Some remarks and proposals concerning the planning and performance of technology assessment studies

It is the authors' intention to clarify some basic problems of technology assessment studies and some apparent misunderstandings about the role and possibilities of technology assessment. The discussion centers around questions such as the following: Can technology assessment studies be objective in the scientific sense? What are the risks that may result from a lack of active participation of affected groups in the assessment process? Do technology assessment studies really produce evaluations of the future impacts of a technology according to future value systems? Are the frameworks or schemes for the technology assessment process that are proposed by a number of analysts really helpful for the conception of adequate pragmatic strategies in concrete cases? Should the European countries imitate the US example of setting up an Office of Technology Assessment in the legislature?The authors believe that technology assessment analyses should be organized as transparent, participatory, and argumentative processes and that procedures should be developed and applied that are suitable to fulfil this task.