current
globalized world, a French scientist and an American scientist jointly won the Nobel
prize (Ledford & Callaway, 2020) for a discovery that was used by a Chinese scientist
to modify the genome of two embryos that grew into babies (Greely, 2019); a virus
that originated in China has been able to bring nations worldwide to a halt, and
(GM) crops, livestock products and food are distributed and eaten across the globe
(MacDonald, 2015). Biotechnology therefore requires reflection on a global scale as
well as international standards, agreements, and regulations.
Biotechnology involves the use and manipulation of living organisms such as
plants, animals, humans, and biological systems, or parts of these, to modify their
Contribution to: Technology Assessment in a Globalized World—Facing the Challenges of
Transnational Technology Governance.
S. van Baalen (B)
Anna van Saksenlaan 51, 2593 Den Haag, The Netherlands
e-mail: s.vanbaalen@rathenau.nl
K. R. Srinivas
RIS, CORE IVB, India Habitat Center, Lodi Road, New Delhi 110003, India
e-mail: ravisrinivas@ris.org.in
G. He
No. 8, Yuyuantan South Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100038, China
e-mail: hegx@casted.org.cn
© The Author(s) 2023
L. Hennen et al. (eds.), Technology Assessment in a Globalized World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0_8
149
150 S. van Baalen et al.
characteristics in order to create desired organisms or products. Traditional forms
of such processes, such as brewing, baking, and fermenting with selected micro-
organisms, or breeding of animals and plants, have been utilized by humans for
centuries, and are referred to as “old” biotechnology. In the 1970s, new methods to
directly manipulate genes were developed. This field of genetic engineering forms
the basis of “new” biotechnology, opening up a large amount of possible new appli-
cations in the fields of medicine, agriculture, and industry. But, it also raises a vast
array of concerns, such as environmental and (human) health risks, moral objec-
tions to tampering with nature, and possible wider societal impacts. As such, new
biotechnology has led to both public and political concerns.
This chapter investigates how technology assessment (TA) can contribute to
a global approach to dealing with global issues concerning the use of biotech-
nology. Biotechnology development touches on many aspects that are central to
TA. Concerns about the impact of engineered organisms on the environment, ethical
issues regarding the relationships between humans and nature, and contributions to
economic growth and broad prosperity are all factors that affect the societal accept-
ability of biotechnology. These factors clearly highlight a need for governance and
legislation, since the interests of all stakeholders need to be taken into account.
From the first breakthroughs in the 1970s, several activities have been undertaken
to debate biotechnology developments and establish instruments for their gover-
nance. Examples of TA activities are stakeholder consultations evaluating the envi-
ronmental risks of engineered organisms, analysis of the economic opportunities of
biotechnology products, and ethical assessment of the modification of the genome of
future generations. Similarly, instruments for the governance of biotechnology have
taken shape on a global scale in different forms, for example regulating the trade of
biotechnology products through trade agreements,1 or fixing values in human rights
treaties regarding the human genome.2 However, developing governance structures
on a global scale is challenging, because of r egional cultural and social differences
(Ladikas et al., 2015), and because there is no global authority that can adopt and
enforce binding rules at the global level (Marchant, 2021).
In this chapter, we examine what institutions and types of regulations organize
global governance on these matters; what (available) TA studies, insights and method-
ologies have contributed to global reflection, deliberation and governance; and what
the challenges, requirements and opportunities for global TA are when dealing with
issues concerning biotechnology. Section 2 gives a general introduction to inter-
national developments and governance responses concerning biotechnology since
the 1970s. In Sect. 3, we discuss the global debate and activities in the field of TA
on three key topics in biotechnology: genetically modified (GM) food and crops,
synthetic biology, and human genome germline editing (HGGE). In Sect. 4,we
discuss public perceptions, representing the cultural differences and perspectives
1 E.g. the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the
Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, see Sects. 2 and 3 of this chapter.
2 E.g. the UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, see Sect. 3
of this chapter.
Challenges of Global Technology Assessment … 151
that need to be taken into account when trying to find ways toward global gover-
nance of biotechnology. In the final section, we reflect on the way ahead for global
TA of biotechnology.
2 Early Developments in Biotechnology and Its Governance
An important breakthrough for modern biotechnology was the development of
recombinant DNA technologies in the 1970s, with which DNA can be implanted
(via a virus) into the genome of a bacterium (Jackson et al., 1972). From the begin-
ning, it was evident that this was a controversial technology, encompassing both
great potential benefits and risks. Therefore, activities to investigate and debate the
consequences of biotechnology, and the possible actions that can be taken to mitigate
the potential risks while stimulating the potential benefits were soon initiated.
A well-known example of this was what later came to be known as the Asilomar
Conference. Biochemist Paul Berg, together with other scientists, initiated a volun-
tary moratorium on performing experiments with recombinant DNA technologies,
awaiting an international conference regarding the biohazards of such experiments
(Berg, 2008). At the 1975 International Congress on Recombinant DNA Molecules,
at the Asilomar Conference Center in California, 140 biologists, lawyers, physicists,
journalists, and government officials discussed the conditions under which exper-
iments could safely continue. The recommendations formulated at the conference
outlined the types of containment in the laboratory for different types of experiments.
These recommendations formed the basis for the US National Institutes of Health
(NIH) guidelines that were established in 1976. According to organizer Paul Berg,
the Asilomar Conference is a good example of gaining the public’s trust in science
by taking their concerns seriously, and openly discussing the risks and the consider-
ations that led to the resulting consensus. However, the Asilomar Conference is also
criticized for adopting a narrow view of “risk”, omitting other implications, such
as social, political, and economic factors (Hurlbut et al., 2015). Similarly, a narrow
range of viewpoints was included, as most participants were biologists from the US,
with a few from Europe and none from the developing world, and no experts from
other fields (i.e. social sciences) were included. Another criticism is that the confer-
ence focused overly on worst-case scenarios, setting a precedent for other debates
about biotechnology and having a negative effect on public trust (Briggle, 2005).
Thus, in hindsight the Asilomar Conference was perhaps not the best approach to
discuss risk and uncertainty in science, technology and innovation.
Since the days of the Asimolar Conference, much better methods to take into
account (often uncertain) impacts on both the environment and society of innova-
tion, including genetic engineering, have been established in the related fields of
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Technology Assessment. RRI is
distinctive from TA by adding explicit ethical reflection (Grunwald, 2011). It has its
origins in the need to address concerns with the emerging field of nanotechnology in
the 2000s, in order to avoid negative impacts and to prevent the lack of acceptance
152 S. van Baalen et al.
and active resistance by the public, as was the case with biotechnology (Rip, 2014).
Moreover, as a response to the developments in biotechnology, many approaches to
TA that emphasize public participation were developed (Einsiedel, 2012).
The first practical and commercial applications of biotechnologies emerged in
the 1980s, together with the first regulations. For example, the first firms exploiting
recombinant DNA technology were founded, the US Supreme Court ruled that
recombinant micro-organisms can be patented under existing law, and a technique for
recombination of DNA was patented. The judgment in Chakrabarty versus Diamond
(1980) in the US paved the way for this, and resulted in rewriting the law in patenting
of products of nature. This enabled the then nascent biotechnology industry to
use intellectual property rights as a strategic tool for growth and attracting invest-
ments.3 In 1982, the production of synthetic human insulin in a genetically modified
bacterium (E. coli) was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As
the commercial and international aspects of biotechnology became evident, TA activ-
ities that also include these aspects were initiated. In the US, the Office of Technology
Assessment (OTA) published the report “Commercial Biotechnology: An Interna-
tional Analysis” (OTA, 1984), and a series of five reports on “New Developments in
Biotechnology” in the late 1980s.4
In the 1980s and 1990s, the possible risks and benefits of biotechnology on a
global scale were addressed by institutions such as the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Food and Agricultural Organization of
the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World
Trade Organization (WTO). Attempts were made to deal with global issues related to
biotechnology, i.e., to set up structures for the governance of biotechnology through
international consensus, coordination, and agreements. The OECD issued a report
on international trends and perspectives on biotechnology in 1982, addressing the
potential hazards of releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment
(Bulletal.,
1982). It also addressed the relationships between academic institutions
and industry, and between fundamental and practical knowledge, with regards to
biotechnology. The report also mentions the need for international discussion and
coordination concerning the patenting of life-based products and safety issues in
order to avoid differences in legislation and practice between countries. The OECD
has since addressed issues related to biotechnology regularly. In 1993, the OECD
established the Internal Co-ordination Group for Biotechnology (ICGB) to coor-
dinate the impacts of biotechnology on different sectors such as: agriculture and
trade; environment; science, technology and industry, bringing together different
working groups, working parties, committees and fora that have activities related to
biotechnology (OECD, 2021).
3 See: https://cip2.gmu.edu/2021/01/29/forty-years-since-diamond-v-chakrabarty-legal-underpinn
ings-and-its-impact-on-the-biotechnology-industry-and-society/ (accessed 8-4-2022).
4 On (1) the Ownership of Human Tissues and Cells (1987); (2) Public Perceptions of Biotechnology
(1987); (3) Field-Testing Engineered Organisms: Genetic and Ecological Issues (1988); (4) U.S.
Investment in Biotechnology (1988); and (5) Patenting Life (1989). See: https://ota.fas.org/otarep
orts/topic/btopics/ (accessed 8-4-2022).
Challenges of Global Technology Assessment … 153
In 1991, the FAO and WHO released a joint consultation report on the safety of
food produced by biotechnology, which was meant as a first step toward international
consensus and providing guidance for the safety assessment of foods obtained using
biotechnologies (FAO & WHO, 1982). In 1994, the WTO attempted to facilitate
global trade by bridging the differences in Intellectual Property (IP) rights among
its members and setting global standards, with the Agreement on Trade-Related
Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). According to the TRIPS agree-
ment, the requirements for patentability, i.e., novelty, inventiveness and industrial
utility, apply to biotechnology inventions as well. Hence, if new biological mate-
rial is obtained through non-biological processes (such as genetic engineering), it
is patentable. Member states do have the freedom to exclude plants, animals, and
“essentially biological processes” from patentability.5
Biotechnology has been a central topic in the (institutionalized/parliamentary)
TA community since the first OTA reports in the 1980s. From early on, an important
question has been how to balance precaution with obtaining the possible benefits of
biotechnology through regulation (POST, 1994; Torgersen & Bogner, 2004). This
has been an ongoing discussion, as new developments in the field reveal gaps in the
existing rules and regulations (see for example Habets et al., 2019 on the regulation
of genome editing of plants and crops using novel gene editing technologies in the
EU).
3 Key Topics in Biotechnology
In this section, we introduce three key topics in biotechnology: (i) genetically modi-
fied (GM) foods and crops, (ii) synthetic biology, and (iii) human genome germline
editing (HGGE). Although these three topics do not cover all existing developments
in biotechnology (i.e., pharmaceuticals, industrial biotechnology, genetic informa-
tion, and privacy, etc.), together they cover many issues that are relevant for global
governance of biotechnology in general. GM foods touch upon global trade and
innovative competitiveness that can be in conflict with regional rules and values. It
foregrounds issues such as food security, consumer rights to information, and trans-
parent food labeling. The emergence of synthetic biology foregrounds issues of dual
use and biosecurity. HGGE is considered to require a global approach as the human
genome is often seen as matter that concerns all of humanity (i.e., a “heritage of
humanity” in the words of UNESCO).
5 See: https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_04c_e.htm (accessed 8-4-2022).
154 S. van Baalen et al.
3.1 Genetically Modified Foods and Crops
GM foods and crops are presented as a possible solution to hunger by organizations
such as the United Nations (UN, 2021) and the WHO (WHO, 2021), as genetic
engineering might increase crop yields, resistance against insects and disease, and
nutritional values. The advantage of genetic engineering over traditional methods
to breed new varieties of crops is that genes that code directly for a desired trait
can directly be transferred from one variety to another. This makes it a faster and
more accurate method. Moreover, the transfer of genes from one species to another
is also possible. Hence, traits that naturally do not appear in a certain species can be
introduced.
But, it has also led to fierce opposition by NGOs, for example by Greenpeace,
which is internationally lobbying against GMOs because of the unknown risks and
their unforeseeable environmental, social and health impacts (Greenpeace, 2021).
One of the major concerns is that the novel gene might be transferred to other plants,
such as wild relatives of the crop species, leading to the development of resistant
“super weeds” and the destabilization of ecosystems. Other concerns relate to risks
for human health, for example, when novel genes that originate from species that are
usually not eaten by humans or animals are introduced to food crops. The concern
is that this might lead to the introduction of unknown allergens into the food chain.
Other objections to GM crops include tampering with nature, the monopolization
of agrochemical and plant breeding companies, and negative consequences of intro-
ducing GM crops to agriculture, such as upscaling and a high use of pesticides and
herbicides. In addition, freedom of choice for consumers and trade issues are consid-
ered to be important issues (Habets et al., 2019). The system of IP and patenting
can lead to monopolization of GM seed producers and push prices up. If, as a result,
only rich and large companies are able to afford the more expensive GM seeds, then
the cultivation of GM crops will largely be in the hands of large companies, and
small farmers might not be able to benefit from increased yields of GM crops. The
humanitarian argument that GM food technologies might help to feed hungry people
is thus contested by the concern that the benefits might not be equally distributed.
The global debate and governance of GM food
As food is traded across the globe, the governance of GM food and crops on a global
scale mostly applies to trade-related agreements. The TRIPS agreement (1994) has
helped globalization of biotechnology as it expanded the scope for patenting, and
the leeway to exclude from patentability was limited. This could make investing in
the development of GMOs more profitable. Under Article 27.3(b) patents on plant
varieties was made possible, and although “essentially biological processes” could
be excluded from patenting, patenting of plant varieties opened up the scope for
patents on GMOs, and processes related to developing GMOs; as patents can also
cover seeds, it ensured that plant variety protection was available for GM crops. The
TRIPS Agreement, while providing flexibility to countries on granting IP rights over
plant varieties, ensured that at least some form of protection should be granted. By
Challenges of Global Technology Assessment … 155
expanding the scope of IP rights on plant varieties, it also transformed the IP rights
scenario related to seeds.
This flexibility left countries with limited choices, as they had to grant at least some
form of IP protection rather than exempting plants and seeds, as was possible before.
Because biotechnology was increasingly used to develop new plant varieties with
new traits, IP protection was increasingly sought and granted on DNA fragments,
genetically modified gene parts, and genetically modified organisms including plants.
This expansion helped large companies like Monsanto to capitalize on IP protection
and to consolidate their position in the global seed industry. In developing countries,
such as Argentina and in India, such moves were met with resistance. In India, the
government resorted to price control and reduced the amount of royalty demanded
by Monsanto-Mahyco (Van Dycke & Van Overwalle, 2017). Whether or not the
scope of this protection extended to subsequent generations of cultivars became a
contentious issue in the US and Canada, where more than one form of IP protection
was available.
The TRIPS agreement has also been resisted by developing countries for not suffi-
ciently taking into account cultural, political-economic and ecological dimensions,
and for pushing globalization while disadvantaging local practices (McAfee, 2003).
The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety aims to protect biological diversity from
the potential adverse effects of GMOs. It is an international agreement annexed to
the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity, entering into force in 2003. Central to
the Protocol is the precautionary principle, which states that a lack of full scientific
certainty is no reason to postpone measures to avoid or minimize risks posed by a
living modified organism resulting from biotechnology. It allows developing nations
to balance public health with economic benefits. The Cartagena Protocol applies
to the transboundary movement, transit, handling, and use of all living modified
organisms that may have adverse effects on the conservation and sustainable use
of biological diversity, taking also into account risks to human health (Article 4 of
the Protocol, SCBD 2000). Some major GM crop-producing countries (i.e., the US,
Argentina, and Canada) have not ratified the Cartagena Protocol, while others (India
and Brazil) have.
Central to regulation of GM foods, plants and crops are containment of risks, trans-
parency, freedom of consumer choice, and marketing issues. Therefore, regulatory
regimes lay out rules for risk assessment, risk containment and labeling, and among
others. The EU currently has the most harmonized and comprehensive framework for
GMOs, covering contained use, field trials, marketing of GMOs, post-market moni-
toring, labeling, and traceability (Srinivas, 2020). Commercial cultivation of GM
crops only occurs in Spain, but large amounts of GM soya and corn are imported as
animal feed. Similar to the Cartagena Protocol, the precautionary principle is a funda-
mental principle of European legislation, and the EU GMO Directive 2001/18/EG is
in line with this principle.
Fundamentally, there are two ways for countries to assess the risks of and regulate
GMO crops: process based—defining plant varieties based on the process by which
they were created, and product based—defining plant varieties based on the proper-
ties of the resulting product. The EU is an example of the first: classic mutagenesis
156 S. van Baalen et al.
methods, introducing small, random changes to the DNA of crops are exempted
from the GMO Directive, because no foreign DNA is introduced. The recent emer-
gence of new genome editing techniques, s uch as CRISPR-Cas9, allow for the dele-
tion or replacement of single base-pairs, rather than introduction of foreign DNA
as in recombinant DNA techniques. In the EU, this has sparked a debate about
whether genome-edited crops should fall under the GMO Directive. Proponents argue
that genome editing techniques are similar to classic mutagenesis techniques, as no
foreign DNA is introduced. Opponents argue that safety for public health and the
environment has not been proven. In 2018, the European Court of Justice ruled that
gene-edited crops should be considered as GMOs.
The US is an example of the product-based approach to regulating GM food,
where regulations are based on the GM foods and how they are used, rather than the
technologies that were used to make them. Hence, the safety of GM foods in the US is
assessed using the same rules as all other foods, and no special labeling or pre-market
approval applies. The introduction of GM plants in the field is regulated by the US
Department of Agriculture (USDA) that prevents the spread of (potentially) invasive
new plants in the US. USDA requires companies to submit information on the plant,
such as field test reports, experimental data, and publication and description of the
genotype and phenotype, before GM plants can be planted, and regulates where GM
can be transported and how much can be planted. Finally, if GM plants produce
insecticidal substances, regulations concerning the effect of pesticides on human
health and the environment apply.6
According to a survey among 33 countries and the EU, process-based regulations
were employed by 15 countries and the EU, among which are Brazil, China, New
Zealand, and Australia, whereas 14 countries employed product-based regulation,
including Argentina, the US, Canada, the Philippines, and Bangladesh (Ishii & Araki,
2017). Hence, the regulatory landscape for GM foods is fragmented globally, and
there is no harmonization of norms and rules of GM foods across the world. A current
pressing issue is how different regulatory regimes will react to genetically edited
foods. Some countries might choose the option of deregulation of genome edited
crops, or treating genome edited crops as equivalent to plant species developed by
traditional plant breeding methods, while others might treat genome edited crops as
GMOs.
TA work on GM foods
GM foods have long been on the agenda of TA institutes, raising questions concerning
biodiversity and sustainability (i.e., Meyer et al., 1998), as well as social conse-
quences (i.e., BAS, 2008). TA has also been concerned with the public and political
debate, organizing citizen panels (i.e. TA-Swiss, 1999 and many more, see Einsiedel,
2012, Table 1 for an overview), and monitoring technical and scientific developments.
In 2009, the European Parliamentary Technology Assessment (EPTA) network issued
a report about the challenges to European policy on GM plants (Bütschi et al., 2009).
6 See: https://www.usda.gov/topics/biotechnology/how-federal-government-regulates-biotech-plants
(accessed 8-4-2022).
Challenges of Global Technology Assessment … 157
These challenges related to new driving forces for GM plant introduction, including
agriculture for non-food products such as bioenergy and biomass; the development
of new types of GM plants, technologies and applications; public acceptance of
GM plants; labeling of GM products, and consumer choice and international trade
rules. On each of these issues, the EPTA network provides options for action to
policymakers.
In recent decades, public discourse and policymaking have been focused around
regulations and issues like food safety and environmental impact. Likewise, the
concerns regarding genetically edited crops have also been on governance and regu-
lation (Entine et al., 2021) or on risk assessment (Kawall et al., 2020). Here, discus-
sions have also focused more on specific aspects than on a holistic assessment.7 One
of the aims of TA, however, is to include other impacts of technological develop-
ments like GM food, such as economic impacts, environmental impacts, impacts on
women, impacts on health, and impacts on labor (Chaturvedi & Srinivas, 2019). TA
methods could be helpful to assess such broad impacts of GM foods. Moreover, the
issues and impacts of GM foods are not similar for each country: there are different
regulations, needs, and cultures in each country. A globalized TA effort can help to
gain insight into the broad implications of (the governance of) GM foods for the
diverse situations in various countries across the globe, and the impact of globally
standardized governance in each of these situations.
