‘Can we get technology to do what we want and can we avoid its unwelcome consequences?’

“Ask technologists to build gadgets which explode with enormous power (atomic bomb) or to get men to the moon (Apollo program), and success can be expected. But ask them to get food for the poor or anything else where the technologic hardware can fulfil its function only through interaction with people and their societies, and success is far from guaranteed.”

David Collingridge, who is quoted above, saw that technology often has unanticipated social consequences which are not welcome. In his book, The Social Control of Technology, published in 1980, he sets out to address this problem: how can we get the technology we want without also having to bear the costs of unexpected social consequences? Or, to put it another way, how can we control technology in a better way than now? His book was written almost 35 years ago when microelectronics was in its infancy and lots of people were very worried about its effect on employment.

A central problem concerning this issue is what Collingridge called ‘the dilemma of control’, that following the publication of his book, has become known as the Collingridge Dilemma. To avoid any harmful social consequences of a technology, you first have to know what they are and secondly, have the means to change the technology to avoid these consequences.

In the very early stages of development, it is relatively easy to change a technology: its rate of development can be reduced or stimulated, it can be surrounded by all kinds of controls or it can be banned altogether. The problem is that in these early stages it is very difficult or even impossible to predict the social consequences, at least with sufficient reliability to justify the control measures.

By the time the technology is well developed and diffused and its unwanted social consequences become clear, it is no longer easily controlled. As society has slowly adjusted to the new technology, a major change in the technology itself or its applications will require changes in other, related technologies and in social and economic institutions. Or, as Collingridge put it himself:

“When change is easy, the need for it cannot be foreseen; when the need for change is apparent, change has become expensive, difficult and time consuming.”

Rinie van Est, Rathenau Instituut:

“The Collingridge Dilemma is still topical in thinking about governance of technology, but I have always had problems with the concept. In our rapidly changing society – partly induced by technology – uncertainty is a key factor. Zigmund Bauman speaks of ‘liquid modernity’. What Collingridge describes is no dilemma for me, but rather a fundamental characteristic of our techno-human condition. The (constant) uncertainty ensures that the possibilities to manage technology are limited.”

Text: Joost van Kasteren

Photo: iStockphoto

How can we overcome the challenges related to health and wellbeing posed by demographic changes all over Europe? How can we provide safe societies for citizens? Or food security, sustainable agriculture, smart transport, clean energy? These are just some of the societal challenges in Europe that Horizon2020 will be addressing in the coming years.

‘We need a new vision for European research and innovation in a dramatically changed economic environment.’ Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science.

Since 1984, the European Union has organized its research and innovation efforts in Framework Programmes. It has sought cooperation between different types of actors and supported the entire process from basic science to innovation through to implementation in society. Lars Klüver, Director of the Danish Board of Technology Foundation, has been involved in EU-funded projects for many years and has seen this trend of involvement evolve: “The focus has slowly moved from new technology to finding solutions to societal challenges. This shift started with the Fifth Framework Programme, but has got real momentum in Horizon2020.”

“Simultaneously we see increased interest for engaging different actors in the research. It started with small and medium sized enterprises and civil society organizations in the last Framework Programmes but in Horizon 2020 the involvement goes further,” reports Klüver. “Several calls encourage the direct involvement of citizens, users and stakeholders. Seeing how societal challenges demand a broad knowledge base and support from citizens, this involvement seems only natural”.

This is not unfamiliar territory for technology assessment professionals. Through three example projects – public health genomics, the future of ageing, and sustainable consumption – the PACITA project has started looking at the grand challenges of Europe and the example projects have shown the importance of involvement of different actors. With experts, stakeholders and citizens playing a role, technology assessment can be one way of dealing with these challenges. There are many possibilities for TA-projects to get funding through Horizon2020, believes Klüver, especially for those institutions that involve citizens and civil society in their work.

PACITA has a long-term goal of strengthening the basis for technology assessment (TA) in Europe, both on a structural and methodological basis. Klüver is convinced that the Commission sees the value in a project like PACITA, and recognizes that it takes time to implement this work into ‘real life’. “We do hope there will be opportunities to continue this work in one form or another through Horizon2020. Looking at the intentions of Horizon 2020, one could say that a natural development would be to strengthen the field of technology assessment all over Europe. Technology Assessment has always strived to identify solutions and maneuvers that are robust for society – both technologically and politically.”

