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Paper short abstract:

Based on a case study from Germany, the presentation explores the role of Technology Assessment bodies in shaping the responsible governance of science and technology across science and policy making. The notion of boundary organization is applied to explore these coordination mechanisms.

Paper long abstract:

The recent academic and policy debate on responsibility in science and technology governance has focused primarily either on identifying a prescriptive substantive and/or procedural framework for science, technology and innovation to be responsible, or on analysing the contingent configurations of responsibility in concrete institutional and policy settings. In this latter case, literature has generally studied the different sites and arenas where responsibility is framed (e.g. research laboratories, media, policy making) as separate, missing to acknowledge that responsible governance arrangements emerge across different domains as a result of their coordination.

The Science Advisory System (SAS) plays a crucially important role in these coordination processes. Among the different SAS bodies, Technology Assessment (TA) institutions are a privileged vantage point to examine how responsibility is implemented and steered across the two domains of science and policy.

Acknowledging this importance, the paper presents the experience of the German Parliamentary Technology Assessment (pTA) Office as a case study. The analysis relies on the notion of boundary organization to explore how the pTA Office contributes to (re-)formulate, transform, and coordinate responsibility across science, policy and law-making in Germany.