3.2 Synthetic Biology
In the early 2000s, synthetic biology (or SynBio) emerged at the center of biotech-
nology developments. Synthetic biology is the engineering of biology to (re)design
organisms or complex biologically-based systems which display functions that do not
exist in nature and that are useful for mankind. A fundamental difference between
genetic engineering and synthetic biology is that, with the latter, it is possible to
redesign a biological system or organism, or to create a totally new organism not
found in nature. As such, synthetic biology creates new opportunities and raises
new expectations and concerns. Therefore, existing regulatory regimes created for
genetic engineering may not be suitable to regulate synthetic biology (Srinivas, 2020).
Globally, a Do-It-Yourself biology (DIY biology) movement has emerged making
protocols and kits available online, allowing amateurs to experiment with synthetic
biology at home. The DIY biology movement is now diverse in terms of geography
and location. The international genetically engineered machine (iGEM) competition,
held since 2004, provides a platform for novel ideas and experiments in synthetic
biology. So far, synthetic biology has not been dominated by multinational corpora-
tions and there are strong countervailing forces like the DIY biology movement to
prevent this.
7 For example, see: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/232239/Booklet%20WS%20Genome%
20Editing%2015-04-2021_final.pdf.
158 S. van Baalen et al.
The global debate and governance of synthetic biology
The discourse about synthetic biology is fueled by its potential benefits, such as
the production of medicine by artificial bacteria, biofuel from algae, or developing
biosensors that improve measuring instruments. At the same time, synthetic biology
raises concerns. How far can we intervene in the living world? Can we foresee the
consequences? The international debates relate to issues of biosafety and biosecurity,
intellectual property and the international framework on ethics and human rights.
Across the globe, different discourses relating to innovation, risk, power and control
have emerged, involving different actors. In contrast to the first attempts at regulating
genetic engineering, which was mainly initiated by experts at the Asilomar Confer-
ence, many different actors, including NGOs, have been involved from the beginning,
and the need to incorporate stakeholder and public questions and concerns into poli-
cymaking has been on the agenda from an early stage (Stemerding & Rerimassie,
2013). Moreover, the global nature of the developments, due to the international inter-
connectedness of academic disciplines and the industrial sector, has been mentioned
as one of the central features of synthetic biology (ibid.). This brings out the need for
transnational governance and international coordination. Currently, governance of
synthetic biology is evolving, with countries following different approaches (Trump
et al., 2020) without moving toward global harmonization. However, the extension
of regulatory regimes developed for genetic engineering/GMOs is also emerging as
an option. The ongoing discussions under the Convention on Biological Diversity
relate to the question of whether synthetic biology would be covered by the Carta-
gena Protocol on Biosafety (Lai et al., 2019). Synthetic biology was discussed at
the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Ad-hoc Technical Experts Group
(AHTEFG), but there was no consensus on the assessment of new genetic technolo-
gies, such as synthetic biology. Major differences occurred between parties that grow
and export GM crops and other parties that take more precautionary approaches. The
AHTEFG has proposed establishing a “Multidisciplinary Technical Expert Group
on Synthetic Biology to carry out the horizon scanning, monitoring and assessment
process” (Third World Network, 2021).
TA and synthetic biology
Synthetic biology is currently receiving much attention from the (institu-
tional/parliamentary) TA community (i.e., EPTA, 2011;POST,
2008, 2014;
Stemerding & Rerimassie, 2013;TAB, 2015). Synthetic biology has dual-use poten-
tial and there are concerns about biosecurity, the potential for misuse and biosafety,
and the potential unintended consequences of the technology (see: NASEM, 2018).
One suggestion has been that prospective TA in combination with ethics is necessary
(Schmidt, 2015), or that it can be complemented with an analysis based on Respon-
sible Research and Innovation (RRI) (Stemerding, 2019). One way to go about this is
to review the literature and case studies of TA in dual use in other fields such as cyber-
security (e.g. Riebe & Reuter, 2019), and draw lessons from that. Synthetic biology
was one of the topics of the Global Ethics in Science and Technology (GEST) project
(2011–2014), which compared the role of ethics in science and technology policy
Challenges of Global Technology Assessment … 159
as it was developing in Europe, China and India. But the real challenge lies in using
TA in technological convergence: the “tendency of different systems to eventually
evolve, blend, and synergistically reinforce and interact with each other, sharing and
extracting resources and energy to produce new and unique meta-technological prod-
ucts and outcomes” (McCreight, 2013, p. 12). This convergence has the potential to
improve human lives, but also to be put to use in warfare and, as such, have disastrous
consequences for the global balance of power. Synthetic biology is often mentioned
as one of the technologies that has this potential, together with artificial intelligence,
neuroscience, nanoscience and robotics. Utilizing foresight methodologies from TA,
such as scenario analyzes and horizon scans, can be helpful in developing gover-
nance that anticipates future developments. An example is the techno-moral future
scenarios on synthetic biology, developed by the Rathenau Instituut and the 2012
iGEM University College London team.8 Together, they present a range of possible
futures for synthetic biology in our society and in our lives, and support politicians,
scientists and the broader public to reflect on the possible positive and negative
impacts. This facilitates the conversation between policymakers, stakeholders and
the public about what role they envision for synthetic biology in society, and how
we can stimulate this t hrough governance while limiting the negative consequences.
3.3 Human Genome Germline Editing (HGGE)
In the first decades after 1970, the assessment of the consequences of biotechnology
focused on environmental and health risks and (global) trade, but in the 1990s the
assessment of underlying values and the role of ethical principles for the governance
of biotechnology became more prominent. As the science of genetic engineering and
molecular biology progressed, attention turned toward the engineering of the human
genome. In 2003, the entire human genetic code was mapped for the first time, the
outcome of the Human Genome Project which had started in 1990 (NIH, 2021). The
expanding knowledge of the genetic basis of human traits and disorders, and new
technologies for modifying genes, could in time make it possible to alter the building
blocks of our lives: human DNA. When the DNA in the cell of a human embryo or in
cells that could grow into reproductive cells is modified in the laboratory, we speak of
human germline genome editing (HGGE). When a child grows out of a genetically
modified embryo, the DNA of their offspring will also contain the modification.
HGGE could have a variety of social repercussions that require governance with a
strong basis in values from society.
8 See: https://www.rathenau.nl/sites/default/files/2019-01/Future_scenarios_synthetic_biology.pdf.
160 S. van Baalen et al.
The global debate and governance of HGGE
In response, international and global agencies have attempted to curtail modifications
of the human genome through regulations and treaties. In most countries, human
genome editing is prohibited by law (Ledford, 2015). In addition to national prohibi-
tions, various human rights treaties curtail modifications of the human germline, such
as the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights (UNESCO,
1997), which considers the human genome as “the fundamental unity of all members
of the human family, as well as the recognition of their inherent dignity and diver-
sity. In a symbolic sense, it is the heritage of humanity.” (Article 1) The Council of
Europe addressed genetic modification of the human genome in Article 13 of the
Oviedo Convention, stating that an intervention to modify the human genome may
only be undertaken for preventive, diagnostic or therapeutic purposes, and only if its
aim is not to introduce any modification in the genome of any descendants (Council
of Europe, 1997). In the European Union, eugenic practices and cloning of human
beings are both deemed to be in violation of human dignity and are rejected in Art.
3(2b) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights (2000). More recently, the European
Clinical Trial Regulation (2014), which entered into force in 2019, also prohibits
the alteration of heritable DNA by providing that, “No gene therapy clinical trials
may be carried out which result in modifications to the subject’s germ line genetic
identity.” (European Clinical Trial Regulation, 2014, p. 51).
In 2012, a new technology was discovered for modifying DNA: CRISPR-Cas9
(Jinek et al., 2012). In contrast to earlier genome editing technologies, CRISPR is
often referred to as a ‘molecular scissor’. Scientists regard the technology as ‘easy to
use, precise and relatively inexpensive’. Within the medical field, scientists, doctors
and patients hopefully anticipate the possibility of preventing the transmission of
(severe) heritable diseases through HGGE (De Wert et al., 2018; Liang, 2015).This
development has reopened the discussion about the modification of heritable DNA.
At the international level, different initiatives to discuss and reflect on human
genome editing have been initiated. For example, at the two “International summits
on genome editing” in 2015 and 20189 experts have discussed the scientific state-
of-the-art and the ethical and societal questions, and concluded that it was, at that
time, irresponsible to use germline genome editing in a clinical setting, to alter the
genetic make-up of future persons. Firstly, because the technology was deemed not
safe and efficient enough, and secondly, because of a lack of broad societal consensus
about the acceptability of clinical use of HGGE. Despite worldwide consensus that
the use of gene editing technologies to modify the DNA of future persons is not
acceptable due to ethical concerns, as well as issues with safety and efficacy, and
despite that HGGE for reproductive purposes were prohibited, the Chinese scientist
He Jiankui announced that the world’s first gene edited babies had been born in China
on November 26, 2018 (Cohen, 2019). This led to an outburst of reactions from within
and outside the academic community, and calls to consider a temporary worldwide
ban on the reproductive applications of HGGE until adequate reflection has taken
9 See: https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/international-summit-on-human-gene-editing
(accessed 8-4-2022).
Challenges of Global Technology Assessment … 161
place at the national and international levels (i.e. Lander et al., 2019). It soon became
clear that many scientists from around the world were aware of He’s plans to let babies
grow out of genetically altered embryos (Cyranoski, 2019). The announcement by
He Jiankui was taken by the Chinese government as an opportunity to enhance the
ethical governance of emerging technologies by establishing a National Science and
Technology Ethics Committee and issuing the “Regulations on the Administration
of the Clinical Application of New Biomedical Technologies”, which improved the
management system for the clinical application of new biomedical technologies at
different risk levels.
In the aftermath of this incident, the WHO founded the advisory commission
on Developing Global Standards for Governance and Oversight of Human Genome
Editing, that issued a Framework for Governance and Recommendations on the
topic in 2021. In this set of documents, the committee gives advice and recom-
mendations on appropriate institutional, national, regional, and global governance
mechanisms for HGGE.10 It recognizes that governance is needed at national and
transnational levels, because both the research and the societal effects will go beyond
national borders. Therefore, it recommends that the WHO should take leadership
and work with others to establish international collaborations for effective gover-
nance and oversight. According to the committee, good governance in this context
is value-based and principle-driven, and it provides a list of the values and princi-
ples that should inform governance decisions. By putting forward seven scenarios,
the committee illustrates the practical challenges that can be encountered when
establishing good governance of HGGE.
In 2020, the US National Academy of Science and the UK Royal Society Interna-
tional Commission on the Clinical Use of Human Germline Genome Editing issued
a report that aims to provide a “translational pathway” from preclinical research to
clinical application that governments can use to introduce HGGE in their countries
should they decide to permit such use (NAM, NAS, and the Royal Society, 2020).
Notably, it also asserts that “extensive social dialog should be undertaken before
any country makes a decision on whether to permit clinical use of heritable human
genome editing (HHGE).”
Because the current global regulatory landscape regarding HGGE is very frag-
mented and no global authority that can adopt and enforce binding rules at the global
level exists, it is unlikely that a single mechanism will be sufficient. A mixture
of different soft-law mechanisms, such as international registries, conferences and
(nonbinding) governance frameworks by international organizations such as WHO,
and guidelines from professional societies such as the US National Academy of
Science and the UK Royal Society will nonetheless be beneficial to develop global
consensus about what HGGE activities are ethically unacceptable, and mechanisms
to detect and report them (Marchant, 2021).
10 See: https://www.who.int/news/item/12-07-2021-who-issues-new-recommendations-on-human-
genome-editing-for-the-advancement-of-public-health (accessed 8-4-2022).
162 S. van Baalen et al.
TA and HGGE
In the early 2000s, the main concern raised by TA was the possibility to read the
human genome (PACE, 2001;POST, 2000), and this is still an ongoing debate (POST,
2015;STOA, 2008, 2021). TA institutes have analyzed the possible benefits of these
developments, such as more precise characterization of medical conditions, better
diagnostics and disease prevention, as well as potential (unwanted) impacts such as
the commercialization of (individual) genetic information. More recently, the possi-
bility to edit human DNA has technically become more realistic, with the discovery
of “genetic scissors” CRISPR-Cas9. TA institutes have assessed the possible benefits,
risks and ethical issues of these developments concerning genome editing in plants,
animals and humans (ITA, 2016;POST, 2016;TAB, 2015; Van Baalen et al., 2020),
and have been involved in the organization and analysis of broad public dialogs about
HGGE (Van Baalen et al., 2021). For this dialog, a set of four techno-moral future
scenarios were developed.11
4 Public Engagement in Biotechnology and TA
As one of the central aims of TA is to aid the democratic control of developments
in STI, participation of a range of stakeholders and the wider public is an important
element of TA. This is all the more important for TA of biotechnology, as biotech-
nology challenges some of the conceptualizations that people use to make sense of
the world, such as between sickness, health and enhancement, between living and
non-living, between nature and technology, and between biology and engineering.
Moreover, over recent decades, the debate has broadened from micro-organisms to
plants to human beings (STOA, 2008). As these developments have such a tremen-
dous impact on our bodies, lives and surroundings, they should not be left to driving
forces such as science, industries and markets. Rather, policymakers and citizens—
the public-should be aware of the developments and enabled to take part in the
discussion about their desirability and acceptability.
Moreover, citizens are demanding to have a say in the governance of these devel-
opments: from the 1990s onward, biotechnology has increasingly became the subject
of public and societal debate, often sparked by single events, such as the creation of
Herman the transgenic bull in the Netherlands in 1990, the first commercial produc-
tion of GM food in the US in 1994, and Dolly the cloned sheep in 1996 (see: Einsiedel,
2012; Hansen, 2011). In the early 2000s, public concern with genetic engineering,
most notably genetically modified crops and other food products has had consider-
able influence on GMO policy throughout the globe. As such, an important task of
TA in biotechnology is to include a range of perspectives from the public and societal
groups in the assessment of technologies.
11 See: https://www.rathenau.nl/en/making-perfect-lives/discussing-modification-heritable-dna-emb
ryos (Accessed 8-4-2022).
Challenges of Global Technology Assessment … 163
Box 1. Public Attitudes to Human Genome Germline Editing (HGGE)
Public surveys
Public surveys in China and the US show that 72.5%, 72.8%, and 70.9% of
Chinese respondents clearly expressed their support for the clinical use of
HGGE to prevent fatal diseases, prevent non-fatal diseases, and reduce the
possibility of serious diseases, respectively, compared to 71%, 67%, and 65%,
respectively, in the US. Nearly half of the Chinese public supported the clinical
use of HGGE for the purpose of enhancement, a larger proportion than that of
the American public (48.6% vs. 12%).
An international survey among Canada, the US, Brazil, Germany, Sweden,
the Netherlands, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Russia,
South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, India, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia (Pew
Research Center, 2020a), shows that 70% of participants think it is appropriate
to use HGGE to treat a serious disease or condition the baby would have
at birth, 60% think it is appropriate to use HGGE to reduce the risk of a
serious disease or condition that could occur over the baby’s lifetime, and 14%
say it is appropriate to use HGGE to make the baby more intelligent. The
third scenario evokes the widest diversity of opinions across publics: from 8%
percent agreement in Japan to 64% agreement in India.
Societal dialog
In the Netherlands, politicians request societal dialog about controversial
topics. In 2019 and 2020, a broad societal dialog to ascertain the views of society
towards the clinical application of HGGE was organized by a consortium of
Dutch societal partners, financed by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and
Sport (Van Baalen et al., 2021). In general, participants had no fundamental and
absolute objections towards HGGE technology. However, they only deemed
HGGE to be acceptable when it is used to prevent serious, heritable diseases
and under strict conditions, without affecting important (societal) values. A
small group of participants found HGGE fundamentally unacceptable because
it would cross natural, socio-ethical or religious boundaries. 69% of the respon-
dents agreed with HGGE to prevent a serious muscular disease, 37% agreed
with HGGE to protect a child against a serious infectious disease, and 8%
agreed with HGGE to make a future child more intelligent (DNA-dialoog,
2021). Compared to the respondents in the Chinese and US studies, the Dutch
respondents are more cautious towards the use of HGGE.
Biotechnology and the need to include public perspectives have been an important
factor in the establishment of TA-institutions throughout Europe and the development
of approaches to TA that emphasize public participation, such as participatory or
interactive TA, and related methodology, such as consensus conferences (Einsiedel,
2012). Different issues play a role in these debates. For example, religious beliefs
and concepts of nature, health, disease, and parenthood. Members of the public
164 S. van Baalen et al.
voice ethical concerns on “messing with nature” or “playing god” when intervening
in the fundamental building blocks of plants, animals or humans is discussed (Evans,
2001). But they are also concerned with the direct and indirect risks of using advanced
genetic engineering technologies when not all aspects of the biology are known. Can
we introduce genetically modified plants or animals safely into the environment?
Are GM foods safe to eat? Is it possible that artificially introduced genes may be
transferred to natural forms? And does this impose a threat to the natural environment
and biodiversity? And how can we make sure that targeted DNA-modification of
an embryo (a future child) does not introduce off-target modification. Moreover,
the public is also concerned with the interests of other stakeholders: who decides
whether these risks are acceptable and who will benefit? Especially in the debate
on GM crops, the concentration of power in large, global agrochemical and plant
breeding companies is objected to, while in the debate on HGGE, the public is
concerned with long-term social consequences, such as the genetic consolidation
of pre-existing socio-economic inequalities (Van Baalen et al., 2020; Habets et al.,
2019).
Despite these concerns, almost all the scientific associations and UN organiza-
tions such as FAO and WHO are assured that GM foods are safe. More importantly
the reports (i.e., FAO, 2004; NAS, 2014; Nuffield, 1999) point out the need to take
into account concerns related to ethics and values and urge greater engagement with
the public and better communication on risk and benefits. A report about TA on
converging technologies by STOA (Panel for the Future of Science and Technology
at the European Parliament) concludes that “there was a need for values and criteria”
and that “almost all agreed on a need for more public input” because “there is still
little awareness about converging technologies despite their far-reaching potential.”
(STOA, 2006, p. V) The biotechnology patent debate revealed deep moral concerns
about basic genetic research that should be taken into consideration by TA. To
adequately address moral and public concerns, a more contextual approach is needed,
which integrates various forms of interaction between biotechnology and society
(Hoedemaekers, 2001). Given the importance of ethics and public consultation and
engagement, many tools and methodologies have been identified or developed, and
put into practice, such as citizens’ forums, consensus conferences, focus groups,
public hearings, and scenario workshops (see Beekman et al., 2006 for different
decision-making frameworks and public consultation methods).
Box 2. Public Perception of GM Food and Crops in China and Worldwide
The acceptance of GM food and crops by the Chinese public has consistently
declined over the past decade. In 2000, 83% of Chinese consumers were willing
to buy nutritionally improved GM food, registering the highest proportion
among the ten countries surveyed (FAO, 2004). In 2006, the proportion of
Chinese urban consumers accepting GM food was about 65% (Huang et al.,
2006), and in 2011, 42.1% of the respondents clearly support the promotion of
Challenges of Global Technology Assessment … 165
genetically modified rice in China (Guangxi et al., 2015). In 2016, 63.2% of
the respondents opposed the promotion of GM rice in China and only 27.1%
expressed their support; 74.1% of the respondents were reluctant to eat GM
food, compared to only 17.8% who were willing.
An international survey in publics across Europe, the Asia–Pacific region,
and in the US, Canada, Brazil and Russia finds that across the globe, a larger
proportion of the public thinks that GM foods are unsafe to eat than the
proportion that think that GM foods are safe (Pew Research Center, 2020b).
