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Paper short abstract

This article presents a Constructive Technology Assessment-oriented analysis of researchers' perceptions and assessments of quantum technology at its current stage. The results show continuous assessment through meaning-making, risk-benefit attribution, and perceptions of technological readiness.

Paper long abstract

This article presents a Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA)-oriented analysis of how quantum technology (QT) is perceived, interpreted, and assessed by researchers at its current stage of development. Positioned as a preliminary CTA analysis, the study conceptualizes the research domain itself as a primary site of ongoing assessment, rather than examining societal impacts or developing socio-technical scenarios. Based on the qualitative interviews with QT researchers across diverse institutional and national contexts, the article explores how researchers informally assess QT through their everyday research practices. Building on scholarship on technology futures, the analysis shows that researchers engage in continuous, implicit assessment of QT development along three interrelated dimensions: meaning-making (how QT is framed and positioned), risk-benefit attribution (how uncertainties and promises are negotiated), and perceptions of technological readiness (how progress and maturity are interpreted). The results indicate that meaning-making around QT is characterized by a tension between wide promises that generate uncertainty and pragmatic interpretations that restrict QT’s potential. Additionally, risk and benefit assessments are clustered around three overlapping modes of evaluation: objective framings, positional interpretations, and power-sensitive perspectives. Lastly, perceptions of technological readiness reveal competing temporal imaginaries within the research community, ranging from expectations of short-term demonstrators to long-term infrastructural transformation. Therefore, understanding these early-stage assessments provides a necessary foundation for subsequent CTA work that may engage broader societal actors, governance processes, and scenario-building exercises.