Read More?
The latest information on projects and partners: http://horizon2020projects.com
The European Commission’s home page on the Framework with links to other Commission departments: http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/

Text: Marianne Barland

Photo: iStockphoto

Before the UN COP11 Convention on Biodiversity held in Hyderabad, India in October 2012, 3,000 people from countries as diverse as Canada, Bolivia, Uganda and the Philippines participated in day-long meetings which started at 9 a.m. in Japan and ended 25 hours later in Arizona, U.S.A. They deliberated and voted on a wide range of biodiversity-related topics, such as the protection of coral reefs, meat consumption, and overfishing. The participants showed a great interest in biodiversity, and indicated that involving them in the decision-making process had given them a feeling of  ownership in the decisions.

Results from the deliberations were bundled in a report that was handed to the Executive Secretary of the UN Secretariat for Biodiversity. The outcome of voting showed that there was strong, worldwide, public support for taking further political action to stop the decline in biodiversity. There were some differences in emphasis from country to country, but not between continents.

The WWViews1 Project citizen consultation contributed in an important way to the UN COP11 Convention on Biodiversity. Recorded in the final decision of the meeting is a call on all countries to support projects such as WWViews on Biodiversity. This is a resounding triumph for the WWViews method.

‘Consulting citizens from all over the world gives a stronger foundation for making political decisions’

The thinking behind WWViews is that societal problems cannot be tackled by decision-makers alone. Because of their global scale, they are complex and often require more than policy alone to solve them. Solutions to worldwide problems such as the decline in biodiversity and the need to reduce fossil fuel use must come from the broad base as well as the narrow top, and methods such as deliberative democracy enable decision-makers, experts, stakeholders and citizens to work together.

In times of crisis, politicians can seem inattentive to citizens’ views. Yet making decisions in the absence of citizen support, however fast or ‘efficient’ it seems, leads to long-term problems if people feel their views are not recognized in the outcome. Time ‘saved’ is thus often time wasted because at some point there will be a demand for a decision to be revised. For long-term success, citizens can be made to accept decisions through being involved, even if those decisions are difficult or unpleasant ones.

Professor Birgit Jaeger at the Department of Society and Globalisation at the RUC-Roskilde University in Denmark has monitored several events where policy is developed through citizen deliberation processes via the WWViews method. She is very positive about the World Wide Views Alliance in itself, which falls under the responsibility of the Danish Board of Technology and is connected with UN COP meetings. She suggests that it is perhaps an even more important phenomenon than the results of the meetings. With the UN giving World Wide Views its seal of approval, it has created a channel for citizens’ voices to merge into the decision-making process and created a platform ready to respond on many subjects on the UN agenda. The UN can directly tap into the opinion of people worldwide when it needs to.

Read More?
Partners interested in organizing citizen consultation are invited to get in touch with WWViews coordinator Bjorn Bedsted. The DBT are now fundraising, on behalf of the World Wide Views Alliance, WWViews2 on Biodiversity 2014 leading up to COP12 in Korea.
www.wwviews.org

Text: Jorgen Madsen

What are the new, emerging topics that matter to European citizens? How can policy makers ensure future research and development agendas in Europe address these concerns? The CIVISTI project consulted citizens from seven European countries to uncover their visions for the future.

‘I hadn’t expected such a commitment to the future and such a commitment to the evaluation of that future’. CIVISTI participant.

When the European Commission wanted input into their long-term science, technology and innovation policies, they came up with a new and experimental approach. In the CIVISTI project, citizens in Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Malta, Bulgaria, and Hungary were consulted to find out what they thought about the future. Since decision making often happens over a long-term basis, it can be difficult to combine knowledge from both citizens and experts to support such processes. The CIVISTI project marked a new and exciting methodological approach – ‘participatory foresight’.

In CIVISTI, citizens acted as consultants, hired to help European decision makers prepare the next research program, Horizon 2020. They had an important role to play: defining relevant areas for research would often gain from the consultation of citizens. Citizens have expectations and concerns about the future that can be transformed into relevant research and policy agendas. This is just what happened through CIVISTI.

Citizen panels were organized in seven European countries. The first step in the project was for these panels to formulate their visions of the future. These covered a broad range of topics, including ageing, agriculture, democracy, energy and education. In total, the citizen panels produced 69 visions. Experts and stakeholders then analyzed these visions and transformed them into policy agendas for European research. In the third and final step, the citizens validated and prioritized the recommendations formulated by the experts. In the end, 30 recommendations were made from the 69 visions. Of the citizens’ top ten, ‘attractive public transport’ ended up as number one.

