News 2013

The aim of the SYNENERGENE project is to initiate various activities with a view to stimulating and fostering debate on the opportunities and risks of synthetic biology. Conceptualized as a so-called "Mobilisation and Mutual Learning Action Plan" (MMLAP), the project will involve various academic and societal actors from Europe and other countries. more

As part of the Conference "Energy Solutions for Smart Cities and Communities", held from 22nd to 23rd of October 2013 in the European Commission in Brussels, ITAS led a session on the policy results of the analysis of the CONCERTO funding stream. more

The Engage2020 project will provide an overview of potential praxis in Horizon 2020 for societal engagement in research and innovation and related activities, with the aim of increasing the use of such praxis. more

This book is the fourth volume of the series "Studies of New and Emerging Technologies / S.NET". It contains a selection of the papers presented at the fourth Annual S.NET Conference that took place at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, October 2012. more

In 2012 the Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA) of the European Parliament had set up a project titled "Feeding 10 billion people". ITAS has carried out two studies under this umbrella: "Options for Cutting Food Waste" and "Plant Breeding and Innovative Agriculture".
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The "District Future – Urban Lab" project was granted the 2013 ZeitzeicheN German Local Sustainability Award in the category of "ZeitzeicheN Ideas". The German-wide Network 21 Congress handed over the award on October 8th 2013 at the Neues Schloss, Stuttgart. more

In autumn 2013, on the initiative of the Tri-national Metropolis Region Upper of the Rhine (TMO) the "Dialog Science" will take place for the second time – trans-boundary weeks of science, focusing this year on the topic "renewable energies". In the organizational committee of "Dialog Science" staff members of the ITAS project "Biomasse OUI" co-developed the current program. more

In the next five years, ITAS will go on operating the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament (TAB). more

ENTRIA is an acronym and stands for the German equivalent of "Disposal options for radioactive waste material. Interdisciplinary analyses and development of a criteria-based preliminary evaluation of the main options." The project is designed as "research platform". ITAS is responsible for one of the central non-technical modules of the ENTRIA project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. more

The "District Future – Urban Lab" project, based at ITAS, presented its first work-report and held a brainstorming workshop on 22 June 2013 in Karlsruhe. more

The volume is entitled "Ökologischer Landbau und Biomasseproduktion" (Organic farming and biomass production). more

Herbert Paschen celebrates his 80th birthday on June 14, 2013. In 1977, AFAS (Abteilung für Angewandte Systemanalyse) was founded under the direction of Herbert Paschen. This department can be considered the first professional institution in the emerging field of technology assessment. In 1995, the successful work of AFAS and TAB under the head of Herbert Paschen resulted in a scientific upgrading of AFAS to the "Institute of Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis" (ITAS) which was managed by Herbert Paschen until his retirement in 1998. more

The volume is entitled "Konzepte der Elektromobilität und deren Bedeutung für Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft und Umwelt" (Concepts of electric mobility and their importance for the economy, society and environment). more

In a first phase, a set of basic analyses was performed. Some issues will have to be investigated in more depth. Therefore TAB opened two calls for experts. more

During a meeting of the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development (PBNE) TAB presented – in the presence of Ulla Burchardt, the chairwoman of the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment (ABFTA) – results from its project "Sustainability and Parliaments - outcome and perspectives Rio +20". more

The volume contains presentations from the annual conference 2011 of the CULTMEDIA network that took place at Prague in June 2011. more

A workshop with international experts on the topic of societal 'megatrends' and their implications on future mobility demand took place on March 08, 2013 in Portugal. The workshop was part of the project "FUture prospects on TRansport evolution and innovation challenges for the competitiveness of Europe". more

The call for experts is open until 24.04.2013. more

Jointly ITAS and the Institute for Industrial Production (IIP) organized a workshop on alternative drive concepts in case of changing mobility patterns. Selected contributions of the workshop are now published. more

TAB has published a new report about the structural change of mass media and the challenges of media policy. more

The German employment system has been repeatedly imputed of crises during the last decades and even today indications of its crisis are paramount. This book takes as starting point the German debates of the 1980s and 1990s on the "crisis of work". more

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has set up the "German Committee Future Earth". The proposal to establish this new committee has been developed by the National Committee on Global Change Research (NKGCF). The newly established committee serves as a scientific advisory body for national and international activities in the framework of the "Future Earth: research for global sustainability" initiative.

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The emergence of open design does not in itself guarantee that the future will be "open source everything", but novel possibilities are coming into being that contribute to this potential outcome – the project aims to conceptually and empirically investigate these possibilities. more

The Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment at the German Parliament has decided to approve the TAB working report No. 152 "The future of the automotive industry". more

TAB analyzed modernization trends of parliamentary petitioning in Germany and Europe. more

Public technical discussion on 16 January 2013 in the German Bundestag more

The Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA) of the European Parliament has set up a new project titled "Feeding 10 billion people". The project will investigate technological options for improving the global food supply. ITAS has taken over two sub-studies; one dealing with "Technology options for plant breeding and for innovative agriculture" and the other investigating "Options for cutting food waste". more