Some information on the public perception of HGGE (Box 1) and GM foods and
crops (Box 2) is presented. Although these only cover a few countries, and much
more can be said about the public perception of these technologies, the information
in these boxes shows three things. First, public perceptions differ from country to
country. Generally, the attitude of Christians, especially those in the West, are more
cautious toward HGGE than religiously unaffiliated people, although acceptance of
HGGE is not uniformly linked with religion. For example, Hindus and Muslims in
India are equally likely to view research on HGGE as appropriate (Pew Research
Center, 2020a). The Chinese public, under the influence of the pragmatist cultural
tradition, generally show a higher acceptance of new biological technologies. These
differences are also reflected in the way ethics related to such new technologies are
managed: in China this is driven “top-down” by the government.
Second, surveys on HGGE broadly show similar patterns: that modifying the
genetic traits of offspring is controversial, and its acceptance depends on the purpose
of the application. Preventing serious heritable disorders is regarded as an acceptable
application more often than human enhancement. However, the outcomes of surveys
disguise more nuanced considerations that will be useful for political decision-
making. For example, from societal dialog in the Netherlands a set of values were
derived that need to be protected in policy-making. These are: s afety/precaution,
the prevention of suffering or illness, protection of early human life, respect for
the autonomy of the future child, autonomy, accessibility, diversity, inclusivity, non-
discrimination, equality and solidarity (Van Baalen et al., 2021). Finally, the declining
public acceptance of GM foods and crops in China shows that public perception is
not stable and can change over time (see Box 2), for example, in response to public
controversies.
How ethics, values, risks, and benefits are considered and what role they play
in the public perception of these technologies differs from country to country and
over time. This is a challenge for the global governance of biotechnology, as public
perceptions of these technologies have played a major role in the resulting regulations
in place in different countries. Developing an overarching governance system that
takes into account the various perspectives across the globe will be a major challenge
and is possibly not feasible. However, an effort should be made to coordinate the
different systems of governance in such a way that it allows for variations across
countries and regions. For this, forms of participatory (pTA) can be employed to
166 S. van Baalen et al.
include a range of (informed) deliberations, perspectives, concerns, and values from
members of society in the policymaking process (Hennen, 2012).
5 Global TA of Biotechnology: The Way Ahead
The analysis of three key topics in biotechnology shows that a central feature of
biotechnology is that the science is evolving globally and the products that it brings
forth are traded across the globe. Yet, there are major differences between the regula-
tion and governance of the academic and industrial sectors between countries. These
stem from different needs and interests per country, as well as differences in tradi-
tions, cultural differences and public perceptions. To develop an integrated global
TA framework on biotechnology the following have to be considered.
International trade
As we have seen, there are different approaches to risk assessment of GM products
and emerging biotechnology developments such as gene-edited foods and synthetic
biology. WTO agreements aim to bring coherence, in order to facilitate international
trade. For example, the technical barriers to trade (TBT) agreement’s objective was
developed to ensure that technical regulations, standards, and related assessment
processes are non-discriminatory, while enabling countries to set suitable standards
to ensure protection of the environment and human health. Countries are expected to
have international standards as the basis for regulation and base their risk assessment
on scientific evidence. Similarly, the objective of the Agreement on the Applica-
tion of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) is to strike a balance
between the rights of governments to protect food safety, plant and animal health on
the one hand and these measures becoming unjustified trade barriers on the other. But
in practice, this has become a contentious issue. A classic example is the European
Community’s (EC) Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Prod-
ucts (Biotech Dispute) case, in which SPS measures pertaining to seven products
containing genetically modified organisms were questioned by the US and other
countries. At the heart of this case was the use of the precautionary principle by
the EC and disputes over interpreting and implementing “science-based risk assess-
ment”. Although the dispute settlement body of WTO did not agree fully with the
EC’s arguments in this regard, the case did not bring in any change in the policy and
practice of the EC on imports of GMOs or in risk assessment.
Such disputes show that harmonization of standards and consensus on science-
based risk assessment are very difficult to achieve. According to Islam (2019, 16),
“The SPS Agreement has not yet addressed the weaknesses of its international
standardizing bodies, the inherent tension between the evolving nature of scien-
tific research and the conclusiveness of scientific evidence in assessing risks and the
implementation difficulties faced by developing countries with limited or no scien-
tific capability”. In short, the SPS agreement, relying on scientific evidence as a
conclusive risk assessment criterion, falls short in addressing scientific uncertainty
Challenges of Global Technology Assessment … 167
surrounding biotech products (ibid). The differences in risk assessment arise on
account of applying the precautionary principle, setting higher standards in the name
of protecting human health and environment, and policies on regulation of risk. The
international standardizing bodies set levels, and when a country considers them to
be too low, if it thinks that it should set a higher standard it has the option to do so. For
example, the Appellate Body took the position in the Beef Hormones dispute that the
CODEX international standard was not mandatory and WTO Members could opt for
a scientifically established standard that was higher than that of CODEX. So, in case
of biotech products, risk assessment, application of the precautionary principle and
standards are issues. A European consortium has recently analyzed how the precau-
tionary principle is applied in the European Union, how it relates to innovation and
how its future application can be improved.12
In addition, the issue with the TRIPS agreement, which is meant to make the
development and trade of biotech products profitable through patents, is that it mostly
seems to benefit large companies in richer parts of the world while disadvantaging
small farmers and local businesses in poorer parts.
Differences in regulations
Global governance of biotechnology is likely to be caught between the process-
orientation and precautionary principle of the EU and product-oriented regulation
by the US. At the same time, many countries follow their own mode of governance
which differs from both. For example, in crop genome editing, Canada follows an
approach that is centered on novel traits to regulate. Argentina has developed its
own approach to crop genome editing (Lema, 2019). Using the definition of living
modified organisms (LMO) in the Cartagena Protocol as the basis, Argentina uses
the criteria of whether the crop is a GMO or not. According to Lema, “the Argentine
regulation calls for any crop developed using gene editing to be presented to the
biosafety commission in order to establish, case by case, if it is GMO or not. This
determination is mostly based on the changes present in the genome of the plant
intended to be introduced in the market, i.e., the final stage of the breeding process”
(p. 148).
The challenges for global governance are many. Should older approaches like
product-oriented regulation and process-oriented regulation be applied with modi-
fication, or should genome edited crops be regulated as “‘normal” crops developed
using traditional plant breeding varieties? Risk assessment is likely to be an issue,
as treating them as equivalents of crops developed using traditional plant breeding
varieties without doing assessment for specific risks will be contested. The scope
for countries developing sui generis frameworks cannot be ruled out. Differences in
consumer acceptance, labeling requirements, and co-existence are other issues that
have implications for global governance.
12 The results will soon be published on their website: https://recipes-project.eu/. A comprehensive
description of case studies on CRISPR-based gene drives and GMOs can also be found on their
website.
168 S. van Baalen et al.
Cultural variation and different value-systems between countries
Regional cultural variations and differences in underlying values of governance
between countries and regions result in variations in how biotechnologies are valued
and assessed. This makes it difficult to define rules and regulations that are acceptable
to all nations. It also leads to issues such as ethics dumping (Schroeder et al., 2018),
in which scientists revert to countries with more lenient regulations or less gover-
nance capacity to perform experiments that are not permitted in their own country,
and moral free-riding, where countries benefit from R&D that is permitted in their
country for moral reasons. An example of the first is the “three parent baby” that
was born in New York in 2016. Because the method that was used (“spindle nuclear
transfer”) was not approved in the US, the doctor went to Mexico to perform the
procedure.13
Difference in countries’ capacities
Not all countries have similar capacities in R&D or utilizing biotechnology innova-
tions. Hence, biotechnologies are unevenly adopted across the world, and different
countries may have adopted different generations of biotechnology. This also leads
to differences in issues that need to be addressed by governance and regulation. This
is also a challenge for a globalized TA: As biotechnology has been unevenly adopted
across countries in terms of applications, research in biotechnology and adoption,
context-specific TA may be more relevant than global TA.
There is not much literature on TA and biotechnology in developing countries,
as TA is generally weakly institutionalized in developing countries. A case study
on public engagement with decision-making on Bt Brinjal in India shows the divide
between scientists who were in favor of approving it for commercial use and, civil
society groups (amongst others) opposing it (see also Srinivas and Van Est, this
volume). According to Pandey and Sharma, “As a result, the exercise ended up being
an exception rather than constituting a norm and the scientific establishment reverted
back to mechanisms of communicating the “right” information to the public through
“proper” channels, so that they can make decisions that follow a techno-economic
rationality” (Pandey and Sharma, 2020, 164).
Public engagement
Other challenges to the global governance of biotechnology are the moral dilemmas
and public concerns raised by developments in the various fields. Public engagement
and social debate are required, but are difficult to organize on a global scale, and it
is questionable whether or not it is feasible to define a set of values and principles
that take into account all existing cultural and social perspectives. TA, especially
forms of pTA, can be beneficial by analyzing the possible societal impacts, providing
methods for stakeholder and public participation, and uncovering the national and
international value-systems that play a role in policymaking (Hahn & Ladikas, 2019).
But applying pTA globally may turn out to be challenging given the lack of TA in
13 See: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2107219-exclusive-worlds-first-baby-born-with-new-
3-parent-technique/ (Accessed 8-4-2022).
Challenges of Global Technology Assessment … 169
biotechnology in many countries. National TA institutes can play a role here by
attuning their public engagement approaches to each other and by attempting to find
shared values underlying public perspectives on biotechnologies.
Conclusion
In conclusion, as global governance is fragmented with little scope for harmoniza-
tion, global TA of biotechnology can bring clarity, better understanding, and enable
better governance. In order to do so, an integrated global TA framework should find
ways to address the differences in risk assessment and other relevant regulations
between countries, often stemming from cultural differences and different under-
lying values. Furthermore, different countries are in different stages of adoption and
development of biotechnology, focus on different sectors and applications of biotech-
nologies, and have different capacities for R&D and implementation of biotechnolo-
gies or performing TA. Moreover, emergence of new GM food technology, genome
editing and synthetic biology have complicated matters, as countries approach gover-
nance of these in different ways, with some approaches borrowed from experiences
in regulating genetic engineering-based biotechnology. These issues will make the
development of a globalized TA framework and collaboration between TA-institutes
across countries challenging.
Addressing these challenges will only be possible if there are country-level and
regional-level initiatives to ‘re-invent’ a TA of biotechnology. Rather than focusing on
harmonization of governance, a global TA of biotechnology should focus on assessing
the impact of developments and decisions in one country to other countries, and clar-
ifying both differences and common grounds between countries, for example when
it comes to values underlying public perspectives on biotechnology topics or the use
of the precautionary principle to assess risk and warrant safety. TA institutes across
the globe can work together to fill the gaps in global governance of biotechnology by
coordinating their efforts toward national and international governments to ensure
that developments are acceptable for all, regardless of cultural differences, and help
make sure that countries are not faced with “faits accomplis” due to globalization
and rapid developments elsewhere.
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Artificial Intelligence—A New
Knowledge and Decision-Making
Paradigm?
Lei Huang and Walter Peissl
1 Introduction
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been considered as one of the critical technologies
to address the future grand social challenges in a global context (Kaplan & Haen-
lein, 2020). Major economies are engaging to promote the R&D of AI through
substantial policy efforts (Margetts & Dorobantu, 2019). Machine learning, neural
networks, natural language processing (NLP), smart robots, knowledge graphs, and
expert systems are among the key technical sub-systems that construct the current AI
technological paradigm (Cresswell et al., 2020; Yablonsky, 2019). However, AI also
raises concerns with regard to risks for society—from fundamental ethical consid-
erations, through impacts on democracy, to the labor market. These risks and oppor-
tunities call for scientific policy advice on the basis of interdisciplinary technology
assessment (TA) activities.
Supported by the International Postdoctoral Exchange Fellowship Program between Helmholtz and
OCPC (Grant No. 2020025). All authors have contributed equally.
Contribution to: Technology Assessment in a Globalized World—Facing the Challenges of
Transnational Technology Governance.
L. Huang (B)
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,
Karlstrasse 11, D-76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: lei.huang@kit.edu
Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development, No. 8 Yuyuantan South Road,
100038 Beijing, China
W. Peissl
Institute of Technology Assessment, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Bäckerstraße 13, 1010 Wien,
Österreich
e-mail: wpeissl@oeaw.ac.at
© The Author(s) 2023
L. Hennen et al. (eds.), Technology Assessment in a Globalized World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0_9
175
176 L. Huang and W. Peissl
AI is believed to represent an interruptive potential regarding economies and
societies. The application scenarios of AI are understood to cover many social
domains (Di Vaio et al., 2020; Fosso Wamba et al., 2021; Perc et al., 2019;
Popkova & Sergi, 2020), for instance, autonomous driving in transportation, robotic
surgery in health care. The interaction between machines and humans may evolve
to a new paradigm that human beings are transforming into data beings (Breazeal
et al., 2016; Dautenhahn, 2007a, 2007b; Sheridan, 2016).
Meanwhile, some of research has claimed that AI should be considered as a
general-purpose technology that generates grand implications in all sectors of the
economy and society. For instance, deep learning technology will not only create
market profits for online platforms, but also provides high-efficiency tools for social
governance. In addition, with the accumulation of applications in specific economic
and financial domains, AI technology presents the potential to change social struc-
tures (Klinger et al., 2018; Rasskazov, 2020). Hence, to achieve a better understanding
of the potential impacts and necessary governance, we aim to identify the critical
research topic of AI from a TA perspective.
In this chapter, we sketch a picture of global developments in AI and discuss
potential fields of application as well as the demand for TA. In order to do so, in
Sect. 2, we provide a short overview of historical developments of AI, and identify
stakeholders involved in current AI R&D. In Sect. 3, we describe major activities
in the international policy arena. Section 4 is devoted to TA activities with regard
to AI in Europe and beyond. In Sect. 5, we conclude with the demand for future
cooperation in global TA on the issues at stake.
2 The Identification of Stakeholders in a Data-Driven
Artificial Intelligence Context
AI is a rapidly growing domain based on developments since the 1950s (Fosso Wamba
et al., 2021). In 1950, Alan Turing offered the preliminary concept of “thinking
machines” on the level of human beings (Turing, 2007). Based on the level of devel-
opment, there are three types of AI: artificial narrow intelligence (ANI), artificial
general intelligence (AGI), and artificial super intelligence (ASI) (Lorica & Loukides,
2016). ANI is also termed “Weak AI”, due to the limited information processing capa-
bility of specific tasks (Yadav et al., 2017). AGI or “Strong AI” refers to machines
which can perform on the level of the human mind, performing a general level of
intellectual tasks (Roitblat, 2020; Wang & Goertzel, 2012). ASI refers to the cogni-
tive performance of machines that will surpass that of human beings (Narain et al.,
2019). Actual AI systems refer to the “Weak AI” level so far.
Although some academic definitions have been made, there is no universal defini-
tion for AI (Helm et al., 2020; Legg & Hutter, 2007). Due to rapid development in this
domain, the definition of AI is continuously changing. According to the EU AI watch
report, Defining Artificial Intelligence 2.0: toward an operational definition and
Artificial Intelligence—A New Knowledge … 177
taxonomy of artificial intelligence, the definition from the High-Level Expert Group
on Artificial Intelligence (HLEG) has been considered as an operational definition
of AI, as follows (European Commission. Joint Research 2020):
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are software (and possibly also hardware) systems
designed by humans that given a complex goal, act in the physical or digital dimension by
perceiving their environment through data acquisition, interpreting the collected struc-
tured or unstructured data, reasoning on the knowledge, or processing the information,
derived from this data and deciding the best action(s) to take to achieve the given goal.
AI systems can either use symbolic rules or learn a numeric model, and they can also adapt
their behavior by analyzing how the environment is affected by their previous actions.
According to this operational definition, AI is a certain kind of information system
for processing data to achieve the given goal of making the machine think or act
like human beings (Russell & Norvig, 2009). Hence, for information systems, a
“stakeholder” means “participants [being individuals, groups or organizations who
take part in a system development process] … whose actions can influence or be
influenced by the development and use of the system whether directly or indirectly.”
(Pouloudi & Whitley, 1997).
The definition of AI has evolved since Turing’s research on machine thinking. The
core of the definition of AI is to make the machine think and act like a human being,
as far as possible. The technological system of AI is a complex system. However,
the basic logic of AI definitions is that machines need to learn from data, which is
provided by humans via information exchange. Based on the current technological
nature of AI systems, information exchange works in a digital format, which is called
“Data” (Al-Jarrah et al., 2015). To achieve this goal, scientists have been developing
relevant sub-technological systems that include hardware, algorithms, and human–
machine communication interfaces (Shin et al., 2016). For instance, computational
capability has increased 300,000 times from AlexNet (2012) to AlphaGo Zero (2017).
More powerful computational capability means more efficient data processing for
AI development (Al-Jarrah et al., 2015; Jordan & Mitchell, 2015).
Although the current AI ecosystem is still far from Strong AI, it has presented
great potential for digital society and the economy (Mahadevan, 2018). Most of
the current AI-relevant policies highlight the importance of data resources for AI
development (as shown in Sect. 3, ‘The international policy discussion’). Data-driven
technologies and application scenarios are contributing to the training of algorithms,
machine learning devices, and human-AI feedback systems. For instance, a large
scale of graphic data has been applied to train the visual recognition algorithm (Lu
et al., 2018). Data-driven technological progress presents one of the most critical
differences between the AI technology from Turing’s era and current AI (Chen et al.,
2019). In addition, data-driven AI is not only a technological challenge but also a
grand social challenge (Alyoshina, 2019). Most of the data resources which are used
for AI development come from human societies.
Hence, the stakeholders of AI are those participants that can influence or be influ-
enced by the development and use of AI systems, directly or indirectly. Furthermore,
based on the HLEG operational definition of AI, data processing is the essential
178 L. Huang and W. Peissl
characteristic for current AI systems. The stakeholders of current AI system develop-
ment participate in data processing either directly or indirectly. However, according
to the HLEG definition, the data processing capability must achieve the specific
purpose that makes AI systems gain the function of decision-making by adapting
their behavior to interact with the real world. Based on this specific purpose, the
stakeholders of AI will also be involved in the intersystem behavioral interaction of
AI systems. AI systems are evolutional systems based on data-driven information and
communication technology (ICT) systems. All of the stakeholders in an AI system
participate—on different levels and with different impact—in the construction of the
ecosystem that includes technology innovation, application scenarios, and human-AI
interaction interfaces (Dayton, 2020; Samoili et al., 2020).
AI is now generating value for different kinds of stakeholders involved in t he
technology systems development and use. A multi-stakeholder perspective on AI
also considers the benefits, which are related to the value-creation process, for both
industry and society (Güngör, 2020). Consequently, in line with the comprehensive
review of the HLEG operational definition and the value-creation of AI, participating
multi-stakeholders directly or indirectly process data from technology, industry and
society, in order to develop the AI system.
The current developments of an AI definition show a significant feature of data-
driven innovation. Hence, basic research and technology applications of AI strongly
rely on the allocation of data resources from the R&D of technologies, economies,
and societies. In addition, more stakeholders should be involved in AI development
in terms of variant contribution of data resources and values represented by these
data. We intend to illustrate the data-driven characteristics of AI development for
further discussion in the TA domain.
AI systems and technology development
AI systems are complex systems that are built by subsystems of technology. For
instance, machine learning, expert systems, smart robots, knowledge graphs, and
natural language processing. At the current stage of development, those subsystems
are designed and built on one of the most important principles: to process a large
scale of data resource with effective and economical methods to achieve knowl-
edge exchange between the AI system and the physical world (Duan et al., 2019;
Eisenstein, 2019; Gu et al., 2018; Hassanien & Darwish, 2021; Kusiak, 2017).
AI system and industrial development
AI systems have been widely applied in the industrial domain. For example,
in business intelligence analytics, autonomous driving, and intelligent manufac-
turing. Combined with specific algorithms, current data-driven business intelligence
analytics gain more potential capability to process a large s cale of data from multi-
stakeholders from the market (Corea, 2019). Data-driven AI systems will offer a more
stable autonomous driving system based on the R&D of semi-autonomous vehicles
(Huang et al., 2019). For intelligent manufacturing, data-driven technologies have
been considered as the fundamental layer of the entire system (Feng et al., 2020).
Artificial Intelligence—A New Knowledge … 179
AI systems and societal development
AI systems are merging with societal systems (Garcia et al., 2020). Society offers a
large scale of data resources for the development of AI systems (Rohlfing et al., 2020).
At the same time, AI systems have the potential to change the entire social structure
(Fosso Wamba et al., 2021). Decision systems based on AI have been applied in
the domain of health and social care with a large scale of data-driven technology or
application (Cresswell et al., 2020). AI has been widely used in the development of
data-driven education since the millennium (Baldominos & Quintana, 2019; Guan
et al., 2020). Data-driven algorithms have been adopted for research regarding social
welfare improvement, e.g., improving refugee integration, incident management and
pandemic control (Bansak et al., 2018; Elvas et al., 2020; Esposito et al., 2021).
Furthermore, artificial intelligence assistive technologies have been widely applied
in communication, politics and marketing (Margetts & Dorobantu, 2019; Van Esch
et al., 2019). AI systems have also been implemented in many private and public secu-
rity applications, such as biometrics, predictive policing and predictive recidivism
algorithms in the judicial system. However, all of these bear a tremendous potential
for surveillance and are prone to biases (Dressel & Farid, 2018;NIST, 2019; O’Neil,
2016).
3 The International Policy Discussion
Policy discussions are a crucial component of research related to TA. According
to this perspective, we developed a comparative analysis of AI policies in global
contexts. We operated a comparative policy content analysis of AI policies across
two dimensions: a country comparison and an application area comparison.
For this chapter, we analyzed national-level AI policy documents, strategies and
plans. The policy analysis covered major economies and societies and include agri-
culture, taxation, transportation, education, and science etc. The current policy debate
on AI has attracted widespread attention worldwide. Many international organiza-
tions and institutes have constructed databases of policy research. For example, the
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) constructed the AI policy
initiatives (2016–2020) database at European Union level for the research project “AI,
Big Data, and Fundamental Rights”.1 However, in order to develop a more compre-
hensive and integrated comparative analysis of AI policies in a global context, we
adopted the OECD.AI Policy Observatory Database (OECD.AI) as the main source
using more detailed sample data. This database contains more than 600 policy entries
from major sectors, and gives an overview from different perspectives and sources—
from statistics and national strategies, to assessment reports on economic and societal
implications.
1 Source: https://fra.europa.eu/en/project/2018/artificial-intelligence-big-data-and-fundamental-rig
hts/ai-policy-initiatives, Access date: 30/11/2021.
180 L. Huang and W. Peissl
We analyzed these sources with regard to specific domains of AI impact, and
in relation to countries and geopolitically relevant regions. We adopted the policy
document content analysis methodology to operate the comparison and conclusion
of the current pilot policy practices. We also adopted Pandas as the data cleaning
package in Python to remove duplicated policy data.
3.1 Different Discourses in Different Regions
According to the OECD.AI, more than 60 countries have already released a national-
level initiative, policy or strategy of AI development. After removing duplicates in the
OECD.AI Policy Document Dataset, there are 576 remaining documents. In terms of
the yearly budget range, there are 14 documents (2%) marked as “More than 500 M
(million in USD)”, 13 documents (2%) marked as “100–500 M” and 154 documents
(27%) marked as “Not applicable”.
The USA, China, the EU,2 and the UK are the AI-advanced majorities in terms of
the amount of scientific publications on AI from 20 areas, including economy, digital
economy, transport, health, industry and education. In the policymaking domain, the
USA released 47 national-level documents of AI policy, initiative and strategy. The
EU released 44 policy documents. The UK released 39 national-level documents.
USA
The USA has constructed a comprehensive policy framework of AI development. In
2016, the USA released three important policy reports, including Preparing for the
Future of Artificial Intelligence, National Artificial Intelligence R&D Strategic Plan,
and Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Economy3 by the National Science
and Technology Council (NSTC). The three reports clarified the purposes of and
targets for USA AI development. In February 2019, the former US president Trump
addressed the Executive Order 13859: Maintaining American Leadership in Artifi-
cial Intelligence.4 This document emphasized the importance of USA leadership in
the domain of AI, with applications in the areas of economy, society, security, and
the military. The USA did not release any document that directly mention a yearly
budget above 500 million (USD) held within the OECD.AI database. However, two
documents from the USA have the yearly budget range of “100–500 M”. One is
Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) released by the Department of Defence
2 In OECD.AI database, the European Commission is responsible for the policy docu-
ments from the European Union. For instance, https://oecd.ai/dashboards/policy-initia
tives/http:%2F%2Faipo.oecd.org%2F2021-data-policyInitiatives-27087, Access date: 25/05/2021.
3 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/whitehouse_files/microsites/ostp/
NSTC/preparing_for_the_future_of_ai.pdf, Access date: 25/05/2021.
4 https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-promoting-use-tru
stworthy-artificial-intelligence-federal-government/, Access date: 25/05/2021.
Artificial Intelligence—A New Knowledge … 181
(DOD);5 the main objective of JAIC is to set up a department to enhance the perfor-
mance of AI R&D in the domain of security and military. The other document was
released by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NSF AI Research Institutes;6 it
is a national AI research institutes program to promote longer-term R&D to maintain
U.S. leadership in AI.
EU
According to the analysis of the policy documents in the OECD.AI database, EU
AI policies have focused on the upgrade by AI applications in various areas which
include industry, manufacturing, health, and energy. The EU has promoted the coop-
eration of R&D in the AI domain by releasing policies and member state-level plans,
setting up research funding, and building up a laboratory. For instance, to emphasize
willingness to cooperate on AI, the EU released the Coordinated Plan on Artificial
Intelligence7 in 2018. Furthermore, EU AI policy has underlined the research of
ethics and humanity. In March 2020, the EU released a white paper, On Artificial
Intelligence—A European approach to excellence and trust,8 to declare the solution
of information transparency in AI development, data security, privacy protection
and the regulatory framework. In April 2021, the European Commission released a
Proposal for a Regulation laying down harmonized rules on artificial intelligence,9
which is the first legal framework for AI.10 In addition, the EU has also emphasized
specific areas to promote AI applications based on the niches with EU advantages. In
2017, the EU released The Report of the High-Level Group on the Competitiveness
and Sustainable Growth of the Automotive Industry in the European Union (GEAR
2030)11 to enhance AI applications in the automobile industry.
UK
Aiming to become one of the most important AI innovation centers, the UK has also
released a series of national-level strategies and plans to promote AI development. In
2017, the UK published the Industrial Strategy: Building a Britain fit for the Future
(White Paper)12 to set out the government’s plan to create an economy to promote AI
application that fits the national industry strategy. In January 2018, the UK released
5 https://dodcio.defense.gov/About-DoD-CIO/Organization/JAIC/, Access date: 25/05/2021.
6 https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=505686, Access date: 25/05/2021.
7 https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/coordinated-plan-artificial-intelligence, Access date:
25/05/2021.
8 https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/white-paper-artificial-intelligence-european-approach-exc
ellence-and-trust_en, Access date: 25/05/2021.
9 https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/proposal-regulation-laying-down-harmonised-
rules-artificial-intelligence, Access date: 25/05/2021.
10 See Footnote 9.
11 https://ec.europa.eu/growth/content/high-level-group-gear-2030-report-on-automotive-compet
itiveness-and-sustainability_en, Access date: 25/05/2021.
12 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/industrial-strategy-building-a-britain-fit-for-the-
future, Access date: 25/05/2021.
182 L. Huang and W. Peissl
UK Data Trusts Initiative13 to offer the independent stewardship of data to secure
AI development; the UK government also emphasized the relationship between AI
and the digital economy in this document. Also in 2018, the UK set up an Office for
Artificial Intelligence (OAI)14 to enhance cooperation between different government
departments, ministries, and multi-stakeholders in the domain of AI.
China
In the OECD.AI policy database, there are only eight documents regarding China’s
AI development. However, these policy documents cover the most important areas,
including the national plan, industry guidelines, laboratory construction, and the
education plan for current AI application and development in China. In 2017, The
State Council for the People’s Republic of China released the National New Gener-
ation AI Plan (
新一代人工智能发展规划
) 15 which has been considered as the
cornerstone policy for China’s future AI development and application. This national
level plan involved a comprehensive policy framework for China’s AI develop-
ment initiatives and goals in specific domains that cover R&D, industrialization,
talent development, education and skills acquisition, standard-setting and regula-
tions, ethical norms, and security. In addition, China’s Ministry of Science and Tech-
nology (MOST) released the Governance Principles for New Generation AI- Devel-
oping Responsible AI (
新一代人工智能治理原则
——
发展负责任的人工智能
).16
This initiative highlights that China is emphasizing responsible AI development
with the eight principles of harmony, friendliness, fairness, inclusiveness, respect for
privacy, security and controllability, shared responsibility, open collaboration, and
agile governance.
Other East Asian countries
Japan and South Korea have also presented an active policy attitude to AI develop-
ment. In 2019, Japan released the national-level AI Strategy (AI
戦略
)17 to clarify
that the motivation of AI development should respond to the critical social chal-
lenges, including the aging society and sub-replacement fertility. In December 2019,
South Korea released the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (인공지능 국
가전략)18 with the yearly budget range “More than 500 M”. In this policy docu-
ment, South Korea not only emphasized global digital competitiveness by 2030, but
also declared to create 455 trillion Korean Won (approx. 405 billion US dollars) of
13 https://datatrusts.uk/, Access date: 25/05/2021.
14 https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-for-artificial-intelligence, Access date:
25/05/2021.
15 http://fi.china-embassy.org/eng/kxjs/P020171025789108009001.pdf, Access date: 25/05/2021.
16 http://most.gov.cn/kjbgz/201906/t20190617_147107.htm, Access date: 25/05/2021.
17 https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/ai/index.html, Access date: 25/05/2021.
18 https://www.msit.go.kr/SYNAP/skin/doc.html?fn=b94d1781d5ef394ac6a63e274d3949be&rs=/
SYNAP/sn3hcv/result/, Access date: 25/05/2021.
Artificial Intelligence—A New Knowledge … 183
economic surplus and to enhance the living standard for the entire society through
AI development.19
South America and Africa
Meanwhile, South America and Africa are still on the lower level of AI develop-
ment in terms of the comprehensive comparison of scientific publications and policy
performance. Six South American countries, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia,
Peru, and Uruguay have already released national-level AI-related policies. In 2019,
Brazil presented the Brazilian Artificial Intelligence Strategy (Public Consultation)
(Consulta Pública da Estratégia Brasileira de Inteligência Artificial).20 This strategy
document declared AI development implications on the economy, ethics, develop-
ment, education, and jobs. However, most of these South American policy documents
are still directly related to the digital transformations and data governance.
In Africa, there were only four countries, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, and South
Africa, that released national-level AI-related policy, initiative or strategy documents.
In those policy documents, similarly to South American countries, AI policy content
was only mentioned in relation to digital development and data governance.
International policy conclusion
According to this comparative review of countries and regions, AI policy practices
show the characteristics of diversity in a global context. Major economies have devel-
oped AI policies with a strong focus on their own economic, social, and technolog-
ical development characteristics. For instance, policies from the USA presented the
demand of maintaining leadership in every AI application area. AI polices from the
EU placed more emphasis on governance of ethics and humanity. China’s national
AI plans strike a balance between promoting the development of specific application
areas of AI and comprehensiveness. To promote economic and societal development
is the most important policy target for all AI policy practices.
3.2 Areas of Application
According to the OECD.AI Policy Observatory Database (OCED.AI), 20 policy
areas are related to AI application. Within these 20 policy areas, the economy and
the digital economy are the most significant domains in terms of publications. The
OECD.AI policy areas cover the major fields of economy and society, and include
environment, health, agriculture, transportation, science and technology, and social
and welfare issues.
19 https://oecd.ai/dashboards/policy-initiatives/http:%2F%2Faipo.oecd.org%2F2021-data-
policyInitiatives-26497, Access date: 25/05/2021.
20 https://www.oecd.ai/dashboards/policy-initiatives/http:%2F%2Faipo.oecd.org%2F2021-data-
policyInitiatives-26729, Access date: 25/05/2021.
184 L. Huang and W. Peissl
Based on the statistical analysis of policy documents and scientific publications
within OCED. AI, the AI & economy area is the most significant domain of AI policy.
Most of the AI policy documents involve economic development and boost. In the
area of AI & economy, policy research and documents concern AI application in new
business models, data analysis, information systems and management performance.
The application of AI has a potentially tremendous implication on the economy
(Pratt, 2015). Data has been considered as a critical resource for the market, and
AI technology will enhance the performance of data resources (Mirowski, 2007).
However, there is the possibility that potential benefits in efficiency and profitability
go hand-in-hand with a great deal of automatization, which may replace a large part
of the workforce and may lead to unemployment, poverty, and fundamental structural
changes.21
Hence, the digital economy is also one of the most active AI application domains.
Further advancement of AI has augmented the digital economy with significant
implications for the specific policy domains (Watanabe et al., 2018). The AI & digital
economy area covers multiple applications that include data governance, digital secu-
rity, privacy protection, and communication networks. Based on the sharing of data
resources, AI development could create more application scenarios for the disruptive
knowledge creation mode for the digital economy (Holford, 2019; OECD, 2020).
AI development is also generating more application scenarios within specific
economic areas that include finance, industry, entrepreneurship, investment, and
employment. In the area of finance and insurance, governments have already noticed
that the application of AI enhances financial data processing efficiency in terms of
the dynamic market status-quo and risk assessment (Bahrammirzaee, 2010; Heaton
et al., 2017; Palmie et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). In the area of industry
and entrepreneurship, the application of AI is currently accelerating the process
of digitalization with emerging business models (Garbuio & Lin, 2019). In addi-
tion, AI may substantially affect the investment environment by the application
of the self-improving AI system (Hall, 2007; OECD, 2021). AI-driven industry
and entrepreneurship will also significantly change the labor force structure and
the employment environment. The automation systems of AI will replace more
employed people (Zhou et al., 2020a, 2020b). Hence, the AI-driven employment
environment may need massive evolution in the current education system with higher
skills teaching and learning (Roll & Wylie, 2016).
Currently, the autonomous vehicle is one of the most important AI applications
in the mobility area (Stead & Vaddadi, 2019). The autonomous vehicle has been
considered as the biggest transition of mobility (Lˇazˇaroiu et al., 2020). However, the
autonomous driving system is by no means an independent technological system, it is
rather a complex system that merges with the social and economic system (Kassens-
Noor et al., 2020). For instance, besides the high efficiency sensor data transmission
support system, the autonomous driving system relies on updated traffic regulations
and new public infrastructure construction (Huang et al., 2019; Raiyn, 2018). Further-
more, the cost and potential environmental benefits will also be essential dynamics
21 There is a broad discussion on this issue, for details see Sect. 4.2.
Artificial Intelligence—A New Knowledge … 185
of the development of the autonomous vehicle (Noruzoliaee et al., 2018; Vosooghi
et al., 2020).
In healthcare, AI application enhances the performance of diagnosing disease and
health risk assessment (Waring et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2020a, 2020b). AI systems
can process a large scale of personal data to facilitate personalized healthcare and
precision treatments and medicine (Ali et al., 2021), for instance, improving patient
care with precision medicine and mobile health, high-performance management of
health systems, better understanding public health, and facilitating health research
and innovation. (Abdel-Basset et al., 2021). With the large scale of data resource inte-
gration from different areas, AI may generate more health care application scenarios
(Dwivedi et al., 2021; Price & Cohen, 2019).
In terms of the comparative study, we found that current AI policies promote
AI as a fundamental technological ecosystem in every application area. AI policies
from different application areas all mentioned the importance of data resources for
the development of AI technology. At the current stage, AI technological ecosystem
and application scenarios are highly dependent on the integration and utilization of
various data resources. The development of AI is showing strong characteristics of a
data-driven innovation. This crucial dependency on data for training issues as well as
for actual performance of its function leads directly to the discussion of the potential
risks of widespread AI application. In the following Sect. 4, we will look more closely
at AI-related TA activities in Europe and beyond, and finally will uncover the most
striking issues discussed with regard to the societal implications of AI.
4 TA Activities in the Field so far and Options
for the Future
4.1 Analysis of EPTA-Activities
The policy documents discussed above provide an overview of diverse national AI
policies, mainly with regard to promoting AI as a key factor for future economic (and
societal) development. This section analyses studies and findings from TA institutions
around the world. The main focus here lies on the—often unintended—societal and
ethical issues.
To date, most institutionalized TA activities are located within Europe and the
USA. However, there is increasing interest around the world in TA and TA-like
activities. EPTA is a network of organizations doing TA within or for their respec-
tive parliaments at a regional, national or European level. Since the U.S. Govern-
ment Accountability Office (GAO) became an associate member in 2002, EPTA
has extended beyond Europe and currently comprises 23 parliamentary TA (PTA)
institutes. This process of global networking between PTA institutions now includes
Chile, Japan, Mexico, and South Korea (Peissl & Grünwald, 2021). EPTA provides
186 L. Huang and W. Peissl
a joint website22 which is based on a database of TA projects, reports, policy briefs
and news. We undertook a title and abstract search for t he period 2008–2021 using
the search strings “AI, machine learning, algorithm, robot, social media, and democ-
racy”. Based on the results we identified 173 entries; 73 projects, 39 reports and
61 policy briefs.23 Cleaning the dataset by removing duplicates, including news and
policy briefs for projects where a report was also available, we ended up with 80
entries for analysis.
The data show that PTA institutions have been aware of upcoming technology
and related questions since 2008. The abstracts of t hese 80 entries were analyzed
and clustered depending on the respective primary focus of the report or project.
These PTA activities were mostly associated with AI (35) and robotics (13) in
general. Together with digitalization (6), autonomous systems (5), algorithmic deci-
sion systems (7), and algorithms (3), this covers 69 of the 80 entries. The remainder
address emerging technologies (3), labor (2), democracy, social media, surveillance,
5G, quantum technology, and financial technologies.
In a second step we found a set of keywords associated with areas of research.
These show the characteristics of (P)TA studies: they are often interested in the
general overview (25) of a development and try to figure out impact in several dimen-
sions. The second domain of interest was the labour-market and implications for the
workforce (12), third is the aspect of democracy (9), followed by ethics and health-
care (6 each). The legal framework for AI (4) and mobility and education (3 each)
bring the total keyword analysis to 68 out of the 80 included entries. The other 12 deal
with sustainability, the pandemic and space (2 each) and specific themes like surveil-
lance, robot maintenance, quantum computing, precision farming, drug production,
and consumer protection.
4.2 Main Areas of Discussion
In this section we will discuss some of the main areas of research on AI and society
undertaken by PTA institutions. As already mentioned, there is a lively discussion
about the effects of AI, automation, robots, and digitalization in general on the
labor market. An overview of the different approaches in EPTA-member countries is
given in the EPTA report of 2016 (EPTA, 2016). Unfortunately, a sharp distinction
between the different domains is not possible, therefore the different areas are exam-
ined together. This is not problematic for our context, as AI can be seen as a basic
technology for robots, automation, and digitalization of jobs beyond the production
line.
The debate was triggered by a study by Frey and Osborne (2013), which showed
that about 47% of all jobs in the USA were at high risk of being computerized within
approximately 20 years. The main objection raised against this study’s findings was
22 www.eptanetwork.org.
23 Search conducted 31.05.2021.
Artificial Intelligence—A New Knowledge … 187
its historical analogy, which claims that all technological advances in history have
also led to an increase in new (other) jobs. This argument, however, ignores the fact
that economic conditions were different in earlier periods (Cas & Krieger-Lamina,
2020). With digitalization, we are facing completely new challenges, with ICT and
AI flooding all areas of life, not only the production and service sectors.
The 2013 study has also been criticized for its methodological approach, but has
been repeated in different contexts. An overview is given in Cas and Krieger-Lamina
(2020), based on Lovergine and Pellero (2018). Although the high number of affected
jobs was not replicated in other studies, the mere fact that the potential impact could
be so large has led to discussions of the future labor market and unemployment. This
attention may lead to less of an impact being seen in the future, as when we address
the future, it is usually the beginning of shaping that very future.
