Ulrike Bechtold

Futures of ageing and technology – comparing different actors’ prospective views

ABSTRACTAmbient and assistive technologies (AT) have the potential to increase individual autonomy, social participation and quality of life for ageing populations. In seeking to implement these technologies, national and supranational funding schemes have strongly supported primarily market-driven research activities. This means that other societally relevant aspects, such as specific social and cultural contexts, are likely to be underestimated if not neglected. In view of the development of RI, this would be a serious misconception. We examine three recent participatory forward-looking technology assessment studies that involved experts, stakeholders and laypersons in discussions about the future of ageing and AT, and identify the diverse futures they imagine. We show different ways an ageing society of the future can be pictured, and contribute to the discourse on European demographic change as a Grand Challenge. In the light of RI, this diversity of imagined futures underlines the finding that answer...

Imagining socio-technical futures – challenges and opportunities for technology assessment

ABSTRACTAn increasing orientation of technology assessment (TA) and adjacent fields toward future socio-technological developments is leading scholars to examine, assess and adapt different approaches of future studies on various levels. In this special issue of the Journal of Responsible Innovation, a number of members of the extended TA community in Europe seek to advance different approaches to handling the unpredictable, to consider various possible socio-technical futures and to explore a more active role in technology design and shaping of the future as required by concepts such as responsible innovation (RI) or responsible research and innovation (RRI). The three German words ‘Zukunft Macht Technik’ (the title of a TA conference in Vienna in 2015) make a nice little pun in German: they can either be interpreted as the short sentence ‘Future shapes technology’ or as the assembly of the three nouns ‘future power technology.’ Both readings are borne in mind in this special issue. A main insight of thi...

Acht aktuelle Themen mit hoher parlamentarischer Relevanz und großer Reichweite im Parlament (Ergänzender Bericht zum Projekt F&TA)

Hrsg.: Institut fur Technikfolgen-Abschatzung (ITA) der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (OAW) & AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Innovation Systems Department Projektleitung der Studie: Michael Nentwich (ITA) und Petra Schaper-Rinkel (AIT) AutorInnen: Peter Biegelbauer (AIT), Josef Frohlich (AIT), Michael Nentwich (ITA), Walter Peissl (ITA), Petra Schaper-Rinkel (AIT), Ulrike Bechtold (ITA), Klaus Kubecko (AIT), Michael Ornetzeder (ITA) Koordination des Projekts F&TA: Michael Nentwich (ITA) und Josef Frohlich (AIT)

World-Wide Views on Global Warming Austria – Ein Prozess Partizipativer Technikfolgenabschätzung am Beispiel Globaler Erwärmung – Endbericht

Der Klimawandel weist neue Problemqualitaten wie Globalitat, Ursache-Wirkungsentkoppelung, Dringlichkeit, Unsicherheit und Komplexitat auf, die nicht nur die Wissenschaft sondern auch die Politik vor grose Herausforderungen stellen. Vor diesem Hintergrund gewinnen weltweite Verhandlungsprozesse an Bedeutung, denn globale Herausforderungen erfordern globales Entscheiden. Dies bedeutet auch die Entwicklung neuer Kommunikationsstrategien, Meinungsbildungsverfahren und Entscheidungswege, wozu das Projekt World Wide Views on Global Warming (kurz: WWViews) einen Beitrag geleistet hat.

Participatory assessment of sustainable end-user technology in Austria

This paper reports on experiences using a participative technology assessment (pTA) approach to discuss and evaluate research and development goals for sustainable energy technology in Austria. In a two-day Future Search & Assessment conference in November 2007, 36 per representative quota selected laypeople discussed the future of energy research in Austria on two different levels: general visions of sustainability as well as deduced short-term aspects regarding the present end-user related energy research agenda. The strategy chosen consists of a well-balanced mix of focus groups, plenary sessions, expert inputs, and moderated working groups. The five topics discussed in the laypeople’s conference were: micro combined heat and power (micro-CHP), new system solutions and avoidance strategies, smart metering and ‘intelligent’ end user equipment, innovative contracting and leasing models, and visualization and monitoring devices. We aim to show that pTA can contribute twofold to technical innovation: Firstly, it can contribute to the social robustness of the underlying strategies and scenarios of relevant research programmes; and secondly, the research topics that directly refer to the end-users can be critically evaluated in terms of social acceptability and user friendliness. Moreover the chosen approach serves as a platform to discuss long-term energy policies as well as practical consequences.