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Paper short abstract

How can technology assessment as an established policy advisory field best contribute to crisis resilience and disaster preparedness? We present findings from a dedicated conference, addressing issues of timing, integration and geopolitical scope.

Paper long abstract

Whether it's the “climate crisis,” “crisis of confidence,” “COVID crisis,” or “energy crisis,” debates surrounding so-called crises are not only an integral part of subjective experience, everyday politics, and journalistic reporting, but have also increasingly found their way into scientific discourse and scientific policy advice in recent years. In times of “poly-crises” and technological leaps, the demand for and efforts to obtain transparent and independent knowledge are equally great, but also present all stakeholders with new challenges. For this reason, the 11th conference of the German Network for Technology Assessment (NTA11) focused on crisis-specific needs in scientific policy advice. In this paper, we aim at summarizing our learnings from this three-day event, that are now published within an edited volume.

Firstly, the combination of urgency, uncertainty, complexity, and global interdependencies seems to force upon us a momentous decision: Should TA respond quickly and locally, with simple messages for rapid decisions, or should it proceed thoroughly, and anticipatively, embracing slowness for the sake of increasing social resilience in the long term? Secondly, different types of crises challenge democratic processes: ‘chronic crises’ lead to social fragmentation and a decline in shared values; ‘creeping crises’ undermine the legitimacy of public institutions, including TA expertise and its political addressees. Transformative TA research can foster integration and trust-building. Thirdly, the geopolitical level at which TA should be institutionalized become more salient. TA is currently well represented only at the national level in some countries, whereas the local/regional, the global level lack comparable institutions.