Policy-Oriented Technology Assessment Across Europe: Expanding Capacities by Lars Klüver & Rasmus Øjvind Nielsen & Marie Louise Jørgensen

Author:Lars Klüver & Rasmus Øjvind Nielsen & Marie Louise Jørgensen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781137561732
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2016-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

One of the challenges related to the Future Panel method, was the need for long-term commitment by parliamentarians. Earlier experiences with the Future Panel method on the national level have involved parliamentarians who have been appointed to the Future Panel by their parliament (Krom and Stemerding, 2014). A more direct link to the national parliaments (and not only involvement of individual parliamentarians) makes a clearer mandate for participation in the project, and it will probably make it easier for parliamentarians to commit to the project. The two other example projects had a single national event as the main activity. The activity demanded some preparation by the participants (reading information material or scenarios), but it demanded no long-term commitment to the project.

One might argue that by doing such national events, the cross-European element is put in the background. But seeing that both the citizen summit and the scenario workshop had a common European starting point for the discussions,5 the participants still got the feeling of being part of a European project. Knowing that there are others having the same discussions, following the same method, somewhere else in Europe was acknowledged and appreciated by the participants. In miniature, the deliberative fora that were created within the projects seemed to engender an experience of European citizenship solidly rooted in national communities. The results from these national events were gathered in European synthesis reports, bringing the results from the national to the European level.

In addition to the policy recommendations produced by all three example projects, an important result is the added value for the TA community. Focus on method training gives all of the involved partners a strong foundation to further use these methods also after the end of the PACITA project, and it enhances the capacity of the involved institutions.

Barriers to cross-European TA

Although there have been a number of cross-European projects that have been conducted over the years (as described above), one cannot speak of regular cross-European TA having been done.

National vs European commitments

However, a tension might occur for each individual organization between doing national projects and participating in European projects. This tension may act as an obstacle for developing cross-border collaboration. Easing this tension might be a factor that can lower the threshold for TA institutions to engage in cross-European TA. Most of the existing TA institutions have their mandate mainly focused on the national and regional spheres. Some have an identified task to ‘watch trends in science and technology’ (on both the national and the international level) (Ganzevles and Van Est, 2012), but none have international cooperation as a defined task. Identifying and understanding the added value in cross-European projects may help to open up and stimulate more cooperation and at the same time justify international cooperation with regard to mandates and resources, without stealing attention away from national working plans.

Finding a European audience

One of the main characteristics of the traditional TA units has been their strong connection to parliaments (see also Chapter 1). This relationship has often been institutionalized either

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