The CIVISTI method was repeated in Austria after the original CIVISTI project was over. Mahshid Sotoudeh works at the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences that was one of the CIVISTI partners. She used the CIVISTI method during an internship at ITA for the ‘Rio +20’ project where a group of students, aged 16-18 years old, expressed their visions, fears and hopes for a sustainable future. Their ‘Newsletter from the Future’ painted a picture of how today’s research efforts can create a more sustainable world and which research topics need to be addressed. Later that year, they received a ‘Creativity Prize’ from the Federal Ministry for Science and Research in Vienna for their work, the jury highlighting their optimism and the creativity of their text.

The CIVISTI project started out with a ‘learning-by-doing’ attitude. Giving citizens a voice in an area usually dominated by experts – the creation of research policy – had never been done in this way before. But it proved to be most successful. The project received positive feedback from citizens and experts as well as academia and decision makers.

Text: Marianne Barland.

Illustration: iStockphoto.

Norway, Europe and China are all facing the same issue. By 2035, there will be twice as many people as there are now above the age of 80. The ageing population will cause an increase in the need for care services, while the availability of caregivers will be increasingly scarce. It’s a double challenge which exposes a huge gap between the technological possibilities that might help and the lack of awareness in politics and the health sector itself.

With this in mind, The Norwegian Board of Technology (NBT) started their project The Future of Ageing in 2008.

At the time, the competence in care technology was low and the need for innovative care sector policies high. Despite the projected future growth of the older population, it did not seem to be a political priority. Technology, often seen as something cold and alien, was frowned upon; surely what the aging population needed was traditional care and ‘warm hands’.

To get an overview of the available technology and the needs of the different interest groups, the NBT put together a diverse expert group. Among its members were an alderman, an occupational therapist, the leader of the senior council and several technologists.

With the expert group in place, the NBT invited different stakeholders to three scenario workshops. The workshops had three different personas as the starting point, and the participants discussed their options in different future scenarios. The questions discussed were: How can the health services transform with new technology? Can smart houses create the required safety in the home so that seniors can live there longer? When is GPS tracking of dementia patients necessary? Can body sensors in daily use provide better treatment and monitoring for those who live at home?

‘I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don't have to.’ Albert Einstein

The workshops were designed for three different types of actors: in Oslo, seniors, relatives and people with a minority background met. In Tromsø, the hometown of the Centre for Integrated Care and Telemedicine, the participants were mostly researchers and technologists. In Lyngør, an area characterized by many small municipalities, there were participants from local politics and the health care system.

Combining two TA methods —the expert group and scenario workshop— was successful in several ways. While there are many actors in the field, they rarely meet. Creating an area for them to meet and discuss the challenges ahead can help in closing the gap, both for themselves and the NBT.

These meetings also gave a good overview of the field and identified the issues stakeholders find important. The work in the expert group led to a final report that was presented at an open meeting at Parliament. This report, and presentations of the project all over Norway, has had an impact on work in the standing committees, white papers and governmental policy. The work contributed to raising the issue and framing the policy field.

Read more?

Value Ageing ITA Institute of Technology Austria
www.oeaw.ac.at

The Nordic Innovation Network for Welfare Technology
www.welfareinnovation.net

MATCH Mobilising advanced technologies for Care at Home
www.match-project.org.uk

Text: Adele Flakke Johannessen and Marianne Barland

Photo: Ellen Lande Gosner

When Technology Assessment began in the 1970s in the United States, its mandate was straightforward: to provide expertise to Congress. But over time, European organizations have taken on different roles in different countries. Why is that?

‘There is much that the founders of technology assessment in the United States might learn from their progeny’

©iStockphoto

In the early eighties, a number of European countries also established TA agencies. The idea behind them was initially clear. “Problems such as regulating the telecommunications industry, controlling air pollution, choosing military weapons systems, or constructing a national health care policy demand more expertise that can be asked of even the best educated and most attentive citizenry or most specialized representatives”, wrote Bruce Bimber, then an assistant professor of political sciences at the University of California in his 1996 book The Politics of Expertise in Congress.

