Bridges between Science, Society and Policy Technology Assessment - Methods and Impacts

The Europaische Akademie zur Erforschung von Folgen wissenschaftlich-techni scher Entwicklungen Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH (european academy) is con cerned with the scientific study of the consequences of scientific and technological advance for the individual and social life and for the natural environment. The main focus is to examine foreseeable mid-and long-term processes that are especially influenced by natural-and engineering sciences and the medical disciplines. The academy fulfills this task by organizing interdisciplinary expert discussions. Another important issue of the work of the Europaische Akademie concerns the methodology of Technology Assessment as a general issue. This is the main reason that the european academy organized during the past two years a project funded by the European Commission on Technology Assessment. Methods and Impact (TAMI). Together with partners from all over Europe a common understanding of what Tech nology Assessment (TA) is supposed to do was developed. Most importantly it was acknowledged that the core of any TA activity has to be a sound scientific under standing of the relevant phenomena. Communication then is of cordial importance to reach the relevant decision makers as well as the general public. It is true that this phase of the TA process has been treated with too little attention for many years. The communication processes between scientific advisers and policy makers have hence to be further scrutinized.