As in other industrialized
countries, public
debates on technology assessment (TA) started in Germany in 1972–1973,
prompted
by the creation of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the
U.S. Congress
and the prior intensive debate on TA and its institutionalisation. This
debate
only bore fruit in 1989 with a parliamentary resolution to create the
»Büro für
Technikfolgen-Abschätzung beim Deutschen Bundestag«. The organisational
model
adopted has two key features.
The Research and Technology
Committee, which
was given the responsibility for initiating TA investigations and
controlling
them politically, was renamed »Committee for Research, Technology and
Technology Assessment«. The Committee’s secretariat was expanded in
line with
these new responsibilities.
Under the terms of the
Bundestag resolution, an
appropriate scientific institution outside Parliament must be selected
through
tender and commissioned to establish and operate the TA unit. The legal
basis
for this is a supplement to section 56 of the Bundestag’s Rules of
Procedure.
The TA unit to be established will work exclusively for the Bundestag.
It has
to ensure parliament-specific presentation and communication of the
results of
its work.
On 29 August 1990, after a
tendering procedure
and at the proposal of the then Committee on Research and Technology, a
contract was signed with the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Centre for a
three-year
pilot phase and the Office of Technology Assessment at the German
Bundestag
(TAB) was founded. Since then, it has been operated by the Institute
for
Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) Centre (before 1995
it was
named AFAS, Department for Applied Systems Analysis) of the Karlsruhe
Institute
of Technology (KIT), a merger of the Karlsruhe Research Centre and the
University of Karlsruhe.
Chapter Institutionalisation - all countries
© EPTA, version 20 Oct 2012; provided by ITA |