For the French, who founded the first European TA committee in 1983, TA was first and foremost a political tool, designed to inform and enlighten parliament. TA organisations established later, especially those in Denmark and the Netherlands (both from 1986), had an additional task: stimulating debate in society.

Double role
Many scholars theorize that the decision to give those newer TA organisations a double role was a reflection of the predominant political cultures. Denmark and the Netherlands typically have coalition governments, which are accompanied by more public debate and more compromise-seeking. In Denmark, a pragmatic type of egalitarianism permeates society. In these countries, TA would help to establish a public technology debate and create a public bedrock of knowledge and opinions to make political decisions on.

Other TA organisations founded in the late eighties and early nineties, like the British POST (founded in 1989) and German TAB (in 1990) have a mandate more similar to the American and French TA organisations – they have primarily been set up to inform parliamentarians and other politicians. The political culture of those countries is – according to Vig and Paschen – more ‘elitist’. There is no one model in Europe; when incorporating scientific and technical expertise, each country has its own policy making style.

Yet the role of European TA is focused. Europe stated in the Lisbon Strategy that it wants to become a global leader in the field of innovation and TA could play an integral part in managing that process. There are now 18 organizations in the European Parliamentary Technology Assessment Network set up in 1990 and members of the European Technology Assessment Group provide TA studies for the European Parliamentary body STOA (Science and Technology Options Assessment).

Their role could become even more prominent as the need for independent assessment grows. In investigating the delicate balance between scientific exploration and safe societal benefits, the work of these TA organizations reaches far beyond European borders.
 

Text: Philip Dröge.

Academic excellence and wide-reaching research was not enough to save the world’s first Technology Assessment organisation in the United States. Can support from scientists and citizens spark a revival?

Most members of Congress avoid science at all costs / Rush Holt, Wired 2009

T- shirt created and worn by some staff of the OTA to express their sentiments about the intent of the 104th Congress to terminate their service.

The first Technology Assessment organisation inhistory was the US Congress’ Office of TechnologyAssessment (OTA). Set up in 1972, this pioneeringinstitution lasted for 23 years before its abruptclosure in 1995. Calls for its revival have mounted inthe last years, and have come from a diverse rangeof parties – from Wired magazine through to theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

“OTA provided Congress with in-depth technicalassessments to support congressional decisionmaking” explained Laura H. Kahn in 2007 in theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “By estimatingthe economic, social, and environmental impacts oftechnological advancements, it was known for itsimpartial advice and analysis. OTA published upto 55 reports each year and its work was diverse,evaluating everything from health-care technology toagricultural needs. Nothing has come close to fillingits mandate since.”

“In clear and simple language, supported byattractive illustrations”, noted Professor M. GrangerMorgan, head of the Department of Engineering andPublic Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, in thePittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1995, “they summarizedthe technical facts, identified problems, laid outalternatives, and discussed their pros and cons.”

Bestsellers

The reports produced by some 200 OTA staffmembers were often bestsellers at the GovernmentPrinting Office.“OTA reports usually gave alternativesmatched to different goals Congress might want toachieve” stated Scientific American in 2005. “Insteadof watering down recommendations to achieve aconsensus, as is the custom of many blue-ribbon panels,the OTA deliberately sought out conflicting viewpoints.Often people on both sides of an issue would citethe same report during debate.” OTA reports werewidely respected for incorporating different points ofview, while maintaining academic quality standards.The OTA’s structures and methodologies fosteredobjectivity, non-partisanship and public participation.Its governing board had equal representation fromboth political parties. It was also guided by anadvisory council of 10 eminent citizens from industry,academia and elsewhere. On top of that, for each studyit undertook, OTA assembled an advisory panel of stakeholders and experts.

In spite of wide support, OTA closed suddenly in1995 – ‘de-funded’ during the ‘republican revolution’in the House of Representatives led by Speaker NewtGingrich. The reason given was cost-cutting, but theinstitutional spend of under $30 million a year was atrifle in comparison to the quality and quantity of its output.

Even today, OTA’s legacy is kept alive. BothPrinceton University and the Federation of AmericanScientists maintain websites and in July 2011, RushHolt, New Jersey’s Representative in the House ofRepresentatives, tried to get the US legislature tore-open the organisation on a modest basis. WhileHolt’s motion was voted down, it seems fair topredict that history hasn’t closed the books on theOTA quite yet.