The same applies to the area of social media platforms and their impact on societal
communication, polarization and democracy. An EPTA-report provides an overview
of different approaches to tackle the theme of “digital democracy” by EPTA-member
States (EPTA, 2018). The digitalization of communication in the form of the internet
originally gave rise to the hope that it would make democratization and broader partic-
ipation possible. However, the developments of the last few years in the field of social
media show that, in contrast, democratic structures and processes can be endangered.
AI is not an insignificant contributor to this. The algorithms used by online platforms
lead to a reinforcement of extreme positions and thus enable polarization in the spec-
trum of opinions, which makes constructive discourse more difficult. As shown by the
examples of both campaigns in 2016 for the election of President Trump in the US and
the Brexit vote in the UK micro-targeting on social media can be used to specifically
approach voters and provide them with very different targeted content. In this way,
general awareness-raising and fair information, by for example traditional media,
are counteracted, and influence is exerted on these elections. Furthermore, there is a
danger that these digital tools and infrastructure can be attacked and misused from
the outside. This means that central elements of the political sovereignty of states
can be undermined.
The relationship between new communication possibilities and AI-driven social
media and democracy and the rule of law is of particular importance. TA-institutions
at the European Parliament, in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and
the USA have conducted specific studies on this (Bieri et al., 2021;EPTA,
2018;
GAO, 2020; Kind et al., 2017; Kolleck & Orwat, 2020; Marsden & Meyer, 2019;
Neudert & Marchal, 2019; Tennøe & Barland, 2019; Van Est & Kool, 2017). Almost
all other studies by EPTA members dealing with the effects of the widespread use
of AI also address this fundamental challenge.
4.3 Responsibility, Transparency and Ethics
In more than a quarter of the analyzed TA-studies from EPTA members we can find
basic issues like responsibility, transparency or ethics included in the abstract. These
188 L. Huang and W. Peissl
issues are also discussed in the broader existing literature on AI and societal impact.
It clearly shows that the most striking issue besides the direct effects on the labor
market/workforce and communication and democracy are the more fundamental
issues of responsibility, transparency and ethics. AI applications are intended to
widely support decision-making or, even more riskily, autonomously decide upon
certain actions. Processes triggered by AI systems may have impact on individuals
or groups, their chances of societal participation, or even their very existence. So, it
is fair to ask, who should be responsible for these decisions? In order to be able to
locate problems or failures in algorithms, or other parts of the algorithmic decision-
making systems (ADM), there is a need for transparency with regard to their internal
mechanisms and the context of application.
Therefore, here we will present some lines of argumentation in depth. A promi-
nent example of AI is its use in speech recognition and language processing. As the
core element of digital assistants such as Smart Speakers like Alexa, Google Assis-
tant or Siri, AI has found its way into many households and smartphones. There-
fore, machines or systems have found their way into our households (and to some
extent also to public offices) where they can not only comprehensively monitor our
behaviour, but also influence it, from the way we communicate with machines, to how
we communicate with each other, and how we move around our own homes. Since it
is foreseeable that in the future, voice commands and thus digital speech recognition
and language processing will be used in other areas (from cars, to systems’ control
in offices, and manufacturing), some fundamental questions arise: What is AI, what
can it do and where are the limits to its application, if there should be any at all?
What ethical principles guide considerations about what we want machines to do in
the future, and what we don’t?
For an ethical discussion, here we focus on an aspect of these definitions that
comes from earlier approaches to AI. What does “artificial intelligence” mean? This
is all the more difficult because there is no comprehensive, conclusive definition
of “intelligence”. For technical developments, the ISO established a definition for
“artificial intelligence” in 2015. In this understanding, AI is the “capability of a func-
tional unit to perform functions that are generally associated with human intelligence
such as reasoning and learning.” (ISO/IEC JTC 1, 2015). However, “reasoning” and
“learning” fall short of describing human intelligence comprehensively. In any case,
AI research and development is trying to teach machines behavior that is modelled
on, and as close as possible to, human behavior and decision-making processes. A
distinction is usually made between weak and strong AI. I n weak AI, algorithms solve
individual, specific tasks, but do so quickly and, depending on the subject matter,
to a very high quality. Examples include analyzing large amounts of data, pattern
recognition, and predictions based on recognized patterns. Strong AI, on the other
hand, describes a state where machines should have comparable intellectual skills
to humans, and ultimately have consciousness similar to humans. However, this is
primarily a visionary philosophical concept whose realization is widely doubted for
the foreseeable future (Apt & Priesack, 2019). The discussions about a “superin-
telligence” which could ultimately prove superior to human intelligence and even
Artificial Intelligence—A New Knowledge … 189
dominate humans, also fall into this area. Although this is a controversial topic, it is
more likely to belong to the realm of science fiction.
From today’s perspective, all available AI systems belong to the “weak AI” cate-
gory. In addition to the above-mentioned advantages/abilities, they also have some
fundamental deficits. These include a low capacity for abstraction, especially in the
transfer of experience and learned knowledge to other contexts, high requirements
for the pre-structuring of data, information and environments, and a lack of under-
standing and reasoning in the empathic sense. Even Alpha Go Zero, one of the most
elaborate AI systems, is not able to do so. As a result, AI systems lack experience,
tacit knowledge, judgment, empathy, and courtesy, as well as social learning and
emotions that characterize humans and human intelligence. Or as Zweig (2019) puts
it “an algorithm has no tact”.
AI systems are designed to make more or less “autonomous” decisions based
on available data and predetermined algorithms. When consequences for people or
things result from these decisions, the question of responsibility arises. This usually
becomes relevant in the case of negative consequences. So, who bears responsibility
for the decisions made by AI systems? The systems themselves currently have no
legal personality. However, responsibility is not only borne for negative damaging
events. Responsibility is also derived to a certain degree from knowledge and compe-
tence. Therefore, one could also assume responsibility of such systems (which do not
exist) for positive events. For example, what happens when a digital assistant hears
someone calling for help, when children say they are being beaten, etc.? (Vlahos,
2019). Should a digital assistant then be required to call for help, or report assumed
crimes? To this end, it is possible to discuss the question of when a certain type of
reaction appears to be called for. This can be solved relatively easily by analogy with
comparable situations involving humans. Appropriate behavior would then have to
be programmed into the AI’s algorithms. Much more fundamental, however, is the
question of how a digital assistant comes to know about such situations in the first
place. If it has been activated by one of the persons concerned, the system will listen
in a permissible manner. However, since it could be argued that the digital assistants
could be helpful in an emergency (sound the alarm), it would be conceivable to argue
for their permanent activity. Here, however, an ethical conflict arises that points to
the fundamental discussion of the security which can be brought by surveillance,
and the cost of that security, in terms of, for example, loss of privacy. The decision
is very much context-bound: under particularly threatening circumstances, such as
in a hospital intensive care unit, we would like to be comprehensively monitored.
But what about in everyday life? Do we want to be bugged everywhere so that we
can potentially get assistance at some unknown point in an emergency (which will
not necessarily occur)? How much "insecurity" can we humans stand, how much is
reasonable for us, and how much security can actually be generated by additional
surveillance?
AI systems are already integrated into many aspects of everyday life. They are
interaction partners and also filters. Streaming services (Netflix, Spotify, etc.), Face-
book, or even digital assistant providers such as Amazon and Google contain a large
scale of personal data resources that can be applied to precise user portrait purposes
190 L. Huang and W. Peissl
(Taffel, 2021); this means that they already know more about our personal preferences
than our closest friends. Algorithms reinforce our purchasing decisions and solidify
preferences. They thus determine the preferences of their users. In response to criti-
cism of this, algorithms have been proposed which will make alternative suggestions
in order to strengthen the sovereignty of users. But, this does not solve the problem,
rather the opposite: they have an even more manipulative effect because they suggest
an apparently objectified determination of preferences. But the result is the same in
that the sovereignty of the user is—intentionally or not—drastically reduced (Stubbe
et al., 2019).
Another problem in human interaction with AI (Amershi, 2019;Cai, 2019) arises
from the attempts which are being made to make the systems as close as possible to
the human way of communicating. However, no AI has yet passed the Turing test
(Turing, 1950). Problematically, there is a strategic aspect of communication hidden
in many applications of AI. That is, the systems try to feign a human counterpart in
order to gain trust—which machines do not have a priori. However, this is not the same
as two people talking to each other. Openness and transparency are important for the
sovereignty of humans in interaction. Digital assistants have a similar effect, often
docilely simulating an emotionless exchange with little controversy. Communication
here loses its ambivalence, which humans know how to deal with through social
experience, and through which we find out how we appear to others, and who we
are to the other person. From an ethical perspective, this kind of communication
with AI, which simulates a supposedly cooperative social interaction, whilst behind
the scenes it pursues strategic purposes, is highly questionable (Stubbe et al., 2019).
Current developments attempt to intentionally “enhance” the perfection of computers
with human flaws and weaknesses. Unlike classic robot voices, Google Duplex, for
example, inserts irregularities into sentences. Thus, apparent pauses for thought can
be heard, or a “Mhmm” muttered now and then, together with abrupt pauses in speech.
This gives the impression that the AI is responding to the conversation partner, or
thinking (Kremp, 2018). Duplex was supposed to be integrated into Google Assistant
on a test basis in 2018 (Herbig, 2018) and is now active in 49 states of the US and
some other countries like Australia, Canada, India, Mexico, New Zealand and the
UK (Callaham, 2021). Even if these applications currently only work in limited
contexts and are trained for specific situations (hairdresser appointments, restaurant
reservations), it nevertheless points to a fundamental ethical problem: users must be
aware and able to know when communication with a machine is taking place.
A very different dimension of an AI application in communication is the
MOODBOX smart speaker, introduced in 2016. It is primarily used to play music,
but has built-in AI—called EMI—via the MOODBOX that is supposed to be able to
detect the emotional status of the user from their utterances. The smart speaker checks
how the owner is feeling and plays music to match the emotional state (Gineersnow,
2016). In this technology, of course, there is also great potential for the marketing of
other goods and services, whose marketing/advertising is tuned to be easier to sell
in certain psychological states.
Artificial Intelligence—A New Knowledge … 191
With regard to emotion detection, we face some fundamental issues in AI and
biometrics. The range of applications already include automated analyses of indi-
vidual behavior patterns, such as a person’s individual way of walking, as well as
facial and emotion recognition, which are particularly controversial due to the enor-
mous social risks. Emotion recognition is not only used in the advertising industry,
but also to some extent in job interviews, in call centers and also in robotics/AI devel-
opment (Masoner, 2020) (e.g. in the field of autonomous vehicles or for human–robot
interactions). Toyota’s new Concept-i series of automobiles is said to use AI systems
and application of biometrics t o recognize the driver’s emotions by analyzing facial
expressions and tone of voice. Thus, if the system (the A. I. Agent Yui) detects that
the driver is stressed, it shall switch to autonomous driving mode (“Mobility Team-
mate Concept”). Alternatively, if the system registers signs of decreased alertness,
the driver’s sense of sight, touch and smell should be able to be stimulated to put
the driver in a more alert state. In this way, the driver’s stress level can be increased
by smells, etc., but can also be reduced vice versa. The system is also designed to
access a range of data from social media platforms, as well as activity and conversa-
tion content, in order to identify the user’s preferences (Cheng, 2017). Furthermore,
Toyota has announced that it has entered into a partnership with Microsoft, as have
a number of other manufacturers in the automotive sector (Dudley, 2016). Emotion
recognition is also controversial in AI research itself, both in terms of scientificity and
meaningfulness, and a number of experts are calling for bans on emotion recognition
(Honey & Stieler, 2020).
Machine ethics and ethics for AI
Machine ethics has been discussed f requently. I t deals with rules in the field of AI
and robotics. A distinction must be made here between ethical rules for AI systems
and robots, and the so-called ethics of machines, or machine morality. The moral
machine, which gives itself rules and then acts according to them, will only become
relevant with the implementation of so-called strong AI, but is currently rather more
the topic of s cience fiction than AI research.
The starting point for many considerations on the ethics of AI are the early robot
laws of Isaac Asimov. These three laws, which Asimov developed in 1942, are
supposed to counteract the robot’s potential danger to humans by prohibiting actions
(or omissions of actions) that cause harm to humans (first law), leaving the power
of command over the robot with the human (second law), and ensuring the robot’s
self-preservation (third law). The laws are hierarchically structured, i.e. the third law
may only be followed as long as the first two laws are not violated by it. However,
as influential as Asimov’s work was initially, it does not provide a sufficient and
effective basis for the design of robots in general ( ˇ
Cas et al., 2017;Clarke,
1993,
1994).
Transparency as central requirement
The evocation of a potentially emerging “superintelligence” has certainly fueled the
media hype surrounding ethical (and often dystopian) issues of AI. But there are
also enough questions about the current state of the art and the expected further
192 L. Huang and W. Peissl
development of weak AI that should be discussed and resolved in a broad societal
discourse. This is all the more so as AI already plays an important role in people’s
everyday lives, and will play and influence many more in the near future. A central
demand in this discourse is that of transparency, both about the use of AI (see above),
and the modes of its operation, the built-in algorithms and their mode of action.
Transparency is a necessary but not sufficient condition to control systems and thus
build trust in them, which can also promote social acceptance. Society, and affected
users or persons concerned, need to know how it works, but they also need a legal
framework to be able to call for disclosure and sue for damages. There is also a
need for institutions, which are able to both legally and technically deal with open
questions from those affected. This leads to ongoing discourse on different levels of
transparency and the respective means of governance.
Catalogue of ethical principles for AI
Besides transparency and (ex-post) evaluation of algorithmic systems there is a funda-
mental need to set standards for the whole development process from the very begin-
ning. There are already a large number of initiatives of various kinds around the
world that deal with ethical principles for AI. These include supranational associa-
tions such as the OECD, international professional associations such as the IEEE,
and civil society initiatives.
A few examples illustrate the aims of these initiatives and their overlaps: funda-
mentally, the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies of the
European Commission published a declaration on artificial intelligence, robotics and
“autonomous” systems in March 2018 (EuropeanCommission; DG Research & Inno-
vation, 2018). This calls for the launch of a process that would pave the way for the
development of a common, internationally recognized ethical and legal framework
for the design, production, use, and governance of artificial intelligence, robotics,
and “autonomous” systems. The declaration also proposes a set of ethical principles,
based on the values enshrined in the EU Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental
Rights of the European Union that can guide the development of this process:
• Human dignity
• Autonomy
• Equality and solidarity
• Responsibility, accountability
• Justice
• Democracy, rule of law
• Safety, security
• Physical and mental integrity
• Data protection and privacy
• Sustainability.
These fundamental principles should guide the development process on a meta-
level, but there are also more specific requirements. In 2017 the Asilomar AI prin-
ciples were developed—23 demands in the domains of research, ethics and values
and long-term issues (Future of Life Institute, 2017). In 2018, the U.S.-based NGO
Artificial Intelligence—A New Knowledge … 193
Public Voice published universal guidelines for AI (The Public Voice, 2018) and
presented them at a major privacy conference in Brussels.
In 2019, a group of experts presented a policy paper with guidelines for the EU
(AI HLEG, 2019). Based on fundamental rights and ethical principles, the guidelines
list seven key requirements that AI systems should meet to be trustworthy:
• Human action and oversight
• Technical robustness and security
• Privacy and data management
• Transparency
• Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness
• Social and environmental well-being
• Accountability.
They are more or less equivalent to the dimensions raised in Public Voice guide-
lines. However, they go further by demanding the prohibition of secret profiling
and making the general statement that governments must not generalize citizen
assessment.
As can be seen from these lists, there seems to be a consensus that human dignity
must be preserved, and humans should have ultimate control over systems. In turn,
the resulting accountability can only be exercised if there is transparency regarding
the modes of operation and algorithms. Transparency is also a basic condition for
the establishment of efficient control systems, which are indispensable for effective
regulation. In the context of global competition for the further development of AI,
Europe tries to gain a quality advantage and thus a competitive edge with high ethical
(and technical) standards. This is one of the main objectives of the proposed AI Act
by the EU-Commission in April 2020.24 Even though this proposed Act evolved from
a consultation process, it does not cover all respective issues, deemed important from
different stakeholders. However, it opens up public discourse on issues like high-risk
AI systems, profiling, data protection, and biases in AI systems and ethics. This
means that the limits society wants to set for advanced AI will have to be discussed.
What do we want to delegate to machines, and what do we never want machines to
decide?
According to Grimm (2018), “in order to use the Promethean potential of digi-
talization for a good life, we need … a digital value culture based on four pillars:
(a) education and training (promoting ethical digital competence), (b) business and
industry (value-conscious leadership, sustainable data economy), (c) research (inter-
disciplinary projects that bring together ethical and technological perspectives), and
(d) political will (promoting value-based technology research)”. In a global context
TA could be a valuable partner in this enterprise, contributing on different levels.
24 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52021PC0206.
194 L. Huang and W. Peissl
5 Conclusions on Practical Perspectives for Increased
Global TA Co-operation and for Including Global TA
in International Debate and Governance
This paper shows some of the hopes and fears regarding the widespread use of AI
in more or less all areas of living. Visions of technological development, economic
growth, higher efficiency and a better life are contrasted with a potential loss of
workforce, poverty and dangerous development of cultures of discourse, which—
combined with power inequalities—may lead to erosion of democracy.
AI as an emerging policy context has attracted widespread attention from govern-
ments, industry, culture and research in major economies around the world. Driven
by policies in major economies such as China, the EU and the US, AI is gradually
moving from basic research to more concrete application scenarios. However, there
are still a number of issues and challenges before AI can become a truly general-
purpose technology. Along its way, AI needs open discourse based on scientific facts,
taking into account societal values. There is already input from TA institutions around
the world on the specific features and potential impact of AI implementation. But
there are open questions, which need translation from technological development to
every-day life and back—and even more so on a global level.
As AI will influence nearly all areas of life, the context of use will be very diverse.
In order to foster the development of responsible AI, there is a need for a global
ethical baseline for AI developers, implementers and users. Elaborating general
and globally accepted guidelines or codes of conduct need broad discourse and the
participation of all those potentially involved together with affected stakeholders.
Transparency of AI systems is a fundamental prerequisite for accountability
and control. There is a gap between understanding this requirement and the often
mentioned “black-box” in AI, which supposedly makes it impossible to get full trans-
parency over system-internal processes of decision-making. So, what kind of trans-
parency is achievable, and what is needed? What does it mean if those demands don’t
match? Clarifying this in an interdisciplinary manner and communicating possible
options to politics is a basic function of TA.
The diffusion and application of AI technologies has the potential to bring
about tremendous changes to the social structure. The digitalization of human
society will continue to be accelerated with the application and diffusion of AI
technologies. However, AI as a new social resource will also be affected by the
differences in resource allocation due to the previously existing problems in the
traditional social structure. The development of AI will increase the potential risk of
digital inequality on a global scale.
Responsible AI urgently requires global collaborative governance in a multi-
cultural context. While AI has demonstrated the potential to become a general-
purpose technology in a global context, the application scenarios of AI technology
in specific countries and regions will be influenced by social, economic, cultural, and
religious differences. Responsible AI should be based on the premise that it respects
the diversity of people, and cultural and social settings, as well as the AI scenarios and
Artificial Intelligence—A New Knowledge … 195
the diversity of governance concepts. Based on the diversity of governance concepts,
all countries should enhance the transparency and credibility of AI development
through collaborative governance in a global context. In addition, responsible data
is the cornerstone of responsible AI.
The development and application of AI technologies will have a significant
impact on geopolitical relations on a global scale. There are huge differences
between developed and developing countries in terms of data resource allocation,
basic research and development capabilities, and the level of industrial transforma-
tion. Accordingly, if AI is treated as a general-purpose technology, the realization of
AI application scenarios will potentially create new global development imbalances
that are detrimental to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.25
Abundant empirical research is required to determine whether AI can be
regarded as a general-purpose technology. As mentioned in the policy discussion
in Sect. 3, current policies of application areas promote AI as a fundamental techno-
logical ecosystem in every domain. However, AI is still far from a general-purpose
technology in terms of economics and societal performance. In addition, the devel-
opment of AI strongly relies on the integration of related data-driven technologies.
Data resource allocation is the key to determining AI as a general-purpose tech-
nology. However, a large amount of data resources (including personal data) is now
controlled by giant online platform companies with significant market power. From a
long-term perspective, data resource monopoly is not conducive to sustainable inno-
vation in AI technologies. Therefore, both policy research and practice require an
integrated view that data governance, platform governance and AI development be
viewed as an intact ecosystem.
