Armin Grunwald - Technology Assessment in Practice and Theory

Technological advance affects almost all areas of human life. Rapid digitization, increased mobility, new biotechnologies, and nanotechnology deeply influence, amongst others, industrial production, entertainment, work, military affairs, and individual life. Besides overwhelmingly positive effects on wealth, comfort, innovation, and development, this also raises questions of unintended effects, of tensions with democracy, of the role of citizens, and of its sustainability facing environmental issues. Tools and procedures are needed to cope with this challenging situation.

Technology assessment (TA) was developed to enable science, the economy, and society to harvest the potential of new technology to the maximum extent possible and to deal responsibly with possible adverse effects. It was developed more than 50 years ago in the U.S. Congress and has diversified considerably in the meantime. The most relevant fields today are (a) parliamentary TA in many European states and at the international level, (b) participatory TA at the local and regional levels worldwide, and (c) TA as part of engineering processes. Technology assessment is a growing field of interdisciplinary research and scientific policy advice.

This volume (1) gives an overview of motivations of TA, its history, and its current practices, (2) develops a fresh theoretical perspective on TA rooted in social theory and philosophy, and (3) draws conclusions from the theoretical perspective for the further development of TAs practices. It provides the first comprehensive view on the growing field of TA at the international level.

Armin Grunwald is Director of the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Director of the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB). In addition, in 2007 he was appointed Full Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Technology at KIT. His areas of research are concepts and methods of technology assessment; ethics of technology; and theory, concepts, and implementation of sustainable development in various fields.

First published 2019

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2019 Armin Grunwald

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Grunwald, Armin, author.

Title: Technology assessment in practice and theory / Armin Grunwald.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018027272 | ISBN 9781138337077 (hbk) | ISBN 9781138337084 (pbk) | ISBN 9780429442643 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: Technology assessment.

Classification: LCC T174.5 .G78 2019 | DDC 303.48/3dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018027272

ISBN: 978-1-138-33707-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-33708-4 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-44264-3 (ebk)

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