Arie Rip

The past and future of constructive technology assessment

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

Mapping the dynamics of science and technology : sociology of science in the real world

List of Figures - List of Tables - Acknowledgements - PART 1 INTRODUCTION - Introduction: How to Study the Force of Science M.Callon, J.Law and A.Rip - PART 2 THE POWER OF TEXTS IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - The Sociology of an Actor-Network: The Case of the Electric Vehicle M.Callon - Laboratories and Texts J.Law - Writing Science: Fact and Fiction: The Analysis of the Process of Reality Construction through the Application of Socio-Semiotic Methods to Scientific Texts B.Latour and F.Bastide - The Heterogeneity of Texts J.Law - Mobilising Resources through Texts A.Rip - PART 3 MAPPING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Qualitative Scientometrics M.Callon, A.Rip and J.Law - Aquaculture: A Field by Bureaucratic Fiat S.Bauin - State Intervention in Academic and Industrial Research: The Case of Macromolecular Chemistry in France W.Turner and M.Callon - Pinpointing Industrial Invention: An Exploration of Quantitative Methods for the Analysis of Patents M.Callon - Technical Issues and Developments in Methodology J-P.Courtial - Future Developments M.Callon, J-P.Courtial and W.Turner - PART 4 CONCLUSIONS - Putting Texts in their Place M.Callon, J.Law and A.Rip - Glossary - Bibliography - Index

Managing technology in society : the approach of constructive technology assessment

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

Co-word maps of biotechnology: an example of cognitive scientometrics

To analyse developments of scientific fields, scientometrics provides useful tools, provided one is prepared to take the content of scientific articles into account. Such cognitive scientometrics is illustrated by using as data a ten-year period of articles from a biotechnology core journal. After coding with key-words, the relations between articles are brought out by co-word analysis. Maps of the field are given, showing connections between areas and their change over time, and with respect to the institutions in which research is performed. In addition, other approaches are explored, including an indicator of ‘theoretical level’ of bodies of articles.

Technological agglomeration and the emergence of clusters and networks in nanotechnology

Research and development at the nanoscale requires a large degree of integration, from convergence of research disciplines in new fields of enquiry to new linkages between start-ups, regional actors and research facilities. Based on the analysis of two clusters in nanotechnologies (MESA+ (Twente) and other centres in The Netherlands and Minatec in Grenoble in France), the paper discusses the phenomenon of technological agglomeration: co-located scientific and technological fields associated to coordinated technology platforms to some extent actively shaped by institutional entrepreneurs. Such co-location and coordination are probably a prerequisite for the emergence of strong nanoclusters. For more informations: http://www.nanoeconomics.eu/

Folk Theories of Nanotechnologists

The world of nanotechnology is full of folk theories. Actors attempt to capture patterns in what is happening and be reflexive about them, so as to do better the next time. A clear example is the diagnosis of an impasse in agro-food GM technologies, coupled to statements about the need to avoid such impasses with nanotechnology. Since there is a claim that such patterns will recur (if we don’t change our ways), there is generalization, so one can speak of a theory—here about public reactions to new technology. Calling it a folk theory implies that it evolves in ongoing practices, and serves the purposes of the members of the various practices. In this example, these would be nanotechnologists, policy makers for nanotechnology, other scientists and technologists, science watchers and commentators. What characterizes folk theories is that they provide orientation for future action. There is a large and growing literature on folk sciences. For example, Douglas and Atran (1999) depict forms of ‘folk biology’ as commonly accepted taxonomic categorizations of ecological systems (see also Atran, 1998). In the same way, ‘folk physics’ and ‘folk chemistry’ describe taken-for-granted categorizations and terminology that explain the physical, natural and chemical world and help orient actors (Heintz et al., 2007 forthcoming). Just as there is folk physics and folk psychology, there is also folk sociology. It is part and parcel of the repertoires of everyday life. Elements of folk sociology can be articulated as such, and serve as folk theory. Folk theories can be more or less explicit; this also depends on whether or not they are challenged. They are a form of expectations, based in some experience, but not necessarily systematically checked. Their robustness derives from their being generally accepted, and thus part of a repertoire current in a group or in our culture more generally (Swidler, 1986; Rip and Talma, 1998). While ways to acquire knowledge about the social world are not principally different for such folk theories and for social science because actors as well as analysts attempt to capture patterns in what is happening, actors tend to short-circuit their analysis so as to serve their action perspective. They may then remain captured by their own folk theory: it colours their views of the world, and they interpret whatever they encounter in terms of this theory. In that sense, folk theories are conservative. They become cognitive Science as Culture Vol. 15, No. 4, 349–365, December 2006

Introduction of New Technology; Making Use of Recent Insights from Sociology and Economics of Technology

Retrospective studies have shown the non-linear and situated character of technological developments; the importance of articulation of demand and of acceptability, and how these are part of large socio-technical transformations; and how technical nd socio-technical alogment activities occur and are consciously shaped by ‘macro-actors’. These insights are transformed into thirteen suggestions for successful introduction of new technology.

The republic of science in the 1990s

SummaryResearch councils began as channels for state patronage of science (a widespread phenomenon after World War II) and were captured by the scientists: peer review of proposals, panels, board membership. In this way, they became an important organ of the ‘Republic of Science’ (Michael Polanyis concept). Being awarded a grant is now as important for the reputation or status of a scientist as the money value per se: research councils have become part of the reward system of science. Credibility-cycle analysis (Latour and Woolgar) is used to show this; and then applied to the research council itself, between the State and the national scientific community. Current concerns about proposal success rates and conservatism are analysed in terms of dynamics of this research world. This sociological approach to research councils allows analysis of changes in the reward system of science (where ‘relevance’ is becoming an accepted criterion world-wide) and of the complex environment of research councils, where many actors now compete for the intermediary role. Research councils must also become entrepreneurial-or become obsolete.

Regional Innovation Systems and the Advent of Strategic Science

While regional innovation systems are, to some extent, an artefact of regional administration and mimesis, there are also clear proximity and agglomeration dynamics. A third type of dynamic at play derives from uptake of knowledge production, regional role of universities etc. The advent of strategic science, with its double emphasis on relevance (including local relevance) and global competition, creates pressures on universities which want to play a regional role as well. The University of Twente, in The Netherlands, is an example. Its evolution shows that the regional function leans heavily on institutional differentiations like outreach units, while strategic science is taken up in new outward looking, problem-solving centres, not necessarily directed towards the region. The immediate moral is that universities can play a role in managing the tension between local (regional) and global, but the tensions will return internally. The general moral is that the changes in knowledge production (whether labeled as strategic science or Mode 2 or whatever) have to be taken into account in regional innovation systems. This might also help to avoid a short-sighted focus on wealth creation.

A cognitive approach to relevance of science

The Starnberg finalization thesis offered a cognitive diagnosis of the relevance of science. With the present changes in science and its links with society, this remains important, but needs to be broadened. Relevance occurred and continues to occur locally, and can be taken up in local—cosmopolitan fields (my broadened definition of scientific fields). Chemistry is discussed as an example. The possibility of intrinsic relevance has been obliterated by the historical process of “purification” of science, including what is now called strategic science. While the pressure for relevance can lead to fragmentation, this is not necessary. A diagnosis of socio-cognitive dynamics must be made. Quality assurance resides in circulation, aggregation and robustness of outcomes.