Mastering “Grand Challenges”

Societal challenges such as digitalization, mobility, and energy supply are on top of Europe’s research agenda. The recently published proceedings of the 7th NTA Conference “‘Grand Challenges’ meistern”, explains the contribution of TA in this context.

Grand Challenges meistern. Technikfolgenabschätzung - Große Herausforderungen — Source: Nomos

Basically, technology assessment (TA) comes into play whenever a social problem is technically caused and seems to be amenable to scientific and technical solutions, as argued by the editors of the volume, Constanze Scherz (ITAS), Michael Decker (KIT), Ralf Lindner (Fraunhofer ISI), Stephan Lingner (EA European Academy), and Mahshid Sotoudeh (ITA Vienna). The articles collected in this volume cover the wide range of challenges currently discussed under the keyword “grand challenges” and the role of TA in coping with them.

The volume is based on the presentations and debates of the 7^th conference of the Network Technology Assessment (NTA), which was held on 16-18 November 2016 in Bonn. It is divided into five main topics: The first deals with “grand challenges” and the role of technology assessment in general. The second part explains various TA concepts with regard to major societal challenges. The last three chapters cover specific problems, focusing on certain “grand challenges” from the life sciences, the digitalization of society, and from the fields of environment, energy and mobility. (02.16.2018)

Bibliographic data:

Decker, M.; Lindner, R.; Lingner, S.; Scherz, C.; Sotoudeh, M. (Eds.)
„Grand Challenges“ meistern: Der Beitrag der Technikfolgenabschätzung. Baden-Baden: Nomos – edition sigma 2018, DOI: 10.5771/9783845283562-11
(Gesellschaft – Technik – Umwelt, Neue Folge 20)