Abstract :
[en] Technology assessment (TA) and TA-like activities in countries like Japan have a unique
history and continue to play a role in contemporary science, technology, and innovation (STI)
processes. The aim of the discussion of TA’s experience in East Asia is how STI governance is
locally enacted in Asian knowledge-driven economies, as TA activities develop in conjunction
with STI policies and programs. To render these processes, policies, and programs visible and
to understand their implications for STI governance, a panel at the Berlin conference on TA
discussed contributions that described and conceptualized, for example, how TA activities have
emerged in Asian knowledge-based economies (KBE), in which particular forms (e.g., academic
and parliamentary TA programs), to which technologies and/or actors they are linked, and which
methods are used and why. The panel also sought to compare and contrast how TA is (or is not)
institutionalized in Asian countries and regions, and to point to prospects for expansion of TA
capacity. In doing so, the panellists placed the development of TA in a historical, sociological, and
comparative perspective, and opened space for critical reflection on the potential, problems, and
limitations associated with initiating TA in Asia and with KBEs overall.
