Comparative Table of Parliamentary TA Institutions
DENMARK - THE DANISH BOARD OF TECHNOLOGY
Organisation
The Danish Board of Technology is a non-profit, common good,
corporative foundation, established in the course of the abolishment of
the former Danish Board of Technology by June 20, 2012.
A corporate foundation is in Denmark a foundation, which bases
its income on commercial activities and uses the revenue for common
good purposes. Before the establishment of the foundation the Danish
Board of Technology was a public, independent institution established
by the Danish Parliament (the Folketing) under the Board of Technology
Act No. 375 of 14 June 1995. The first Board of Technology was set up
as a time-limited statutory body in 1986 and replaced by the Board
(Teknologirådet) on 31 July 1995. The abolishment of the DBT in 2012
triggered a company take-over into the foundation on June 20, 2012.
The DBT was brought into being with three functions in mind.
First, it was expected to disseminate knowledge about technology, its
possibilities and its effects on people, on society and on the
environment in order to support the level of knowledge and the debate
in society. Second, it should support the work of Parliament by
bringing forth visions, assessments and inspiration for political
action. And third, there was an expectation that the Board should build
its work on the experiences with action research made in the social
sciences during the end of the 1970´s and the beginning of the 1980´s.
So, DBT was born with expectations of serving Parliament, the public
discourse and the actors involved in technology policy-making.
The DBT Foundation will build on this historical background and is expected to supply it with two new components.
Other political decision-makers than the Danish Parliament are
presumed to receive more focus from the DBT in the future because of
the wide-spread influence on technology decisions in modern societies.
The DBT Foundation expects to make use of its TA methodologies in
areas, where the technology component of the problem is less dominating.
As a consequence of this development, the DBT Foundation makes use of
the term Policy-oriented TA as a core function of its work.
Parliamentary TA is an important part of this wider concept of TA.
The relation to the Danish Parliament is being processed at the
time of writing. However, the Danish Parliament´s Committee for
Science, Innovation and Higher Education is expected to point out two
members of the Board of Representatives of the DBT Foundation. It is
expected as well that an evaluation will take place in 2013, which will
make a basis for clarifying the longer term relation between the
Parliament and the DBT.
The DBT comprises a Board of Governors, a Board of Representatives, a Director and a Secretariat.
The Board of Governors consists of seven members, including a
chairman. The Board of representatives appoints two members. The
employees appoint one member among their midst, and one member who
cannot be an employee. The former Board appoints two members, plus one
member after consultation of EPTA or a comparable relevant
international organisation. It is being clarified at the time of
writing if the Parliament is going to appoint one member.
The rules for setting up the Board of Representatives are being laid out at the time of writing.
The Director is employed by the Board of Governors. She/he takes
part in and can speak at the meetings of the Board of Governors, but
cannot vote.
The Secretariat carries out the projects of the DBT and consists of
9 project managers (scientific staff), 2 project secretaries, 4
administrative staffers and 6-10 project employed assistants - mostly
students.
FINANCES
As a corporate foundation, DBT carries out activities financed by third
party funds. These have until 2012 mainly come from municipalities,
regions, governmental agencies, the EU Commission and the European
Parliament, but it is expected that the range of financial partners
will expand into charity foundations, financing consortiums of societal
actors and the Danish Parliament. The yearly turnover is expected to be
around 9 million DKK (1,2 million Euro in 2012).
© EPTA, version 20 Oct 2012; provided by ITA