30 years of TAB - Contributions to forward-looking and precautionary policy-making

For this purpose, on the one hand, exemplary questions as well as important lines of discussion and the associated results and assessments from TAB projects of the last decades are traced, which are of ongoing relevance (human enhancement, CO₂ reduction, digitisation of political public sphere). On the other hand, we reflect on the development of the activity areas discourse and dialogue as well as foresight or horizon scanning. Furthermore, looking ahead, we ask whether, given the considerable progress in terms of capturing and representing scientific evidence and societal opinions, digital technologies cannot or even should not become increasingly important in the future in the investigation of technological futures themselves.

Contributions to the focus:

• Making humans "wiser and more skilled"? Human enhancement as a perennial topic of TA (from p. 9)
• CCS: on disappointed hopes, bounced cheques and urgent needs (from p. 14)
• Technological change in a core area of democratic politics: on the digitalization of the political public sphere (from p. 21)
• Views and values on scientific and technological developments - discourse and dialogue in the work of TAB (from p. 27)
• Horizon scanning or how a foresight method came to technology assessment (from p. 30)
• Future technologies to investigate technological futures (from p. 33)

January 26, 2021

Download and further information (in German):

• 30 Jahre TAB – 30 Jahre Beiträge zu einer vorausschauenden und vorsorgenden Politikgestaltung. TAB-Brief Nr. 51.  
• All TAB-Briefe