UTFacultiesBMSDept TPSSTEPSEventsOnline STEPS Colloquium with Ewert Aukes and Peter Stegmaier

Online STEPS Colloquium with Ewert Aukes and Peter Stegmaier Assisting in innovation modulation. From Constructive Technology Assessment to Constructive Innovation Assessment

Research meeting of the Science, Technology and Policy Studies section, University of Twente, with Ewert Aukes and Peter Stegmaier, who will give a presentation followed by questions and discussion. For more information please contact e.schiweck@utwente.nl

You are welcome! 

ABSTRACT

When innovations shall be placed on a sound footing, not only financial or regulatory resources and framework conditions are needed, among many others, but also expertise, partners, and commitment. One way of organising such an additional framework is to build a platform for constructive exchange and collaboration about the innovation. Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) offers an approach to systematically co-create and insert some form of strategic intelligence into innovating. In order to signal more openness to other fields of innovation, besides technology, we suggest introducing a more general Constructive Innovation Assessment (CINA) perspective. At the same time, we are pursuing a procedural approach with CINA: accompanying innovation work over a longer period of time with a series of workshops and research.

We are increasingly using the CTA approach also in areas where socio-technical regimes aren’t in the core focus. It is only fair to open CTA up to CINA. This entails to revisit the theoretical foundations underlying CTA and re-formulating them for CINA. New is the heightened emphasis on governance practices and structures in our project contexts. Other use contexts will require further or other adjustments. This makes CINA a flexible approach that is not definite but has to be reshaped in and for each context anew (to larger or lesser extent).

CTA has been developed further to CINA in the context of two Horizon 2020 projects. Observations from use contexts allow us to draw on practical experiences in introducing CINA to project partners and doing workshops in the field. Constructive assessment works as well in technoscientific and sociotechnical as it does in governance or environmental contexts. Since the approach is less a tool than a methodology that requires careful appropriation to focal context, systematic research and expertise in the focal area are pivotal.

Ewert Aukes, Governance and Technology for Sustainability, University of Twente
Peter Stegmaier, Science, Technology and Policy Studies, University of Twente