Minutes of the meeting of the EPTA Council 2003

Monday, October 27, 2003

Bern, Switzerland

1.       Welcome address Dr. Johannes Randegger

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2.       Information from the EPTA Members, Associates and Observers

Members

STOA, European Parliament (Paul Engstfeld)
A new mandate for STOA was worked out in 2003. Rolf Meyer is a new STOA staff member. The detailed work programme 2001 to 2003 was distributed among the participants of the EPTA Conference.
Further information: www.europarl.eu.int/stoa/default_en.htm

The Danish Board of Technology DBT, Denmark (Lars Klüver)
The workprogramme 2004 will be finalized only mid-November. DBT intensifies its activities on a regional and local level (e.g. city parliaments). The English translation of the open source report was published mid-October. On December 14, 2003 an international conference about "Oil depletion" will take place. The proposal for a joint project on the future of patent systems will be discussed on the second day of the EPTA Conference. Sergio Bellucci adds that in Switzerland, there is a ongoing project on a public dialogue about the patent system and biotechnology under the lead of "Science et Cité".
Further information: www.tekno.dk

ViWTA, Flanders, Belgium (Trees Merckx-Van Goey)
In 2002 a handbook on participative and prospective methods in technology assessment was finished. A methodological pilotproject in 2003 was the Publicforum, a stakeholder dialogue about GMOs. The conclusions of this Publicforum are communicated to the Parliament and the Federal Biosecurity Council. In 2004 ViWTA will have a budget of 1.32 mio. Euros. The thematic priorities are especially Energy & Climate and Life Sciences.
Further information: www.viwta.be

Office Parlementaire d'Evaluation des Choix Scientifiques et Technologiques, OPECST, France (Jean-François Peyrot)
Three subjects are treated in ongoing projects at the moment: First, research involving human beings (e.g. nano sciences for medical techniques, biotechnology, food safety); second, energy and nuclear waste and third, biometrics
Further information: www.senat.fr/english/opecst

Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament, Germany (Leo Hennen)
A new five year contract up to 2008 has been signed between the German Parliament and the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS). Starting from September 2003 the Karlsruhe Research Center will cooperate in selected subareas with the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI). In November 2003 a report about Nanotechnology will be published. Other projects concern e.g. the future of employment - working in future, policy benchmarking or demand oriented innovation policy.
Further information: www.tab.fzk.de

VAST, Italy (Antonio Mene)
The Italian technology assessment institution organized during 2003 five conferences. These events covered subjects as: innovation and transportation system, European aerospace policy, IT and innovation policy and technological innovation and industry.
Further information: vast.camera.it

Rathenau Institute, Netherlands (Koos Van der Bruggen)
In the beginning of November 2003 the second Rathenau Festival takes place in the science museum in Amsterdam. The title of the festiaval is "Human.02", the makeable man. The ongoing projects deal with: biomedicine, the vulnerability of information society, cattle diseases, energy, military technology.
Further information: www.rathenau.nl

The Norwegian Board of Technology NBT, Norway (Tore Tennöe)
Since May 2003 the NBT has 6 new board members. There are no Members of Parliament in the board. The permanent office is based now in Oslo. Some of the activities are about ICT and privacy, the public involvement in urban planning, stem cells or the sustainable growth in the marine sector.
Further information: www.teknologiradet.no

The Swiss Centre for Technoloy Assessment TA-SWISS, Switzerland (Sergio Bellucci)
An evaluation in 2002 gave new impulses to optimise the work. Overall the results of the evaluation were positive for TA-SWISS. On the political and administrative level the institution has a good image. There are no budget cuts foreseen for TA-SWISS. Some of the actual projects are: the PubliForum about research involving human beings, telemedicine, pharmacogenomics, publifocus about road pricing and nanotechnology in medicine.
Further information: www.ta-swiss.ch

POST, United Kindom (David Cope)
The British Parliament accepted one additional staff member for POST. Before the end of 2003 a report will be published about the vulnerability of nuclear plants from terrorist attacks. The workprogramme for 2004 follows.
Further information: www.parliament.uk/post

Associates

Council of Europe, (Josep Varela I Serra)
Mr. Varela reports about the difficulty to get Members of Parliament interested for Reports such as e.g. human stem cells. A challenge for the future will be the active integration of Eastern Europe countries in the EPTA Network.

