Technology Assessment

Methods

Technology assessment is not closely associated with one particular methodology or set of analytic tools. Rather, it characteristically draws on a variety of methods to chart possible future courses of innovation. A technology assessment usually includes a comparison of alternative technological choices or innovation pathways.

Technological innovation and social change represent a complex process that engages different stakeholders in different ways, often with unforeseen consequences. Innovation may operate through [Page 877]a variety of markets and other means of dissemination. It can take place at different rates, sometimes in complex and interdependent relationships with other technologies. Sometimes experience can be a guide to the course of innovation, and quantitative forecasting methods may be employed as part of a technology assessment. Examples include logistic curves describing rates of production, economic calculations of future returns on investment, and rules of thumb such as Moore's law, which predicts that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit at a given cost will double every 2 years. Such quantitative methods depend on analytical assumptions that the case at hand resembles some selected set of historical examples.

In the absence of a deterministic or predictive theory of innovation, technology assessment typically employs a set of forecasting methods that are ultimately based on human judgment. Different approaches rely on the judgment of experts, of stakeholders, or of the general public, as well as that of the analysts themselves. In technology assessment, analysts draw on a set of methodological tools to select and gather data and to develop innovation scenarios for comparative analysis and assessment. Those tools include literature reviews, surveys, site visits, workshops, social simulations, and expert interviews. These qualitative methods are usually supported by available quantitative projections of future trends and outcomes.

It is its emphasis on communication across knowledge communities to support a democratic process of informed decision making that distinguishes technology assessment from other, related practices that seek to understand the course of technological change. The term technological forecasting is often used to describe practices similar to technology assessment that employ common methods to provide foresight regarding the course of technological innovation. There is no sharp boundary between the practices the two terms describe. Technological forecasting is sometimes used as a broader category of analytical practices that includes technology assessment. In other contexts, technological forecasting refers more narrowly to studies that inform executive decision making in industrial firms or government agencies. Technology assessment, however, is historically associated with support to the legislative process, and its products typically seek to consider the perspectives and needs of different constituents and stakeholders in innovation outcomes.

...