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Presentation by Ana Padilla of the results of POST's study on the
influence of the UK Parliament in scientific and technological
matters
The Directors appreciated Ana Padilla's presentation (see summary
attached) of a statistical analysis of the occupation of the British
Parliament with science and technology issues between 1989 and 1998
as a starting point for thinking about the setting up of similar
projects in the EPTA member countries. The analysis shows that the
relevance of science and technology in parliamentary debates has been
steadily growing during the last decade. Life sciences and
environmental problems range at the top of the British Parliament's
occupation with science and technology issues.
The discussion tackled the problem of identifying the relevance of
science and technology issues in debates that do not have science
and technology in the title, since science and technology might often
be hidden issues in parliamentary documents. The need to carry out
in-depth, content-related studies on parliamentary debates and motions
related to science and technology issues was stressed. Suggestions
were made to extend the scope of similar explorations to an analysis
of the role parliamentary TA institutions play in parliamentary debates
on science and technology.
- EPTA members' experience with evaluations
With respect to an upcoming evaluation of TAB Prof. Paschen expressed
TAB's interest in the experience of the other EPTA members with
evaluation processes. Reports on evaluation procedures were given
by the Rathenau Institute, POST, ITA, STOA and Teknologirådet.
The Rathenau Institute has to undergo an evaluation every five years.
Last year the Rathenau Institute was evaluated by a board of five
persons (all with a political background) with regard to the
Institute's role in political and public debate. The board stated
that despite of the high quality of reports the influence on public
debate was limited. A recommendation was that in future activities
the Rathenau Institute should be less oriented towards parliament and
more to the general public, including the media. The evaluation
took place parallel to an ongoing general political discussion on
the improvement of public communication on science and technology
in the Netherlands. The critical point was to stress the special
task of the Rathenau Institute in the context of public debate, which
is to stimulate debate on the social, economic and environmental
impacts of upcoming new technologies.
Teknologirådet was evaluated five years ago in the context of the
decision on making Teknologirådet a permanent institution. The
evaluation was carried out by a consultancy group and by a group
of three persons appointed by the minister of research. Both
reports did suffer from a lack of understanding of the concept of
TA and the mission of Teknologirådet. It turned out to be decisive
that the minister and the parliament followed their own
experiences with the institution and on this basis decided in
favour of permanent funding of Teknologirådet. Both reports stated
that the connection of the institution's activities with
Parliamenatry debates could be better. This was taken up by
parliament; it was established by law that Technologirådet should
advise the parliament directly. Teknologirådet is planning to sign
"result contracts" with the institution's steering committee
(Board of Technology). This is seen as a kind of proactive
self-evaluation in order to improve the information basis for future
evaluations of the institute.
POST as an integral part of the House of Commons can only
be evaluated by the parliament itself - an evaluation by
external experts has never been taken into consideration. POST
currently is evaluated by the House of Commons' information
committee. A former assessment by the committee came to the
conclusion that there should be one more evaluation and then
a decision should be taken to make POST a permanent institution. So
this year's evaluation will be of decisive importance for POST. The
committee's report will be presented to and debated by the House of
Commons between April and July this year.
STOA has been evaluated in 1994. Members of the EPTA network
were part of the evaluation panel. The fact that suggestions
by different bodies of the parliament on the future of STOA were
made in parallel to the process turned out to be problem: Members
of different bodies of the parliament took part in different phases
of the evaluation - not all of them were well informed about
STOA's mission and the established working procedures. Problems
that arose from this fact could however be solved by the
involvement of other EPTA members in the evaluation process. They
brought in their knowledge on professional standards and their
experience in consultation processes between science and parliament.
One important result of the evaluation was the setting up of a formal
quality management system, consisting of a panel of experts assessing
STOA's reports in order to improve their usefulness for parliament.
The Austrian Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) was evaluated
positively by a group of five social scientists with regard
to the scientific quality of its work. In 1993 - before the
decision was taken to make ITA a permanent institute - ITA was
evaluated from a more political point of view. The positive
outcome of both evaluation processes is partly due to annual meetings
with ITA's steering committee at the Austrian Academy of Sciences,
where the mid-term working program is decided and an assessment of
the preceding year's activities is undertaken.
In the discussion the following points appeared to be important to
prepare for well-informed evaluation processes:
- Proactive measures should be taken by the TA Institution to
deliver a solid information basis for evaluation processes,
such as reports on its activities and on the effects of its
work.
- A self-evaluation by the institution in cooperation with its
client can be more effective to improve working procedures
and communication processes than an external evaluation.
- The evaluation panel should have a thorough understanding of the
institution's history, its mission as well as of working and
communication procedures.
- Topic of the next EPTA conference
After a short discussion the Directors agreed on
"Biomedical Research - Technology Assessment in Health Care" as
the topic for the next EPTA conference (to be held in October
or November this year in Berlin). Activities on this topic are
currently going on in most of the EPTA member institutions.
- Organisational questions
With regard to the future coordination of the EPTA network and
the improvement of the internal communication processes within
the network the directors agreed that the EPTA newsletter in the
age of the world wide web is no longer appropriate as a medium of
information exchange. It also should be considered whether the
coordination of the EPTA network could be taken over by the
institution holding the EPTA presidency, so that this
responsibility would move every year. To develop suggestions for
the design of the EPTA web page and for the general improvement of
information exchange within the network a working group
(including colleagues from Austria, Finland, Italy and Germany) was
established. The group will come up with a proposal before the next
EPTA council meeting.
- News from the EPTA organisations
EPTA says farewell to Dick Holdsworth who after years of heading
STOA will leave this position. He will leave a perceptible gap
in future EPTA meetings. The Directors wish him all the best for
his new responsibility at the Secretariat of the Committee on
Industry, Technology Development, Research and Energy of the
European Parliament and they welcome Mr. Graham Chambers who took
over from Dick in April this year.
Robby Berloznik from the Flemish Institute for Technological
Research reported that the Flemish Parliament is preparing a
hearing on a proposition of the green party to establish a
Parliamentary TA body. After 10 years of stagnation in the
discussion on Parliamentary TA in Belgium this can be seen as
a breakthrough, since the proposal recently has been signed by
all majority parties as well. It is not yet clear what kind of
institution will be established; organisational questions will be
discussed by Parliament.
Lars Klüwer reported that Sweden is going to establish a
Parliamentary TA body for biotechnological issues.
The directors welcomed Robby Berloznik's plea for strengthening
EPTA's support of TA activities going on in other countries. For
the next EPTA conference a broad scope of representatives of
European countries should be invited in order to establish contacts
to persons and institutions interested in establishing Parliamentary
TA in their countries.