Institut für Technikfolgen-Abschätzung ITA, Austria (Walter Peissl)
In 2003 ITA evaluated its own work and its procedures. Current projects deal with ICT (e-democracy, privacy etc.), biotechnology and with mechanisms laymen and expert interact.
Further information: www.oeaw.ac.at/ita/

The Belgian Federal Public Planning Service, Belgium (Aziz Naji)
This technology assessment institution on the federal level in Belgium is newly established. Therefore there is no workprogramme available up to now.
Further information: www.belspo.be

Observers

Catalania, Spain (Jordi Mas)
The Catalan Parliament adopted a resolution for the establishment of a technology assessment institution on April 29, 2004. The workprogramme 2004 follows.

Japan International Science and Technology Exchange Center JISTEC, Japan (Shuichi Fukuda)
The science and technology for society forum (STS Forum) will be established and inaugurated in 2004. The initiative took Mr. Omi, a member of the house or representatives. The inaugural meeting will take place on November 14-16, 2004 in Kyoto under the title "Science and Technology: Lights and Shadows". The title of the conference highlights the fact of ambiguity of scientific and technological developments.
Further information: www.jistec.or.jp

Spain (Josep Varela I Serra)
After a few years without contact to the EPTA network, the Spanish government is now positive to renew this contact. At the moment the different models of parliamentary technology assessment in Europe are evaluated.

Sweden doesn't have a parliamentary technology assessment at the moment. In June David Cope discussed with two Members of Swedish Parliament a possible establishment of a technology assessment institution. There is a strong interest in the Finish model.

3.       Staff exchange in the EPTA Network

To strengthen the relationship within the EPTA Network, David Cope proposes the staff interchange between the different EPTA Members and Associates. As possible obstacles Cope mentions the costs (wages, accommodation etc.) and the differences of culture.

In principle there are no objections in the discussion but some problems still are pointed out. E.g. Lars Klüver highlights the fact, that the expectations of the people involved have to be explicitly formulated in advance. The workprofile is quite different between the various institutions. For example in Denmark the staffers are projectmanagers not researchers. This has to be taken into account. Robby Berloznik points out the language problem. The need for information exchange goes for him first. There is still a need to optimise the flow of information. With the bi-annual "Indians Meeting" there is already a tool to strengthen the contacts. Unfortunately the "Indians" said 2002 "no" to annual meetings. On project basis the exchange should get much easier in the future. This last point was also stressed by Koos Van der Bruggen. Leo Hennen stresses the fact that the "Indians Meeting" is an fruitful exchange on a meta level. But additionally the exchanges of one week up to one month on the project level should be fostered. This would lead to more personal contacts between the staff members. Paul Engstfeld informs about paid fellowships at the European Parliament (3000 Euro per month) and which last half a year or a year.

Sergio Bellucci supports the idea of bilateral interchange and suggests that David Cope formulates the idea in a proposition paper until the next meeting. In this working group the United Kingdom cooperates together with other interested members from France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.

4.       The enlargement of the EPTA network to Eastern Countries

For Paul Engstfeld there is a big potential to raise the sensibility for technology assessment in Central and Eastern Europe. In general the EPTA should engage more actively in the enlargement during the next presidency. This is also stressed by Armin Grunwald. He is ready to support the French presidency in this endeavour.

There was an lengthy discussion about PIAS and its request for full membership of EPTA. EPTA members began by emphasising strong support for the way in which TA-Swiss had handled this matter in the period of its presidency and by regretting any suggestion otherwise.

5.       Varia

The presidency of the EPTA Network for 2004 will be held by France; for 2005 the presidency will pass on to Flanders, Belgium.

The directors meeting 2004 will be held March 29-30, 2004. The EPTA Conference will be at the end of October 2004.

Paul Engstfeld informs about the presence of the European Commission and STOA during the World Summit on Information Society in Geneva (mid-December 2003).