All of this calls for accompanying research and monitoring, as well as cross-
cultural negotiation processes about desirable properties of AI systems and limits of
application. TA can constructively contribute to this, if it succeeds in establishing
corresponding global processes and institutions.
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the copyright holder.
Global Systems Resilience and Pandemic
Disease—A Challenge for S&T
Governance
Marko Monteiro , Florian Roth , and Clare Shelley-Egan
1 Introduction
The twenty-first century has been referred to as a time of emerging systemic risks
(OECD, 2003). Many such risks relate to biological agents: emerging infectious
diseases (EIDs) such as SARS, Ebola and Zika have become global threats. Because
of its specific characteristics, COVID-19 has posed novel and unanticipated chal-
lenges to all social systems on a simultaneous, global scale, something not seen in
recent human history. At the same time, it has laid bare pre-existing fragilities in
health, economics and politics all over the globe. Such fragilities will be accentuated
or make recovery from the pandemic more challenging in all countries (Baral, 2021).
Historically, the largest share of health risks has been assumed by people in the
Global South. Fighting infectious diseases has rarely been a top priority for global
politics. COVID-19, however, has become a uniquely relevant threat, not only for
least developed countries (LDC), but also for global health systems in affluent soci-
eties. Just as the effects of COVID-19 are interconnected, emerging responses to
the pandemic have become interdependent. Billions of dollars were invested in the
Contribution to: Technology Assessment in a Globalized World—Facing the Challenges of
Transnational Technology Governance.
M. Monteiro (B)
Institute of Geosciences, University of Campinas, Rua Carlos Gomes, 250, Campinas,
SP 13083855, Brazil
e-mail: carambol@unicamp.br
F. Ro th
Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Theaterstrasse 17, 8400 Winterthur, Switzerland
e-mail: Florian.roth@zhaw.ch
C. Shelley-Egan
Division for Responsible Innovation and Design, DTU Management, Technical University of
Denmark (DTU), Akademivej, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
e-mail: clshe@dtu.dk
© The Author(s) 2023
L. Hennen et al. (eds.), Technology Assessment in a Globalized World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0_10
203
204 M. Monteiro et al.
global scientific response to address the pandemic, and researchers from many coun-
tries were mobilized to undertake unprecedented efforts and start new international
collaborations in finding solutions to the crisis. In this way, COVID-19 has not only
exemplified the global nature of risks in a hyper-connected world, but also that
resilience needs to be conceptualized and fostered on a global scale.
In this chapter, we argue that COVID-19 has posed significant challenges, but
also offers a valuable opportunity to rethink and improve how to effectively govern
global health risks in ways that consider the potential unintended consequences of
risk mitigation measures. We focus on fostering innovation capacities as a key feature
of adaptive and transformative resilience in any complex system (Folke, 2006). In the
context of health crises, technological innovations play a particularly important role.
For instance, powerful algorithms can support local and national governments in
managing large amounts of data and maintaining situational awareness; new surveil-
lance tools can facilitate the tracking of those who are infected and mitigate the
spread of the virus; and innovative medical research methods can provide treat-
ments and vaccines to the population, offering hopes for a return to normality. But
in many ways, the full potential of these innovations was not fully realized as imag-
ined; tracing apps, for instance, are mistrusted by many people and often do not
function across national borders. A lack of international solidarity slowed down the
development, production and distribution of vaccines (Dosi & Soete, 2022). At the
same time, vaccine hesitancy and low scientific and public health literacy sometimes
propelled by the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories have hampered
the effectiveness of mass vaccination campaigns.
To make the best use of available and emerging technologies, we, therefore, need
transparent and trustworthy innovation governance structures that attend to potential
risks for the wellbeing of society. Studies in the field of technology assessment (TA)
have shown that the cost of inaction may sometimes be greater than the need to make
decisions quickly in response to emerging threats (van Baalen et al., 2021), but the
accelerated development of technology may also create unintended and undesired
consequences (Monteiro et al., 2017). In the case of COVID-19, there is a massive
demand for rapid innovations (Lorgelly & Adler, 2020), and many challenges with
respect to the proper conduct of detailed assessments. Technology assessment must
consider the potential benefits, costs and risks of new medical treatments (Alkhaldi
et al., 2021), but how can this be achieved in a global crisis?
This chapter suggests an answer to this question t hrough outlining the elements
which we believe should guide TA initiatives related to COVID-19. Such efforts
should, as an a priori, engage global publics and involve institutions from different
countries and regions. Assessing potential unintended effects of technologies adopted
during a fast-moving crisis, including vaccines and apps, involves the incorporation
of reflection on how vaccinations may interact with social cohesion, or how perceived
risks to civil liberties in the context of new surveillance regimes affects uptake of
tracing apps. Yet current governance structures and assessment protocols insuffi-
ciently consider both the immediacy of global health challenges, and the increasingly
international nature of innovation processes.
Global Systems Resilience and Pandemic … 205
To better understand the governance challenges of global technological innova-
tion processes under the pressures of a global health crisis, this chapter looks at two
technologies that have played a key role in public health strategies used to mitigate the
COVID-19 pandemic: vaccines and tracing apps. We argue that these technologies
and their governance have faced three interrelated challenges: problems of scale, trust
and politics. These challenges, as they played out in the emergent use of these tech-
nologies, help us to identify some of the failures of governance and indicate potential
ways to improve resilience for the future. We hope to provide inspiration for local,
national or even international TA exercises to incorporate these principles into the
way technologies with a global reach are developed and incorporated into responses
during emergencies and beyond. The chapter argues that these three elements need
to be considered when imagining and implementing such frameworks.
2 Technological Innovations for the Management of Global
Health Crises
Governance of technologies during a pandemic involves various interrelated chal-
lenges; TA that is tailored for and reflexive to such challenges is needed to achieve
flexible, effective and inclusive responses in a fast-moving crisis without losing sight
of potential risks (Eckhard et al., 2021). In the context of COVID-19, advances in the
fast-growing domains of information and data sciences as well as biotechnologies
have received broad attention as key areas in the response against the virus. Governing
these powerful, but potentially also risky technologies, involves s takeholders such
as public and private health actors, alongside research and policy approaches.
Past examples are useful for reflection on the role of governance during emerging
pandemics: the Zika outbreak in the Americas (2015–2016) is an example of how such
biological risks can emerge and spread with high speed, challenging global response
mechanisms. In these scenarios, inadequate policy choices can lead to public distrust
in science or expertise, and can fail to adequately protect the population, save lives
and prevent future risks. In the case of Zika, the different responses implemented
in various countries and the expertise produced by multilateral organizations were
the object of intense and widespread controversy. This included the way in which
women’s rights and poverty in LDC countries were framed (Roa, 2016), and how
the use of untested technologies such as transgenic mosquitoes (Ribeiro et al., 2018)
was decided and implemented, especially in Global South countries. These cases
contributed to undermining trust in multilateral organizations and the manner in
which they offered advice to respond to the pandemic, and raised issues related to
the disparities in how countries were affected by and were able to respond to a global
outbreak. These challenges would come up again with COVID-19, but on a much
larger scale, involving the whole world.
The COVID-19 pandemic is also wrought with controversy and disputes around
science, technology and expertise. The use of big data tools, including tracing apps
206 M. Monteiro et al.
and other technologies to track and isolate individuals with COVID-19, in an attempt
to slow the spread of the virus, was widely debated throughout 2020, the first year
of the pandemic (Gasser et al., 2020). While in some countries, contact tracing
apps quickly gained broad public acceptance and became a cornerstone of efforts
to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, elsewhere they failed to achieve the necessary
public penetration to become effective (Altmann et al., 2020). As will be discussed
in detail below, the success or failure of tracing apps strongly depends on the avail-
ability of governance structures to introduce these health innovations in a transparent,
trustworthy and risk-aware fashion.
Controversies around how surveillance should be used to manage pandemics, or
the introduction of new technologies, have, therefore, been widespread during the
COVID-19 pandemic. Comparative studies have shown, however, that controversies
were not uniform across societies (Jasanoff et al., 2021). In many countries, misin-
formation and political polarization were major obstacles in getting innovations to
the population. This was most visible perhaps in the US and Brazil, countries among
those with the highest numbers of infections and deaths, in contexts where widespread
extremist and denialist groups forced public debate to deal with anti-science, and
anti-vaccine positions, which even questioned the existence of the pandemic.
In both the US and Brazil, anti-China positions have been significant elements
in political responses to the crisis. This has shown the importance not only of
taking stock of the available knowledge to support decisions, but the importance
of understanding how political disputes can undermine a public health response, or
even wholly impede the development of mitigation strategies. Vaccine hesitancy, for
example, has been recognized as a challenge to public health policies, and it has been
potentialized by organized misinformation in many countries (Tokojima Machado
et al., 2020).
Each of these scenarios was a factor in explaining the number of deaths in specific
contexts, and thus are crucial in understanding where specific countries failed or
succeeded in curbing deaths from COVID-19. But building global resilience to
pandemics requires reflection on the measures and principles which can be applied
across different contexts, and in country-specific policy regimes. Therefore, under-
standing policy and governance failures on a global scale (like those related to
COVID-19) requires reflection on broader patterns, and poses challenges to building
one-size-fits-all solutions (Jasanoff et al., 2021).
3 Facing the Challenges of a Global Crisis Response: Scale,
Trust and Politics
To face the governance challenges posed by global crises, we need to broaden how we
imagine and practice governance of technologies to include social, cultural and polit-
ical issues. To achieve this, we need to acknowledge a threefold challenge present
in the COVID-19 pandemic, which can help us better understand the gaps which
Global Systems Resilience and Pandemic … 207
need to be addressed. These challenges include issues of scale, trust and politics.
Each of these elements is inevitably interrelated with the others, but can be sepa-
rated analytically to provide insights regarding the enduring difficulties involved in
building resilience to future crises. Calls for reimagining governance are not new:
Global institutions have already called for responses and governance of technologies
to become more dialogical, responsive and globally interconnected if we are to build
longer-term resilience to future pandemics (UN, 2020). Our discussion builds on this
emerging debate and outlines three elements which should inform global governance
frameworks and assessment practices.
3.1 Scale: Dealing with Global Risks
A central issue in mitigating a pandemic is the sheer scale of the crisis: The speed
of transmission and adaptation of the virus; the interconnected nature of global
commerce and supply chains (Hobbs, 2020); the need to develop simultaneous
responses at global, national and local levels, etc. Without a global approach, linked
to other levels of governance, resilience alone will never be robust enough for similar
situations. (see Ladikas and Stamm; Hennen and van Est, this volume).
There is thus broad debate about global pandemics needing concurrent global
solutions (UN, 2020). In these discussions, countries are discouraged from seeking
exclusively national or regional solutions. In the early spread of COVID-19, and in the
challenge posed by emerging variants, tracking infections across national borders has
been a continuous challenge. In the first half of 2020, when global production chains
of health supplies were pressured to the limit, and a China-centered global division of
labor also became a global problem (as most medical supplies in demand, including
masks and ventilators are mass-produced in China), global interconnectivity became
starkly apparent: Global circulation of people helped spread the virus, and global
interdependencies in the economy were put to the test.
Even though the importance of tracking infections across national borders for
containing COVID-19 was recognized early on by public health experts and authori-
ties alike, most tracing apps were developed and implemented in the first half of 2020
at the national level (in countries like China and Germany) but often remained non-
interoperational, mainly for technical or legal reasons (Jacob & Lawarée, 2021; Russo
et al., 2021). This limitation particularly hampered the ability to contain infections
in border regions with many international commuters, for example, at the German–
French and German-Swiss borders. This has changed only slowly in 2021–2022, as
the compatibility of several European tracing apps was improved (Blasimme et al.,
2021).
Vaccines are also an example of how scale matters in TA: Vaccines were quickly
developed due to a massive influx of resources (public and private), yet this has not
meant that all people have had access to the resulting immunization opportunities.
Treating vaccines as a market commodity (rather than a public good) has effectively
concentrated the availability of vaccines in a few countries, leaving most of the
208 M. Monteiro et al.
world with restricted or no access (Katz et al., 2021). This concentration of buying
power relates to global supply chains, also concentrated in some countries (such as
India and China). But it is also connected to the global disparities in science and
R&D infrastructure, which restricts capabilities of vaccine development and enables
vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy, which subsume vaccination efforts to
global power plays between nations (Dosi & Soete, 2022). The regulatory approval
processes were also indicative of the challenge of scale: As vaccination started in
early 2021, the diversity of national, regional and global approval processes created
confusion around which vaccines were more effective and how to organize global
vaccination efforts. In regions like the EU, where parallel national and regional
(EMA) processes exist, this added a layer of complexity which added to controversy
around specific vaccines (e.g., Sputnik V) and affected public trust.
Some initiatives attempted to mitigate this problem, with COVAX1 being the most
important (Eccleston-Turner & Upton, 2021). While it appears to have had success
in ensuring more investment in vaccine development and accelerating the roll-out of
technology, the multilateral initiative appears not to have addressed problems such
as vaccine nationalism, whereby countries prioritize their own citizens’ needs to the
detriment of more effective global vaccination efforts. This is a huge challenge for
any governance effort that attempts to have significant global reach: Can we build
effective global public health strategies at all, if nation-states are still at the center of
decision-making, funding and distribution?
The emergence and diffusion of several variants of the COV-SARS2 virus in
different world regions has put to the test the effectiveness of even the most compre-
hensive national vaccination campaigns in countries such as Israel. In a dramatic
way, this demonstrates that no country is safe, as long as the virus is able to spread
and mutate easily elsewhere. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in
March 2020: “The magnitude of the response must match the scale of the crisis. (…)
We are only as strong as the weakest health system in our interconnected world”.2
Imagining a more effective “global TA” can become an important step in the right
direction in the case of addressing problems of scale: By providing fora, concepts,
and arenas of debate t hat enable global conversations, and enabling better articulation
of local, national and global forms of action, a truly global TA can make a positive
policy contribution. Will nations continue to resist broader interference from orga-
nizations such as the WHO, especially in times of crisis where those with political
and economic power push their way to the front of the line for vaccines? Combining
trust in global solutions with the need for local situatedness is a major scientific
1 “COVAX is one of three pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which was
launched in April 2020 in response to this pandemic. Bringing together governments, global health
organizations, manufacturers, scientists, private sector, civil society and philanthropy, with the aim
of providing innovative and equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines.
The COVAX pillar is focused on the latter. It is the only truly global solution to this pandemic
because it is the only effort to ensure that people in all corners of the world will get access to
COVID-19 vaccines once they are available, regardless of their wealth.” (source: https://www.gavi.
org/vaccineswork/covax-explained).
2 https://www.un.org/press/en/2020/sgsm20029.doc.htm.
Global Systems Resilience and Pandemic … 209
and policy dilemma. How to build trust and increase the adherence of countries and
publics to measures that contribute to systemic resilience on a global scale, while
many of them demand collective action and impact (including vaccination), remains
an open question.
Producing assessments of technologies for use in global crises presents unique
challenges: The need for global and interconnected responses has been defined,
but how can TA be performed when countries diverge so greatly in their histories,
cultures, values and political systems? The production of global surveillance mech-
anisms through apps may face resistance from countries where individual freedom
and privacy are relevant, but not from countries where collectivity is cherished. But
governments may resist such broad surveillance without proper guarantees to each
country’s sovereignty as regards data, for example. Vaccination on a global scale
also presents overwhelming challenges: Convincing global publics of the need to
adhere to vaccination schemes seems daunting when anti-vaccination movements
are so effective in developed nations, and when access to health is so unequal across
the globe. Trust in expertise produced globally is also problematic, as the example
of the IPCC3 —Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—shows (Beck, 2012;
Hulme & Mahony, 2010). So how can global institutions and publics be engaged
during a crisis of trust?
3.2 Trust: Improving Adherence and Participation
The issue of trust can be positioned with respect to longstanding debates within
STS (Science, Technology and Society4 ) and social sciences concerning the place of
science in modern liberal democracies, and the shifts this relationship has undergone
since the second half of the twentieth century (Miller, 2008). While science is a central
3 Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Envi-
ronment Programme (UNEP), the objective of the IPCC is to provide governments at all levels with
scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. IPCC reports are also a key
input into international climate change negotiations. The IPCC is an organization of governments
that are members of the United Nations or WMO. The IPCC currently has 195 members. (source:
https://www.ipcc.ch/about/).
4 STS, as practiced in academia today, merges two broad streams of scholarship. The first consists
of research on the nature and practices of science and technology (S&T). Studies in this genre
approach S&T as social institutions possessing distinctive structures, commitments, practices, and
discourses that vary across cultures and change over time. This line of work addresses questions
like the following: is there a scientific method; what makes scientific facts credible; how do new
disciplines emerge; and how does science relate to religion? The second stream concerns itself more
with the impacts and control of science and technology, with particular focus on the risks, benefits
and opportunities that S&T may pose to peace, security, community, democracy, environmental
sustainability and human values. Driving this body of research is questions like the following: how
should states set priorities for research funding; who should participate, and how, in technological
decision-making; should life forms be patented; how should societies measure risks and set safety
standards; and how should experts communicate the reasons for their judgments to the public?
(source: https://sts.hks.harvard.edu/about/whatissts.html).
210 M. Monteiro et al.
feature of how modern democracies are imagined, its authority has been under serious
question for decades (Ezrahi, 1980). The way this issue has resurfaced in the twenty-
first century will undoubtedly be the subject of intense scrutiny for a long time. Here,
we discuss how this was made visible in the specific technological controversies in
focus in this chapter, namely how innovations used in response to the COVID-19
pandemic have been received by publics in different countries. This is important if
we are to reimagine governance, preserving a place for science in democracy while
respecting skepticism and resistance to expert-centered decision-making.
The issue of trust (in direct relation to politics and values) has had an impact on
the way TA is theorized and practiced during the pandemic, as recognized in the
European context (van Baalen et al., 2021):
However, political decisions cannot be based on scientific evidence alone; other political,
social, economic, legal and moral considerations also play a role. This has also been the
case during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anti-COVID-19 measures, such as lockdowns, social
distancing or the introduction of tracing apps generally had broader impacts than mitigating
the spread of the virus, such as social isolation and an increased demand of health services.
To decide on such measures, policymakers must also weigh different values and interests.
In most cases, however, this was not communicated clearly and transparently to the broader
public. Policymakers often referred to scientific evidence or experts to substantiate their
decisions, without acknowledging the role of other considerations in the choices made. (van
Baalen et al., 2021, 11)
Controversies about technologies and COVID-19 have a direct relationship to the
issues of governance we want to raise here, inasmuch as they relate to how publics
accept or reject expert advice coming from national and/or global institutions; how
they trust governments with their personal data, and how they accept surveillance
(e.g., in the case of tracing apps); how publics accept and trust vaccines and vacci-
nation campaigns, which is a longstanding issue in public health; and how t hey
respond to other measures which impinge on their freedom and their health. Over
many years, risk communication research has shown that trust is a central precondi-
tion for successful political communication related to risk, but also that public trust
in official risk communication messages is dependent on perceptions of the commu-
nicating individuals and institutions, as well as the specific socio-political climate
(Renn & Levine, 1991). COVID-19 has sparked many such controversies in different
countries and has shown the degree to which issues of trust are central to establishing
longer-term resilience to global health crises.
Vaccine hesitancy, for example, has been debated and recognized as a central
concern to public health in many countries (Verger & Dubé, 2020), and sentiments
of mistrust directed at vaccines have emerged strongly with COVID-19. While more
common in industrialized Global North countries, hesitancy has also affected other
areas of the world. This can be traced back to many possible factors, such as mistrust
in the speed of vaccine development, organized strategies, and well-funded efforts
to spread misinformation (Jaiswal et al., 2020).
