In April 2013, ARC Fund welcomed leading EU technology assessment experts who delivered a three-day training to an international group of more than 30 experts in technology assessment and policy analysis. The training, which was the second in a series of four, was organised within the framework of PACITA (Parliaments and Civil Society in Technology Assessment) – an EU project supported through the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme, involving 15 partners from 13 European countries.
The training focused on technology assessment methods and their application as part of larger forward-looking studies. The group of participants included experts coming from Bulgaria, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, USA and Brazil, representing varying degrees of technology assessment experience, capacities, and institutional setups.
Experienced practitioners from the leading TA-institutions in Europe – the Danish Board of Technology, the Rathenau Institute, the Institute of Technology Assessment in Austria and the Swiss Centre for Technology Assessment – presented an overview of the rich (and growing) variety of TA methods. Participants worked through actual case studies, based on a contentious TA topic, such as public health genomics and sustainable consumption, demonstrating the complex linkages between societal challenges, technology options, and policy solutions. Through intensive group work, plenary presentations and discussions, the participants explored in-depth specific application strategies, complementarities of different TA methods, methodological planning and project designs, and gained valuable insights into the practicalities of doing technology assessment and integrating science and technology into social discourses, public policies and decision-making.
ARC Fund is the premiere Bulgarian organisation working to establish a formalised network of TA practitioners and think tanks, with an ambition to bring professional S&T discourses into public policy planning, design, and implementation. As part of a EU-wide network of TA institutes, and resting on two decades of innovation and policy analysis experience, ARC Fund is uniquely positioned to provide TA opinions and analyses to policy planners and decision-makers.
