Thomas J. Misa

Arie Rip

J. W. Schot

"A fateful conceptual gap separates the policy makers and managers charged with promoting technology, and the risk and technology assessors responsible for controlling it. This hampers the effective use of many new technologies, and prevents the development of others. The strategy of constructive technology assessment (CTA) addresses this gap through facilitating societal learning processes, and proposing a shared responsibility for the promotion and control of new technologies." "Combining analysis of both cases and concepts, Managing Technology in Society confronts the underdevelopment of innovative potential for achieving goals of wealth, sustainability and safety. Factors that block change, as well as conditions for successful learning are identified in a wide-ranging selection of cases that encompass biotechnology, clean technologies, information and medical technologies. The contributors build on the convergence of recent theories on technical change within economics, sociology and the history of technology, to offer suggestions for CTA action, and so create a new paradigm of managing technology in society."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Approach of Constructive Technology Assessment

Managing Technology in Society

Longer-term developments shape the present and endogenous futures of institutions and practices of science and technology in society and their governance. Understanding the patterns allows diagnosis and soft intervention, often linked to scenario exercises. The book collects six articles offering key examples of this perspective, addressing ongoing issues in the governance of science and technology, including nanotechnology and responsible research and innovation. And adds two more articles that address background philosophical issues.

Futures of Science and Technology in Society

Peter Healey

John Ziman

Susan E. Cozzens

On a mountainside in sunny Tuscany, in October 1989, 96 people from 23 countries on five continents gathered to learn and teach about the problems of managing contemporary science. The diversity of economic and political systems represented in the group was matched by our occupations, which stretched from science policy practitioners, through research scientists and engineers, through academic observers of science and science policy. It was this diversity, along with the opportunities for infonnal discussion provided by long meals and remote location, that made the conference a special learning experience. Except at lecture time, it was impossible to distinguish the "students" at this event from the "teachers," and even the most senior members of the teaching staff went away with a sense that they had learned more from this group than from many a standard conference on science policy they had attended. The flavor of the conference experience cannot be captured adequately in a proceedings volume, and so we have not tried to create a historical record in this book. Instead, we have attempted to illustrate the core problems the panicipants at the conference shared, discussed, and debated, using both lectures delivered by the fonnal teaching staff and summaries of panel discussions, which extended to other panicipants and therefore increased the range of experiences reponed.

Arie Rip

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