In the case of COVID-19, the pandemic has been accompanied by a veritable
“infodemic” (Cuan-Baltazar et al., 2020). Misinformation (be it organized or unin-
tended) has proven to be a prominent feature of how the pandemic evolved in many
Global Systems Resilience and Pandemic … 211
countries, affecting trust in public health authorities, technical decisions and tech-
nologies (especially vaccines). The Internet has become the main source of news and
information, as well as a dangerous source of misinformation. Studies have shown
that the speed and broad reach of misinformation on COVID-19 undermines trust
in policies and vaccines, and is considered thus a public health concern in itself
(Roozenbeek et al., 2020) in countries with disparate and distinct socioeconomic
profiles. Indeed, the erosion of trust in science and institutions was a prominent trait
in countries such as the US, Brazil and Italy (Battiston et al., 2020; Kreps & Kriner,
2020).
Ensuring adequate governance of the development and deployment of vaccines
has already been recognized as the surest way out of the pandemic, but how can gover-
nance bodies deal with the increasing politicization of this technology? The contro-
versies which emerge, sometimes fueled by specific political groups, or weaponized
by extremists, have concrete effects on efforts to vaccinate globally, and may prolong
the pandemic or even contribute to the emergence of increasingly dangerous virus
variants. Addressing issues of trust is a conditio sine qua non for building both an
effective short-term response (Islam et al., 2021) (improving adherence to vaccina-
tion, for example), but also for building resilience in terms of stronger relationships
of trust between institutions and citizens (at the national level), and global trust i n
international governance bodies (at the international level).
The case of tracing apps shows that the importance of trust for a successful diffu-
sion of technological innovations in the context of public health is not exclusive to
vaccines. Similar to vaccination programs aiming for herd immunity, tracing apps
strongly rely on broad use across society. Only if a considerable share of the popula-
tion uses the apps in their everyday life are these tools able to fulfill their purpose and
help to track and break infection chains. When introduced in many countries in the
first half of 2020, there were high hopes that the apps could effectively slow down
the spread of the COVID-19 virus, gaining time until vaccines would be broadly
available. However, the usefulness of the tracing apps turned out to be much lower
than expected by many policymakers and experts, mainly because too few people
were willing to install and actively use the tracing apps.
Studies in various countries have shown that besides technical difficulties and
fears of false positive alerts, a lack of trust in the apps was a main reason as to why
these technologies were not used more broadly and today are often considered as
failures (Bano et al., 2020; Beierle et al., 2021; Horstmann et al., 2021). Yet this
research also shows that the issue of trust played out quite differently depending
on the specific political and cultural context in which they were implemented. In
countries like the US and Germany, disputes occurred around the privacy of sensitive
health data (Mello & Wang, 2020; Simon & Rieder, 2021). In other countries, such
as Australia, fears were more general regarding governmental surveillance, while
elsewhere public discourses focused more on the possible positive potential of these
technologies (Greenleaf & Kemp, 2020).
Importantly, several studies indicate that while general trust in political author-
ities is an important factor, it is not the only factor that influences public trust in
tracing apps. Other factors that determine public acceptance of these technologies
212 M. Monteiro et al.
include the transparency of the technical architecture, and the societal inclusive-
ness of the development process, as well as the public communication measures
to explain the purpose and function of the apps (Hobson et al., 2020;Oldeweme
et al., 2021). In general, decentralized approaches, building on open-source tech-
nologies and backed by trusted partner institutions are found to generate high trust
rates (Simon & Rieder, 2021). Since most apps were developed on behalf of govern-
mental actors and financed with taxpayer money, this directly relates to the questions
of innovation governance. As (Ranisch et al., 2020) emphasize, “(…) to minimize the
risk of adverse outcomes, ethical standards should guide and complement the process
of development (ethics by design), implementation, use, and evaluation of CT apps.”
Policymakers can actively influence the level of public trust by setting these ethical
standards to ensure an innovation process that pays close attention to the concerns
of societal stakeholders and citizens over potential unintended side effects, such as
misuse of software for public surveillance or theft of sensitive personal data.
Building better governance and resilience, therefore, must include facing matters
of trust as they relate to the science-policy interface, as this has to do with the
shape of democracy itself and the role of science within modern democratic regimes.
Mistrust in science, albeit often perceived as a problem, is not necessarily a symptom
of anti-science, but can also reflect specific civic epistemologies, a dilemma already
identified in STS (Ezrahi, 2008):
The gap between scientific and civil presuppositions about the relations of science and politics
in the contemporary democratic state poses a very difficult challenge to STS scholars who
must often switch back and forth between public policy contexts where expert definitions of
causality are expected to have the authority to set the boundaries of possible value choices
and strategies of action, and contexts where these are the social norms and conventions that
set the limits to what are acceptable conceptions of causality. This often leads to confusions
between an attitude of disrespect for scientific facts as a form of intellectual opportunistic
relativism and as a considered critical response to the dogmatic advance of scientific facts
as a means of defying working political or normative compromises. (Ezrahi, 2008, 181).
This presents a great challenge also to assessment practices, as they try to balance
expert knowledge, public engagement and their own validity as a tool for policy-
and decision-making in general. How should we construct TA at different scales in
contexts where there is deep mistrust of vaccines? Or when experts are mistrusted,
and misinformation is rampant? Governance frameworks have to be responsive to
and reflective of situated civic epistemologies (Jasanoff, 2011b), and the ways in
which policies are able to relate to science in situated ways in different national and
cultural contexts. Because science and society can be seen as coproduced (Jasanoff,
2004), governance and resilience must also pay attention to how these relationships
are established and sustain themselves in specific contexts. TA organized on a global
scale would be supportive in strengthening awareness of this interconnectedness, as
well as inducing mutual learning about different national contexts that need to be
taken into account when designing technologies and policies which are appropriate
to existing civic epistemologies, along with the perceived needs and demands of the
respective publics.
Global Systems Resilience and Pandemic … 213
3.3 Politics: Social Justice and Global Inequalities
As discussed above, issues of trust are crucial for understanding some of the chal-
lenges posed by global governance of technologies to build resilience. Issues of trust
in science and technology, however, lead us into another broad challenge: how to
reflect on and integrate politics into how we build resilience. Politicization of tech-
nologies such as vaccines became a problem in several nations during the pandemic
(Bolsen & Palm, 2021). Another issue was how polarizing politics mediated how
people adhered to “stay at home” policies and other measures which severely affected
people’s lives. To begin addressing this challenge, we should reframe governance
away from using a linear idea of science/policy relationships, and take into account
the myriad other variables at play in such contexts (van Baalen et al., 2021), which
include the core of people’s personal and collective values, and their ideas of
desirable futures and politics, as discussed in concepts such as civic epistemolo-
gies (Jasanoff, 2011a; Miller, 2008). In addition, politics pertains to how power is
distributed, and how inequalities make a difference, both locally and globally.
Politics in our argument refers to the disputes around desired goals, and differing
perceptions of what is at stake in a crisis. As in other controversies involving science
and technology, the disputes at play in this pandemic are never just about the better
solution (vaccines, masks, apps, etc.), but also concern a common appreciation of
what the problem is, which in turn has implications for the framing of possible and
desirable solutions (Venturini, 2010). Technical expertise does not by itself lower
the temperature of controversy or mitigate political disputes (Nelkin, 1975), and
controversies often also involve the legitimacy of who is able to provide reliable
expertise or be present at the table to make decisions (Nelkin & Hilgartner, 1986).
Disputes around trust and values tend to become highly visible in controversies, as
STS literature has extensively shown (Collins & Pinch, 1998; Lynch & Cole, 2005).
We understand the challenge of politics to be central to any effective attempt at
building longer-term resilience to COVID-19 and future pandemics, and this may be
the hardest challenge that countries and governance institutions have to face. Poli-
tics here also includes issues of how power is distributed in a given society, how
decisions get made, and who gets to sit at the table in decision-making concerning
pandemics. Of course, politics permeates every aspect of the discussion in this
chapter, from vaccine nationalism to disparities in health. But political contesta-
tion of specific technologies used for COVID-19, and measures imposed by govern-
ments pose some specific challenges to both the imagination and implementation of
governance frameworks, which deserve to be considered here.
Politics can be a way to analyze and understand the way governance mechanisms
play a role in pandemics, and how that role needs to be the object of further reflection
in building resilience. Making choices about policies or the adoption of technologies
is never just a matter of assessing cost and clinical effectiveness, but always an
issue of politics. Acceptance of expertise; vaccine hesitancy, denialist groups and
governments, etc., demonstrate how politics is not peripheral, but central to any
attempt to build resilience to pandemics. It is common to see debates around the
214 M. Monteiro et al.
role of scientific uncertainty in political contestation (Kreps & Kriner, 2020), yet
uncertainty in itself does not explain or help mitigate the political aspect of such
choices, or contestation as part of responding to a pandemic.
TA can itself be seen as a political arena, in which all of these issues are made
explicit in specific ways. From the choices of who gets invited to an assessment
exercise, to how assessment is conducted, politics is an important element of how
TA is used as a way to make choices about technologies. Aside from the internal
workings of assessment, one can also look at how assessment practices interact with
broader policy dynamics: How much does assessment actually affect or inform policy
in specific contexts? How would a global assessment body or exercise be able to have
impact in different cultures, given the various ways technology is perceived? TA,
whether global or not, should be reflexive and aware of its political embeddedness,
and not invest in a purist or linear understanding of science-policy relationships. This
is also a point made about the IPCC (Beck, 2012), and debates about global TA can
find inspiration in the critique of technocratic solutions made by studies of climate
governance.
This has never been so explicit or so urgent an issue as during the COVID-19
pandemic. Politics relates inextricably to the elements discussed above. Adherence
to solutions such as vaccines, or to longer-term measures which may be deemed
inevitable for resilience, depend on people trusting institutions and feeling they are
represented as part of the solutions being proposed. Becoming part of the decision-
making process also presupposes constructing common ground for deliberations
around potential solutions. Going back to scale: When we talk of global pandemics,
resilience involves engaging not only publics with similar cultural and historical
backgrounds, shared values and aspirations, but also global publics with widely
different histories, forms of government, values and ways of organizing technical
decisions. Ignoring politics on the global scale will also hamper resilience, when for
example we fail to achieve a global level of mass vaccination to control a pandemic;
or when we fail to address health disparities, or disparities in access to science and
technology.
This problem of how science and technology relate to politics has led both the
academic and policy communities to develop critical and applied reflections on how
to build responsibility into governance frameworks and institutional practices (Jacob
et al., 2013; Stilgoe et al., 2013), especially in the European context. TA is a prac-
tical outcome of such reflections with a long tradition of developing institutional
formats and methodologies of policy advice in many European countries. Global
governance to foster resilience to pandemics at a global level could benefit from this
experience (Ladikas et al., 2019;Van Est,
2017). However, the COVID-19 pandemic
has again emphasized questions of how to perceive responsibility as part of the
response: When urgency demands incisive and speedy actions, how are countries to
improve responsibility, responsiveness and reflexivity in their actions? Is the require-
ment for effective and fast decision-making, which characterizes any crisis, at odds
with attempts to ensure inclusive political processes, or can participatory processes
improve crisis responses by activating broad societal resources (Eckhard et al., 2021)?
In the absence of global frameworks to distribute and make vaccines available in an
Global Systems Resilience and Pandemic … 215
affordable manner, how are countries which have been excluded from the vaccination
effort to respond to calls for more “global cooperation,” or even trust in global insti-
tutions, which may involve external advice relating to hygiene, changes in economic
policies or limits to movements inside and outside their national borders?
Global and local-level disparities have played a huge role in this pandemic, as
they have in other historical and recent outbreaks (Mamelund et al., 2021). These
include disparate access to health, racial disparities and deep inequality in terms
of available infrastructure to manage and respond to health emergencies. (Bibbins-
Domingo, 2020; Brooks, 2016; Quinn et al., 2011). Importantly, the vulnerability of
different social groups is dependent on their specific material coping capacities, but
also by social and psychological attributes (Eriksen et al., 2020). This means that
governance frameworks and responses at all levels should take this into account if
they intend to be effective. This has been acknowledged in international calls for
action by organizations like the United Nations to prestigious research institutions
(Martinez-Juarez et al., 2020), but it remains to be seen how this will be tackled in
practice.
Addressing disparities again throws us back into the need to include political
choices and political disputes when discussing governance of technologies and
technical advice. Building reliable international cooperation involves addressing
immense disparities in access to research funding, health technology development,
and the deployment and distribution of accessible and reliable information and treat-
ments. Current vaccine nationalism in the acquisition and distribution of vaccines,
and the leveraging of vaccines in geopolitical strategies by countries such as China,
India and the US erode trust in multilateral or global institutions and frameworks and
lay bare the absence of material cooperation between unequal partners. Likewise,
extreme disparities within national borders have shown to be detrimental to national
social cohesion, opening countries to chaotic responses to COVID-19, with catas-
trophic consequences in terms of lives lost, increases in poverty and institutional
disarray (Jasanoff et al., 2021).
4 Conclusions
We have argued that building better global governance for the future involves matters
of scale, trust and politics. Each element helps us to see different aspects of dilemmas
posed and illuminated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as dilemmas for the
governance of science and technology in general. Scale matters, because if risks
have a global aspect, then institutions and policies need to have global reach. This
demands international cooperation, trust and solidarity to overcome disparities within
and between countries and regions. The production and distribution of vaccines has
impacted on international relations and highlighted gaps relating to unequal distribu-
tion of R&D capacity (and how this is a risk for future resilience), as well as difficul-
ties in producing and making vaccines available. Overcoming the pandemic means
immunizing billions of people on a global scale, therefore, we have yet to establish
216 M. Monteiro et al.
new institutions and policies to make these risks more manageable. The COVAX
facility offers some hope, but truly global solutions are still both underdeveloped
and undertheorized.
Trust is important both in terms of strengthening social cohesion within countries,
and enabling greater acceptance of policies, therefore, ensuring the effectiveness of
responses to crises like a global pandemic. The infodemic associated with COVID-19
(but not restricted to it) has global ramifications, and needs to be addressed inter-
nationally. Trust among countries and between countries and global institutions is
crucial to enable any kind of successful global governance to take effect. A gap in
trust became clear during the Trump presidency in the US, for example, but mistrust
between China and other countries, and between countries and the WHO or the UN
also illustrate how this is relevant to global policies and resilience.
Politics are never absent and can never be ignored. From the contestations of
policies and expertise within countries, to the disparities that mark the pandemic
(racial, gender, economic, etc.), politics is present in all aspects of the issue. Social
disparities are central to understanding who suffers most during pandemics: Poor
countries, and the poorest people within countries; minorities (ethnic, racial, sexual,
cultural, religious, etc.), women, and those with limited access to health in general.
Ignoring disparities makes trust unreachable and undermines how expertise helps
to orient policy. It undermines both science and democracy if we do not remain
vigilant of their interconnectedness. Assessing risks and governing technology needs
to include and reflect on its political aspects as a central part of the expertise which is
mobilized to understand the risks and benefits of different innovations. The disparate
capacity which countries have to produce, access and assess innovations can also
become a global risk, especially during a global crisis, and is also an issue for global
governance.
This leads to the question regarding how to develop governance approaches that
solve, or at least moderate, the challenges involving scale, trust and politics. While
some efforts aim to improve global collaboration, but often fail to secure trust across
diverse social and cultural contexts, others appear stronger in building trust, but
in turn struggle to achieve internationally coordinated and unified progress against
global health risks. To overcome this, new modes of governance are needed, based on
principles of resilience thinking, inspired by research traditions in ecology, organi-
zational studies and other disciplines (Folke, 2006; Ruiz-Martin et al., 2018;Walker,
2020). These approaches would focus on capabilities at the local level to develop
innovative strategies to adapt to new trends and risks. However, such a decentralized
approach does not mean that actors work in isolation. On the contrary, a resilience
approach to global governance would put a strong emphasis on networks to exchange
experiences and foster transboundary learning. This could provide the basis for new
forms of governance that meet the global nature of the grand challenges of our time,
while paying close attention to local cultural and political contexts.
Global Systems Resilience and Pandemic … 217
Attempts at governing globally through robust science-policy interfaces are still
rare, and under construction (and dispute). The example of the IPCC as a mecha-
nism for providing reliable knowledge for governing climate change is interesting
to examine, both for its successes and its failures. One important failure relates to
the issue of politics mentioned here: When the science used for global governance
is produced mainly in specific institutions in the Global North, by authors from this
region (Ford et al., 2012), this poses a problem for building trust and engaging nations
from other parts of the world. And although science is an example of a global network
of practices and institutions with some embedded aspects of global governance, it is
also a structurally unequal system. Therefore, to expect trust to emerge purely from
the availability of reliable scientific knowledge is to ignore other aspects important
to assessing the risks and potentials of science and technology.
Global forms of governance need to address a series of issues, which are not on
the agendas of the WHO or other governance schemes, but which can be mobilized to
rethink global frameworks: The unequal geographies of science (Hulme, 2010) and
technology which still mark the production of knowledge and the capacity to build
technologies and innovations to address crises like the pandemics of the present and
the future. This of course relates to the trust and politics discussed above: Governance
of technologies at a global level cannot ignore issues of social justice, without which
resilience will not be possible. Just as policies govern science and technologies
conditioned by local perceptions, practices and histories, the knowledge that drives
governance needs to also be reflected upon as emerging from unequal geographies,
and therefore, needs to be governed with an aim to increase the participation of and
attention to excluded and marginalized groups.
This in turn relates closely to the issue of scale: The globalizing drive in the
governance of climate change, for example, runs the risk of collapsing all scales
into a generic and universalized “global,” which erases the local and other scales
at which events and practices take shape. This view from everywhere, as discussed
by Hulme (2010), needs to be critically assessed as the only possible governance
scheme for global problems. As discussed above, local experiments, values and
specificities have to be taken into account as another path to build resilience and
global forms of governance which will be more legitimate, and therefore, engage
broader global publics and institutions. TA as a practice at the interface of poli-
tics, science and the public provides appropriate structures and methodologies to
enable democratic, inclusive and scientifically well-informed interactive processes
of knowledge-sharing and deliberation. How to transform and apply this at a global
level to foster resilience to pandemic disease is a challenge that needs to be considered
from a long-term perspective.
Acknowledgements This chapter was partly supported by funding from Brazil’s National Council
for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq); project number: 309007/2019-4.
218 M. Monteiro et al.
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Outlook
The Shape of Global Technology
Assessment
Miltos Ladikas , Julia Hahn , Leonhard Hennen, Rinie van Est ,
Walter Peissl , and Ralf Lindner
1 Introduction
Technology assessment (TA) has a history that shows constant progress. In the last
fifty years, since its initial conceptualisation as a strictly technocratic policy advisory,
it has developed many different forms and shapes, while significantly expanding its
aims and outreach. It is fair to say that in the last three decades TA has increasingly
become more accessible to the non-expert world and has even created a unique rela-
tionship with the public. This development is on par with similar transformations in
our societies that have resulted in publics that are more open, inclusive and aware of
Contribution to: Technology Assessment in a Globalised World—Facing the Challenges of
Transnational Technology Governance.
M. Ladikas (B) · J. Hahn · L. Hennen
Institute of Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology,
Karlstr. 11, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: miltos.ladikas@kit.edu
J. Hahn
e-mail: Julia.hahn@kit.edu
R. van Est
Rathenau Instituut, Anna van Saksenlaan 51, 2593 HW The Hague, The Netherlands
e-mail: q.vanest@rathenau.nl
W. Peissl
Institute of Technology Assessment, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Apostelgasse 23, 1030
Vienna, Austria
e-mail: wpeissl@oeaw.ac.at
R. Lindner
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, Breslauer Str. 48, 76139 Karlsruhe,
Germany
e-mail: ralf.lindner@isi.fraunhofer.de
© The Author(s) 2023
L. Hennen et al. (eds.), Technology Assessment in a Globalized World,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10617-0_11
225
226 M. Ladikas et al.
their power in influencing policymaking. Furthermore, TA has reaffirmed its relation-
ship to social transformation regarding the realities of widespread socio-economic
internationalisation and globalisation. It quickly accepted the fact that multilateralism
is evident in every aspect of our lives and that the perception of global challenges
is key in any Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) debate around the world.
Thus, TA advanced its global outreach by developing the notion of global TA, which
represents an inevitable development in its history.
