There are many different types of TA (which have been described in detail in Chapter 3) that have evolved according to the political context, its purpose and the audience. The main characteristics of TA involve forecasting and monitoring the impacts of emerging technologies on society. The early forms of TA tended to be technocratic and expert-based, however, later versions aimed to broaden the range of social groups that could influence technology development. Interactive TA (Grin and van de Graff, 1996) sought to promote interactions and communication early in the innovation process. This type of TA has been trialled by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) to address growing public concerns surrounding the introduction of GM grapes (Joly and Rip, 2007, Marris et al., 2008). Constructive technology assessment (CTA), which is still being developed in European countries, aims at forming an arena where society can interact with technology developers at an early stage to enable a process of co-creation CTA (Schot and Rip, 1996, Genus and Coles, 2005, Genus, 2006). In 2003 CSIRO initiated a Social and Economic
133 multi-stakeholder engagement to foster, for example, community driven science solutions and socially informed technology design.
(http://www.csiro.au/proprietaryDocuments/SEI_Research_Priorities_Fact_Sheet.pdf) The SEI seems to have been dissolved in later years, however, due to numerous structural changes it is not clear if this initiative continued in another form.
Developing a TA framework that is usable in a particular social and political context using any type of TA is a challenging exercise and there are still issues that need to be addressed. The Flemish Institute for Science and Technology Assessment is one example of a group that have reviewed and analysed the potential use of TA in
Flanders. The Technology Assessment – Methods and Impacts group’s mission was to explore what impact TA may have on policy-making, and the effect it should or should not have on decision-making, and its ability to influence the path of social and political debate on technology issues (Hennen et al., 2004). They found that there was very little work to date on how to measure and evaluate the impacts of TA in Europe. They identified some of the difficulties associated with achieving TA objectives mainly aimed to support policy-making, for example, how to fill in knowledge gaps regarding policy options and uncertainty about scientific data, and how to facilitate communication between stakeholders in deadlock situations. Different tools can be used to address some issues such as forming visions or scenarios that can be used to stimulate further debate or encourage particular actors to be more self-reflexive.
Developing a TA process can be fraught with difficulties due to differences in power between different groups. Scientific knowledge can be filtered so it can be used strategically during the process of negotiation according to the values, beliefs and desires of a dominating group (Hennen et al., 2004). This can lead to changes being made to the structure of the debate and open up the policy-making process by inducing new options. Other influences on the TA process can be unpredictable, for example, media press releases that raise the attention on particular scientific issues. This can be constructive in that it places pressure on policy-makers to be receptive to the publics’ views (Hennen et al., 2004).
134 Genus (2006) reviewed selected literature related to the notion and practice of CTA as a potentially constructively democratic, reflective and discursive process. This work reflects on the inequalities of access to and control over technological decision- making processes by particular groups and the need for groups must be open to criticism in order to produce reflective techno-scientific experts (Genus, 2006). Caution is also raised over the exclusive reliance on government-based participation processes (legitimated systems of CTA), stating that ways of gathering commentary from a broad base of lay groups and individuals needs careful consideration. It was deemed important to ensure that interest groups and citizens have the capacity to probe the claims of particular assessments and to encourage wider debate and self reflection of all actors (Genus, 2006). One example Genus and Coles (2006) refer to is the GM Nation initiative, where a national debate as to whether GM crops should be commercialised in the UK was criticised as failing to cater for the public’s opinion and being an information giving exercise that reinforced the ‘deficit model’.
There is no one particular type of TA that fits all actors in a particular agency or country. Different types of TA are still evolving and are still in the early stages of development. There are many challenges to overcome these issues and implement a system of TA that is appropriate for the Australian social and political context. There are three layers of government federal, state and local, and there are enormous arrays of actors and agencies involved in the food industry starting from the decision-makers who decide which food technologies should be researched, through to the public health sector who have to develop policies to deal with any subsequent health impacts. In between these beginning and end points are the primary industries, food processors and manufacturers, retailers, food regulators, and many more. This raises the challenge of not only which type of TA would be suitable for a particular context, but which type of agency should or would be interested in institutionalising a TA process?
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