• Technology

• Health

• Environment

• Project Co-ordinators: Miltos Ladikas, Ph.D.; Dr. rer. nat. Michael Decker, Dipl.-Phys.

• Contact: Dr. rer. nat. Stephan Lingner, Dipl.-Geol.    

• Memorandum: M. Decker, M. Ladikas (eds.) Bridges between Science, Society and Policy. Technology Assessment-Methods and Impacts. Springer Verlag, 2004, (Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment, Vol. 22)
  Download TAMI-Leaflet

• Duration: 01/02–12/03

• Funding: European Union, 5th Framework Programme 

• Further Information on “Technology Assessment”

The main objective of the two year EU-project TAMI was to create and promote a structured dialogue within the Technology Assessment community as well as between TA-experts and policy-makers. Two groups (Method and Impact), from thirteen TA-institutes around Europe, worked on a common reference system to identify best practices relative to policy needs.
In detail, the method group worked out a common methodology for Technology Assessment which included a European definition of TA and the framework “from method to impact”. According to the definition, “TA is a scientific, interactive and communicative process which aims to contribute to the formation of public and political opinion on societal aspects of science and technology”. Based on the TA-definition, the framework “Method to Impact” illustrates the different, often parallel, steps of a TA-project which are the situation appreciation, goal setting, project design and project implementation. The project design should be specially defined for each individual case and guarantee the quality of the project. The impact group revolved primarily around the issue of the meaning of the term “impact” and its being breaking down into identifiable goals. Impact was defined as “any change with regard to the state of knowledge, opinions held or actions taken by relevant actors in the process of societal debate on technological issues”.
To structure the different goals TA can play, the “typology of impact” was developed and is now built up as a matrix. The matrix combines the different dimensions of impact with the different dimensions of issue, e.g. policy analysis differentiates between the roles “policy objectives explored” and “existing policies assessed”. Each goal was additionally illustrated by a case study. In the future, it should be possible to choose the adequate method with respect to the goal a project wants to reach. TAMI was coordinated by the Europäische Akademie.

• Rathenau Institute, Netherlands;

• Flemish Institute for Science and Technology Assessment (viWTA), Belgium;

• Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, European Parliament (EP), Belgium.