This book is one of the many steps that are needed to develop a brand of TA that
is truly global; in other words, a type of TA that can focus on global problems and
be implemented in most national or cultural contexts equally well. This is a very
high aspiration for TA, but one that is worthwhile pursuing. The European Parlia-
mentary Technology Assessment network1 (EPTA) and the Network Technology
Assessment2 (NTA), have been the first successful attempts to create a fully func-
tional multicultural TA. Based on their successes, and coupled with the experience
of many fruitful bilateral TA projects across the globe, the globalTA3 Network came
into existence. At present, the globalTA Network has thirty members, representing
all five continents and a rich variety of TA activities in every field of STI. The creation
of these multilateral networks certainly shows a strong impetus in the TA community
to achieve a global outreach.
This book has provided a number of narratives that argue for the future of global
TA. The juggernaut of globalisation and the STI interdependences that have been
created as a result, already postulate a realistic argument for the development of
global TA (see Hennen and van Est, this volume). The recent pandemic crisis was a
rude reminder of the urgency of the undertaking (see Monteiro et al., this volume),
while the demands of publics around the world for a viable STI create the need to
design a careful approach for a viable result (See van Est and Hennen, this volume).
Overall, we find no doubt that TA is crucial in the resolution of global challenges
as described in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) (see Ladikas and Stamm,
this volume), promoting international development (see Srinivas and van Est, this
volume), and regulating technologies with global outreach (see van Baalen et al. as
well as, Huang and Peissl, this volume). The questions that have been raised in these
narratives are: How to attain a viable global TA? What is the most effective, and most
realistic, route to develop it? How to achieve widespread acceptance of TA tools in
very different socio-economic and political contexts? And, how to account for a fair
collaboration among economically unequal partners?
1 See https://eptanetwork.org.
2 See https://www.openta.net/netzwerk-ta.
3 See https://globalta.technology-assessment.info.
The Shape of Global Technology Assessment 227
2 The Institutionalisation of TA
Behind these questions is an issue that has occupied the TA community since its
beginning in the 1960s: the question of modes of institutionalising TA practises, and
setting up appropriate designs of TA institutions.
Any public debate or controversy on the pros and cons, the opportunities and risks,
or the ethical implications of implementing and applying technological innovations
can be understood as an informal process of technology assessment (Rip et al., 1995).
It involves researchers and companies promoting the adoption of their innovations
by highlighting their achievements and practical or economic advantages. At the
same time, it involves various interest groups and affected communities, which in
one way or the other are legitimatised and enabled to intervene with regulations and
funding, and address their demands and concerns directly to policymakers. Finally,
it involves experts with different scientific backgrounds who are drawn by different
actors to support their own points of view. The opposite structure is also true: any
official process or project of technology assessment can be understood as formalised
technology controversies that involve all the above actors in a procedure controlled
by a TA institution (Hennen, 1999; Hennen & Ladikas, 2019).
The need for and the modes of institutionalisation have been an issue of debate
and practical experiments right from the initial discussions about TA as a specific
concept (Sanz-Menendez & Cruz-Castro, 2004). The origins of TA are related to the
1960s debates on the perceived deficit of politics to steer technological change and
intervene in controversies in a meaningful way that is based on reliable knowledge.
Thus, the most relevant, and up to now persisting, question about TA institution-
alisation, has been how to relate science to policymaking in a way that avoids both
over-ruling politics with technocratic expertise and the instrumentalization of science
by politics. To date, many different models of independent scientific TA advice have
been developed at regional, national and international policymaking levels (whether
at government ministries or parliaments), all concerned with providing independent
advice as well as relevance of expertise for the practical purposes and needs of poli-
cymaking (Enzing et al., 2012; Hennen & Ladikas, 2009;van Estetal.,
2015;Vig &
Paschen, 2000).
The second salient problem to be translated into institutionalised practises gained
relevance during the 1980s: How to have a meaningful and equal representation of
the interests and values of societal groups and stakeholders in TA processes? This
has led to the development of a broad set of participatory methods applied by TA
institutions, and a slight readjustment of the missions of those institutions, by adding
the task of public engagement and public involvement to the more closed modes of
interaction between scientists and policymakers (see, e.g. Joss & Bellucci, 2002).
TA here has been part of the “participatory turn” in the 1980s that have been attested
to S&T policymaking in general (Jasanoff, 2007).
A third relevant problem, that must always be addressed and fostered via institu-
tional means, is the provision of access to the necessary expertise to address policy
228 M. Ladikas et al.
problems with reliable scientific knowledge. Here, the perceived need for reflex-
ivity has been part of TA’s raison d’etre. Uncertainties of scientific knowledge with
regard to practical and deeply political problems must be dealt with, and unavoidable
conflicts of expertise have to be taken into account. Interdisciplinarity and transdisci-
plinarity make up the necessary working mode of TA institutions. This translates into
relevant staff recruitment as well as the development of procedures to broaden the
scope of expertise in TA projects via regular exchanges with the scientific community
(also including non-scientific expertise from stakeholders).
All this has led to different “models” of institutionalisation of TA, with different
mixes of their academic/scientific, political and public “legs”—i.e. different defini-
tions of the role of public, political, and scientific actors within the TA process (for
a discussion regarding parliamentary TA institutions see Van Est, 2019). A descrip-
tion of the development of the debates on these dimensions of institutionalisation is
beyond the focus of this chapter. It is however clear that entering into debates about
how to organise TA on a global level will necessarily lead to thinking about models
of institutionalisation that answer the question relating to politics, the public and
science, in productive ways.
The state of TA activities and their institutionalisation differs greatly across
the world. As found in this book (Hahn et al., this volume) and in the individual
Country Reports (see Supplement section, this volume), especially outside of the
established European TA context, developments and initiatives show a wide range
of modes of institutionalisation of TA-like activities. In broad terms, these can be
localised according to politics, science, and public, showing the different emphasis
of country activities. Networks, TA agencies and offices, as well as academic
departments provide the spaces for TA-like efforts and frame these accordingly.
Yet despite this heterogeneity, the core of TA is visible throughout the different
national contexts: assessments of potential risks of emerging technologies, moving
towards more responsibility in research and development, addressing issues of public
trust and acceptance as well as STI governance. Furthermore, similarities can be
found regarding which technologies are the centre of attention: AI, digitalisation,
health- or biotechnologies. There seem to be common challenges accompanying
these technologies, even if there are specific national systems of dealing with them.
Regarding the processes of TA institutionalisation, the Country Reports show
that the realms of academia, research and science provide a fertile ground in which
expertise and methodological development can grow. Capacity building through
(academic) TA studies and international exchange is another important aspect
regarding potential institutional representation of TA. This in turn highlights the
importance of a networked and adaptable character of global TA, especially to support
countries with little or precarious TA-like activities in sustainable ways. As the history
of TA shows, its institutionalisation also depends on factors outside of its influence
and control (e.g., political commitment and key change agents). Therefore, the long-
term aim of actual institutionalisation may not be realistic in many countries, which
then implies that the efforts of the globalTA Network and specific bi-or multilateral
projects must be advanced.
The Shape of Global Technology Assessment 229
3 Models for a Global TA
The definition of TA that permeates the book is that developed by Bütschi et al.
(2004):
Technology assessment is a scientific, interactive, and communicative process that aims to
contribute to the formation of public and political opinion on societal aspects of science and
technology.
This definition clearly stipulates three key aspects for the development of TA:
research (i.e. scientific), participation (i.e. interactive), and impact (i.e. communica-
tive). Every approach to TA, regardless of the context in which it is to be found,
should reflect these three aspects. This refers to formal structures in TA, since types
of “informal TA” are also widely practised. These are practises that involve exclu-
sively the public sphere and the public debate on STI, not focusing on scientific
research, but rather on bottom-up grassroots public participation. As van Est and
Hennen point out in this volume, these types of TA require further reflection about
the extent to which there is an international or even global public sphere or debate.
Having this caveat in mind, we have attempted to summarise the ideas developed
in this book, in a typology of global TA that can take different key forms. We suggest
four possible models that TA can follow in order to achieve a global presence. Each
model includes a set of challenges and opportunities, as discussed i n the contributions
to this book.
Model 1: Internal Globalisation of Existing National TA Capacity
This concerns countries with existing TA capacity but limited to the specific context.
Like the nation-state and national public spheres, national TA has become a site of
globalisation. The observable development of national TA capacities and projects
being increasingly concerned with issues of global reach, can be called internal
globalisation. Based on the all-affected principle, globalisation forces national TA to
broaden its field of view. Internal globalisation can affect the scientific and techno-
logical developments to be studied, and the inclusion of groups world-wide which
are affected by those developments.
Such a model represents perhaps the easiest and most straightforward possibility
to implement a global approach to TA issues, as it can build on existing institutional
infrastructures. National TA capacities increase their awareness of the global nature
of issues they are dealing with and thus increase their capacities and motivation for
transnational TA cooperation. The argumentation for the need for global TA details
the existing interdependencies and global effects of STI developments (see Hennen
et al., introductory chapter, this volume). As such, there is an inherent need to perform
TA studies that go beyond the national state-of-the-art, even if they are only targeting
national audiences. This might in turn necessitate input from transnational sources
and implementation of methodologies at international level. This type of TA can be
described as “global” in the sense that it has a global perspective. It should be noted
that in the case of the European Union, the interdependencies between Members
States run so deep that it is virtually impossible to perform a “national” TA study
230 M. Ladikas et al.
without integrating the full aspect of multilateral governance represented by the EU,
a factor reflected in the foundation of EPTA in the 1990s.
Moreover, there is clear evidence that a sizeable part of the young generation
consider themselves to be citizens of the world, in a trend that is characterised as an
“internal globalisation of the public sphere” (see van Est & Hennen, this volume).
This trend alone would necessitate the development of a globalised national TA,
simply to make it relevant to the main preoccupations of the national citizenry.
Perhaps the most prominent example of such TA is the issue of climate change.
It is a truly global issue that is very salient for most people around the world, and
requires concerted national analysis and action. A TA study on STI-based resolutions
to climate change, will inevitably be global in scope.
Model 2: Strengthening National TA Capacities Across the World
This concerns countries with weak or non-existent TA capacity. Global TA can grow
by strengthening the TA capacity of developing countries across the world. Moreover,
although TA has been typically developed in democratic countries, strengthening TA
capacity in authoritarian states is also a route towards global TA.
This model represents an implicit acceptance of deep structural differences
between developed and developing countries in terms of STI development and public
debates on related issues. Such a view should be taken with caution; although we can
see clear gaps in STI education and output (see Ladikas and Stamm, this volume),
we tend to overlook the potential of distinctive systems of local STI development
and debate such as those involved in “frugal innovation” (see Srinivas and van Est,
this volume). It is therefore advisable to approach the issue of capacity building from
a mutual-learning perspective. There is no doubt that many (but not all) developed
countries have considerable experience in TA implementation, covering the whole
spectrum of methodologies, from the standard expert-based analysis to fully partici-
patory scrutiny. There is scope in providing information and training to countries that
do not have such experiences, in addition to providing advice on the possible institu-
tional location of TA. On the other hand, the typical TA in industrialised countries is
not geared to incorporating parameters that describe developing country constraints.
For instance, severe funding restrictions, policy dependencies from external actors,
or the role of international organisations and expert expatriate communities, are not
normally accounted for in TA. Such an expansion would require “reverse” capacity
building from developing to developed countries.
Another aspect that this model brings to the fore is that of political system differ-
ences amongst the various TA collaborating countries. This is an issue that has
been discussed extensively within global TA (see Hahn & Ladikas, 2019). A short
answer would argue for prescribed limitations on how “non-democratic” the country
requesting the implementation of TA is. What has been called the “TA Habitat” is a
vital feature for the development of any type of TA (Hennen & Nierling, 2015). It is
without doubt true that the concept of TA as it developed in the Western world “has
politics”, in the sense that its mission and self-understanding is closely tied to the
democratic values of scientific independence and open and inclusive public deliber-
ation of policy issues (Hennen & Ladikas, 2019). This encompasses the necessary
The Shape of Global Technology Assessment 231
preconditions for the implementation of TA, one of which is the possibility for an
open dialogue on STI issues. Regardless of the perceptions that exist for any regime
around the world, if it allows for a public dialogue, then TA can in principle grow
in it. Restrictions on the dialogue might exist, and they might even be related to the
standard norms of behaviour in the country (e.g. strong hierarchies), but as long as
they allow for the expression of honest views on the subject, they can be acceptable.
As such, the political limitations for the development of TA are demarcated, in the
sense that TA would at least develop niches of open debates within the public sphere.
Model 3: Institutional Networks Across Borders
To stimulate the internationalisation of TA, existing national TA institutes may
collaborate across borders on various TA-related topics. This so-called Institu-
tional Network option aims to establish an expert-and-participatory TA capability by
connecting an appropriate set of independent, non-partisan and non-profit organisa-
tions into an international network. Examples of existing networks are EPTA and the
globalTA Network. Cooperation between institutes may vary from bilateral cooper-
ation to cooperation on a global scale, like for example in the World Wide Views on
Global Warming4 (WWViews) project.
This model represents the existing “status quo” of global TA. EPTA is a loose
network of established parliamentary TA institutes, mainly from Europe but recently
also accepting non-European countries as associated members to the network. It
functions as an information exchange, by e.g. providing a searchable database with
TA reports developed by members, and also organizes an annual conference for
members, under the auspices of a rotating presidency of the network. EPTA is there-
fore a good example of how similar TA institutes can form an international network,
but this does not translate into common projects or standardisation of TA approaches.
So far, there has been only a limited number of TA projects under the auspices of
EPTA, since the network does not have its own research funds. However there have
been many European TA projects in recent decades (mainly funded by the Euro-
pean Commission) which would not have been established without the strong ties of
exchange that have been developed in the EPTA network (EuropTA, TAMI, GEST,
PAC ITA) .5
A similar structure is to be found in the globalTA Network. It is also a loose
network of TA institutes, with the difference that it intentionally covers the whole
world. It also requires that members formally accept a mission statement that clearly
describes TA as6 :
• dealing with technology and socio-technical developments
• interdisciplinary and multi-perspective
• policy-oriented (targeting political and societal addressees) and problem-oriented
(addressing real-world issues)
4 See http://wwviews.org.
5 See https://eptanetwork.org/database/projects?start=0.
6 For details, see https://globalta.technology-assessment.info/about-us.
232 M. Ladikas et al.
• neutral and independent (non-partisan, not funded by interest groups).
The mission statement also describes the aims of the network and the obligations
of its members. This represents a step towards the creation of a permanent structure
of engagement in the area of TA, but is still far from achieving it. As with EPTA,
the globalTA Network does not have its own funds to initiate TA projects at global
level, and it does not have a legal entity to apply for funds. There is no doubt that
the achievement of global TA via such networks will necessitate these steps. But one
should not underestimate the impact that EPTA and the globalTA network have on
promoting TA on the international stage. Without the existence of such international
networks, TA would not normally have the chance to transform its functions from
the national to the international level of analysis and policy advisory.
Model 4: Global TA Linked to a Global Decision-Making Body
National parliamentary TA organisations are often linked to a decision-making body,
like the parliament. This decision-making body option can also be implemented on
the global level, in particular with regard to UN institutes. In the field of global
warming, the IPCC is an example of this model.
This model of global TA represents a truly global structure with a global outreach.
It is the most ambitious of the four models and also the most challenging. We have
seen throughout this book that TA linked to a global decision-making body is not an
uncommon vision for the future of global TA. Two chapters have specifically used
the example of the IPCC as a case study for global TA (see Ashworth and Clarke,
Ladikas and Stamm, this volume). There are very good reasons for approaching a
possible structure of global TA from this perspective. Global TA deals with global STI
challenges and it is natural that it should be located as a global decision-making body.
But s imultaneously, TA practitioners should represent as many countries as possible
in order to allow for a fair and globally effective strategy or intervention. It is hard
to think of any other institutional structure that accommodates global representation
than the typical UN paradigm.
The challenges identified for such a possibility are many and significant. One that
is shared with any other institutional TA arrangement across the world, is its relation-
ship to policymaking. We are witnessing a great variety of policy locations in existing
TA institutions, from internal bureaus in the national legislative branch that are run by
policymakers and funded directly by public funds, to external STI advisories that are
self-regulated and self-funded. There are major pros and cons associated with each
institutional location, which have been extensively discussed (Decker & Ladikas,
2004). IPCC’s location is to be found between the two sides, whereby the strategy
and funding are a combination of governmental needs and scientific self-regulation.
An institution performing global TA could not be differently located than IPCC. TA
is by definition a consultative process to the policy making but should also have
certain freedom of action in order to provide independent analysis and advice. Such
freedom of action is not found elsewhere in the typical UN institutional system. As
such, IPCC offers indeed a pragmatic possibility.
The Shape of Global Technology Assessment 233
Another challenge is to be found in the scientific representation of a global
decision-making body. Here, a global TA would be faced with the inevitable imbal-
ance that exists between developed and developing countries in terms of scientific
education and output. A TA that is based on concrete peer-reviewed science is a TA
that would take the bulk of its input from very specific STI-intensive economies.
There are ways to influence this input imbalance, from activating expatriate scien-
tific communities to funding specific projects in countries with weak STI systems.
These are long-term processes that cannot be effective in creating immediate input,
but only a global institutional arrangement can deal with such challenges in the long
term.
Furthermore, a main challenge for such a model would be the manner in which
TA methodologies are implemented in different cultural contexts. This refers mainly
to participatory and interactive methods that are well-established in most Western
countries but have not yet been tried extensively in other cultures. Although it is
clear that public debates on STI issues are evident across the globe (see van Est &
Hennen, this volume), it is far from clear that participatory methodologies can be
applied equally well in every country. Cultural specificities, norms of behaviour and
political context, are some key elements that global TA must take into consideration.
This is particularly important for a TA that is closely located to a centralised global
decision-making structure. If TA is to provide the ground for consensual decision-
making, everyone must be content with the way it is applied in their national context.
This is a challenge, but also a unique opportunity to initiate global debates which are
both based on and promote global citizenship. Some of the (little) experience that
TA has accumulated in this area (see World Wide Views, above) is very promising
for the potential of globally implemented participatory methodologies.
4 Next Steps for the GlobalTA Network
Having discussed the various models that the global TA could follow, we provide
some insights as to the development of the network itself. Irrespective of the manner
in which TA can embrace multilateralism, there are certain steps inherent in its
development. Notwithstanding the achievement of having created a global network,
the next steps should involve:
The development of global projects; the practise of global TA can only be
attained by actually running TA projects which encompass at least the majority of the
Network membership. This means agreeing on common methodological approaches,
timelines and frameworks for results comparison. This is a very complex and expen-
sive process that so far has not been realised due to funding constraints. An alternative
could be a more modest comparative approach, using existing institutional funds. But
without this step, there can of course be no global TA approach.
Information exchange; a network is foremost a structure of information
exchange. Like EPTA, that lacks extensive project implementation but offers a plat-
form for extensive exchange of national project results, global TA could also develop
234 M. Ladikas et al.
its own information exchange platforms. Although a less demanding step than the
common project one above, it will still require dedicated staff for this purpose, and
internal funds.
Legal institutionalisation; as we have seen, there are different ways in which TA
has been institutionalised in different countries. The globalTA Network will require
a legal entity if it is to develop in a coherent TA practise group. This is far from
simple, as multilateral institutions require backing by national authorities in order to
become legal entities. But this is necessary in order for the Network to acquire the
capacity to bid for project funds, pay staff and be represented on the global stage.
Long-term funding; this is of course another necessary aspect for the globalTA
Network. One possibility is to follow the IPCC model and require an annual fee from
the institutes and scientists that comprise the network. In this manner, the network
can safeguard its independence and acquire a secretariat to ensure basic functions.
The role of the UN; as we have seen, UNCTAD is the UN organisation with a
remit to perform TA and outreach to the whole globe. It is evident that the globalTA
Network has a lot to gain by working with UNCTAD while the opposite is also true.
Such mutually beneficial relationships can be formalised with a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) that establishes a working relationship whereby the network
can run TA projects on behalf of UNCTAD.
Overall, there is significant potential for development in the globalTA Network.
How far this development can go depends not least on the necessity to have such a
network on the global STI stage. We believe that this is indeed the case. This book
is another step in developing the globalTA network, as it provides the conceptual
structure upon which the practise of global TA will be built. It is now time to make
the leap from theory to practise.
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