Towards a global Technology Assessment – Implications, challenges and limits

Abstract

Across different countries we find science and technology (S&T) strategies integrally linked to societal well-being and progress in diverse ways. This shows in S&T priority and agenda settings of national governments, which often link advancements in S&T to social needs and expectations of citizens. Understanding these connections between priorities and societal needs and how they are situated in a global context is in turn highly relevant in order to better align these societal needs and expectations, S&T developments and policy measures towards addressing (global) challenges. An array of terms make this connection, ranging from Responsible Research and Innovation (von Schomberg 2013), often referred to in the European context, to aspects of accessibility and equity, as used in the Indian setting (Chaturvedi et al. 2015), or Sustainable Development and its goals as suggested on an international scale on the level of the United Nations75. Technological developments such as digitalization have wide implications for many areas of society and people’s lives across different countries. Expectations regarding changing working conditions or how and which data is collected should be taken into account when shaping and framing the advancement of digital technologies. This in turn requires assessment as well as their contextualization. As technologies become increasingly global in scope and effect and globalization tendencies are supported and determined by S&T developments, ways of shaping these according to specific national and cultural contexts should be explored. At the same time, the simultaneity of these developments calls for wider strategies with explicitly global perspectives in order to better grasp and ideally shape these worldwide tendencies. The following text aims to discuss the role Technology Assessment (TA), as a fairly established Western approach, can play regarding the issues raised above. The assumption is that TA, if widened beyond its previously mainly national focus, can be a useful approach to take on assessments on a global 1