The eighth conference of the TA Network (NTA8) was organized by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI and took place at the “Südwerk” Community Center in Karlsruhe from November 7-8, 2018. The theme of the conference was “Societal transformations: Research object or mission of technology assessment?”
“Südwerk” Community Center, Henriette-Obermüller-Straße 10, 76137 Karlsruhe
November 07, 2018 - November 08, 2018
The TA Network (NTA) had issued an invitation to discuss the topic “Societal transformations” in Karlsruhe from November 7-8, 2018. The term “transformation” describes the profound restructuring of social structures and behavioral patterns. These include, for example, changes in the areas of energy, transport, production and agriculture that are aimed at ecological, economic and social sustainability. But also technology- and market-driven transformative processes are called transformations, here, for instance, the digitalization of the economy and society is intensively discussed.
Such transformations are characterized by their cross-cutting nature, their multi-dimensionality, their sector-spanning dependencies, long time horizons as well as the far-reaching consequences of intervention for individuals and for society as a whole. Therefore, transformation processes can also be the research object of technology assessment (TA): TA’s understanding of itself is to generate orientation knowledge about the opportunities, risks and consequences of changes as well as to reflect on the social acceptability of the resulting socio-technical developments.
In addition to the predominantly analytical, distanced research, which primarily serves to advise political decision-makers, there are additional questions and fields of activity for TA: What role has the relationship to overarching transformations played in TA so far? How can and should TA contribute to the active co-shaping of transformative governance? To what extent should TA adopt normative objectives and simultaneously exploit its critical potential for reflection?
With its diverse program, the NTA8 conference provided an opportunity to discuss these and other questions concerning the relationship between TA and societal transformation processes and to explore them more deeply based on good-practice examples. In addition to determining the disciplinary position, this also concerned the possibilities and limits of technology assessment in societal transformations. There is a review of the NTA8 on the open TA website in the “NTA8 Splitter” by Ulrich Riehm (in German). The abstracts of the NTA8 contributions are available in the volume of abstracts. The call for papers can be downloaded in German and English.
On November 6, 2018, the day before the NTA8, the 7th openTA Workshop and the annual meeting of the TA Network took place. The venue was Fraunhofer ISI.
Selected conference papers were published in a volume of the series “Society - Technology - Environment”. The conference proceedings (in German) “Gesellschaftliche Transformationen: Gegenstand oder Aufgabe der Technikfolgenabschätzung?” edited by Ralf Lindner, Michael Decker, Elisabeth Ehrensperger, Nils B. Heyen, Stephan Lingner, Constanze Scherz and Mahshid Sotoudeh, was published by Nomos Verlag in January 2021.
With papers by Fabian Adelt, Marius Albiez, Annika Arnold, Walaa Bashary, Anja Bauer, Richard Beecroft, Alexander Bogner, Stefan Böschen, Tanja Bratan, Simone Colombo, Michael Decker, Rico Defila, Antonietta Di Giulio, Marion Dreyer, Elisabeth Ehrensperger, Philipp Ellett, Lorenz Erdmann, Ali Abdelshafy Ezzat, Erik Fisher, Michael Friedewald, Livia Fritz, Daniela Fuchs, Maryegli Fuss, Armin Grunwald, Niklas Gudowsky, Kristin Hagen, Simeon Hassemer, Alexandra Hausstein, Nils B. Heyen, Diego Iván Hidalgo Rodriguez, Peter Hocke, Florian Hoffmann, Sebastian Hoffmann, Michael Jonas, Dorothee Keppler, Jeanette Klink-Lehmann, Hannah Kosow, Cordula Kropp, Sophie Kuppler, Bastian Lange, Wolfgang Liebert, Ralf Lindner, Stephan Lingner, Andreas Lösch, Maria Maia, Martin Nicholas, Melanie Mbah, Franziska Meinherz, Rolf Meyer, Johanna Myrzik, Lisa Nabitz, Linda Nierling, Oliver Parodi, Witold-Roger Poganietz, Carmen Priefer, Filippo Reale, Ernst Dieter Rossmann, André Schaffrin, Dirk Scheer, Constanze Scherz, Jan Cornelius Schmidt, Maike Schmidt, Flurina Schneider, Andreas Seebacher, Astrid Segert, Mahshid Sotoudeh, Helge Torgersen, Ulrich Ufer, Karsten Weber, Matthias Weber and Johannes Weyer.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI analyzes the origins and impacts of innovations. We research the short- and long-term developments of innovation processes and the impacts of new technologies and services on society. On this basis, we are able to provide our clients from industry, politics and science with recommendations for action and perspectives for key decisions. Our expertise is founded on our scientific competence as well as an interdisciplinary and systemic research approach.
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI