Comparative Table of Parliamentary TA Institutions

DENMARK - THE DANISH BOARD OF TECHNOLOGY

The full name of the Danish Board of Technology (DBT) is the Danish Board of Technology Foundation - Fonden Teknologiradet. DBT aims to further the technology debate, assess technological impacts and options and advise the Danish Parliament, the Government and other political decision-makers in matters pertaining to 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 (Teknologiradet) 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).

FINDING TOPICS

The search for topics will be made in close cooperation with the Board of Representatives and a wider network of interested parties. "Thematic meetings" will be made, in which important projects are identified, cooperation is established, and a financial background is being sought for.

The DBT foundation will initiate projects on demand from external actors, and may establish companies, which can focus on certain topical/business areas. It is crucial for the DBT Foundation that such external funding can be established without compromising the independency of the DBT, which will be managed by firstly, a set of clear rules for keeping projects at "arms´ length" from those who pay, and second, to keep certain business areas separate in their own companies if needed.

APPROACHES/WORK PROCEDURES

DBT conducts technology assessments with a view to generating debate and clarification among the target groups – these being politicians, industry, NGOs, experts, citizens, etc. – depending on the issue at stake. This also includes groups in society which do not necessarily already see the need of debating technology.

To assess the functionality of actual technologies is not the task of DBT. Instead the focus must be on opportunities for and impacts on people, the environment and social conditions. The objective is to clarify dilemmas and conflicts. This does not always mean that technology assessments have to conclude in recommendations for a solution; technology assessments may provide knowledge, identify joint views, conflicts and options as a step towards finding a solution.

DBT draws on the best available expertise – in the widest sense – and often across professions and sectors. Expertise may be found among the traditional academia, but it may also be found among stakeholders, users, consumers, and lay people. This wide concept of expertise ensures that many types of knowledge and different values and interests are represented in the assessments.

METHODS

DBT considers it an essential task to contribute to the development of methods for assessing technology, especially in connection with methods involving the citizens, users and employees - those affected by the technology in question. DBT applies different methods for assessing technology:

Experts may conduct analyses which offer an overview of the issues. If experts are requested to make assessments, DBT normally makes certain to consult several experts with different approaches, possibly by establishing an interdisciplinary working group.
Citizens may formulate objectives, visions, requirements and needs. This can be facilitated by having participants criticize existing conditions and formulate visions and actions which could help solving problems. Or, a panel of citizens might question a panel
Technology assessment may also present information to the participants to give them an opportunity to debate an issue, thereby providing them with a background for making their own assessments. Thus, education of the general public could be considered a method of promoting the population´s own opportunities for assessing technology.

PROJECTS 2011

The 2011 work plan of DBT includes the following issues on which projects are initiated:

Energy producing buildings
Citizens´ engagement in energy supply and consumption
Harmful chemicals
Denmark as a pioneering country - responsible innovation
Long range waste management strategy - from waste to resource
Privacy protection in the "Internet of things"

Besides, DBT is working on externally financed projects, for example:

PACITA - EU project aiming at capacity building on TA in Europe. DBT is coordinating the project
DESSI - development of a decision support system on security investments. EU project, DBT as coordinator.
5 simultaneous Citizen Summits on the future health care system, arranged together with the 5 regions in Denmark.
A Citizen Summit on the Danish biodiversity action plan, arranged with the Ministry of Environment
Involvement of employees in welfare technology innovation - made for the Danish Welfare Fund.
BaltCICA - involvement of stakeholders and citizens in strategizing on increased water levels. EU project, involving the countries around the Baltic Sea.

TARGET GROUPS

The target groups are defined for each topic as part of the methodological choice. Methods and communication means are chosen to involve those actors who can make change. This often involves Parliament as target group together with other important actors.

The expert communities may be target groups when the topic involves new orientation of research and innovation, or if research ethics (responsible research and innovation) may be of importance. There may be a need for bridge-building between academic communities, or it may be good to introduce self-reflexion among scientists on the societal impact of their research. Often this may be facilitated by involving the experts directly in the assessments, thereby making the assessments and effectively communicating them at the same time.
Stakeholders may be very important actors if change is going to be induced. It may be that different stakeholders are blocking each other, thereby inhibiting the necessary change. Or, stakeholders may act on very different kinds of knowledge from which they define their opposing positions. Mediation and knowledge sharing therefore may be components in the involvement of stakeholders. Stakeholders are strong communicators to policy-makers if they back up the assessments and often they may even be able to induce change directly through their strong networks.
Citizens can be important target groups for technology assessment, but cannot be reached directly because of the limited resources available. Therefore, citizens mainly can be reached through the media, which makes the press an important primary target group.
Political decision-makers are most often a primary target group because of the importance of legislation in many technology fields, and because of the agenda-setting function of Parliament. In a broader sense, political decision-makers (region, municipalities) are important for administrative policy-making on environment, health, education, infrastructure etc. Accordingly, DBT considers all levels of political decision-making when selecting target groups.

DBT separates between "need-to-know" and "nice-to-know" target groups. The strategy for needs-to-know is to establish direct collaboration (involvement) with the target groups around the assessment, since that ensures the optimal communication situation. Nice-to-know target groups are mostly reached through workshops, conferencing, publications, newsletters and the press.

COMMUNICATION AND PUBLICATIONS

DBT communicates and co-operates directly with the relevant parliamentary committees who seek advice on examining a specific subject. This advice can consist of answering specific questions from members of parliament, making information meetings for committees, arranging hearings for parliamentary committees, or providing an issue of the briefing note "From the Board to the Parliament". DBT issues a range of publications with a view to stimulating debate on technology among them reports, books, newsletters, booklets and pamphlets. The e-magazine TeknologiDebat contains news stories, background information, articles and debates, all primarily related to the projects of DBT. The website www.tekno.dk is a very important communication tool for DBT. It has around 1 million visits a year and some publications are downloaded at figures exceeding 250.000. The website delivers all publications of DBT, pages on all projects, podcasts from conferences, hearings, workshops etc., and a web-version of the eMagazine TeknologiDebat.

STATUS QUO AND THE WAY AHEAD

The work of the DBT is generally highly appreciated by Danish Members of Parliament (MPs) and increasingly by politicians in the regions and municipalities. However, Denmark has, through the last 10 years, been characterized by a strong divide between left/right in politics - often referred to as "block politics". This has decreased the level of dialogue and common actions across the parliamentary room, and accordingly decreased the call for independent assessments. This tendency has been very clear with regards to a remarkable decrease in the call for parliamentary hearings during the last 5 years.

The change of the DBT into a corporate foundation needs to be seen in the light of this contemporary political situation. It will therefore be very important for the parliamentary TA function of the DBT Foundation that a closer relation between the single committees and the DBT is developed during 2013–2014..

Internationalisation of nearly all aspects of technology development and regulation is a tendency that has been accelerating very strongly through the last decade. DBT sees it as a main challenge to find ways for TA to keep up with this trend and be able to assess technology at all relevant policy levels. Some actions taken by DBT, such as the World Wide Views on Global Warming, the lately finished WWViews on Biodiversity, and the coordination of PACITA, indicates the beginning of a future, in which the Board will see internationalisation as a main challenge and a main field of activity. Increasing synergy between TA units across Europe and across the world is seen as a must for the future.

The new media reality is a challenge that needs to be confronted. Information sources become diffuse, journalism becomes more popular and less deep, the written media loses terrain, etc. TA needs to find its way in this new media world. TA is important, focuses on determining issues for society, has stories to tell and conclusions to discuss - so, the content is there to be communicated. The challenge is to redirect the communication efforts into new and more effective modes in the new media picture. It is a matter of strategy and of resources as well.

CONTACT

Fonden Teknologiradet
The Danish Board of Technology Foundation
Toldbodgade 12
1253 Kobenhavn
Denmark

Chairwoman of the Board of Governors: Ms Annette Toft
Director: Mr Lars Klüver

Fon +45 33 32 05 03
Fax +45 33 91 05 09

tekno@tekno.dk
www.tekno.dk