Policy advice in technology assessment: Shifting roles, principles and boundaries

• Published in: Technological forecasting & social change 2019-02, Vol.139, p.32-41
• Main Authors: Bauer, Anja, Kastenhofer, Karen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Advisors; Analysis; Boundary management; Constellations; Empirical analysis; Evaluation; Governance; Neutrality; Politics; Roles; Scientific policy advice; Technology assessment; Technology policy
• ISSN: 0040-1625; 1873-5509
• DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2018.06.023

Over past decades, the notion of policy advice in technology assessment (TA) has widened, going beyond traditional advice in the form of expert opinions by adding a broad range of brokerage activities. Concomitantly, the roles of scientific policy advisors have diversified. Based on an empirical study of advisory practices at the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, we ask which advisory roles TA practitioners adopt. Our study shows that practitioners take up multiple roles: the decisionist advisor, the deliberative practitioner, the governance facilitator, the engaged academic, and the agenda-setter. These roles vary, inter alia, in the dominant modes of policy advice and the aspired function in politics and society and correlate with specific project and advisory constellations but also with paradigmatic beliefs of TA practitioners. Our analysis further exemplifies how these roles differ in a) the reference to and interpretation of core principles such as scientificity, neutrality and relevance and b) their strategies of managing the boundary between science and politics. Thus, the article goes beyond the mere statement “TA has politics” by illustrating how the politics of TA manifests in distinct ways in different roles of TA practitioners in policy advice. •TA practitioners at ITA adopt five distinct roles in policy advice.•The roles offer various interpretations of scientificity, neutrality and relevance.•The roles differ in how they manage the boundary between science and politics.•The role repertoire points to a diversification of paradigms in TA.•Considering a role's paradigmatic assumptions renders TA practice more robust.