From its mid-1970s origins, technology assessment (TA) in Germany and in Western Europe has been presented as a methodical, ethical, and theological as well as natural-, engineering- and social-science-oriented reflection on the technological preconditions for the formation and design of modern societies and the impacts of technology on such societies. TA analyzes both the development of technologies and the entities that have the competence, resources, and strategic potential to create them. Using prediction procedures, decision-theory approaches, and model simulations—all of which resemble economic models—the goal is to raise awareness of the desired and undesired, synergetic, and cumulative consequences of new technologies, if possible before they become issues of public debate. TA further aims to reveal the basic values underlying any assessment.

Representative Institutions

Understood as a form of political counseling, a...