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ItemThe Concept of 'Sociotechnology' and Funding Agencies Dedicated to Science and Technology for Society(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-10-03) Tahara, Keiichiro ; Yarime, Masaru ; Yoshizawa, GoNote: This is part of the panel presentation "Knowledge Use and Exchange for Policy and Society in Japan: Concepts and Practices." Research Question Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX) in Japan has a unique funding agency dedicated to research projects on "sociotechnology". One question is what is meant by "sociotechnology" and what are similar concepts and practices comparable to this term. Another question concerns in what sense this organization is unique compared to other agencies in the world. For the research on the concept and similar terms of sociotechnology, a mind map software and a qualitative data analysis (QDA) software are employed to visually and constructively arrange text data collected from a vast range of documents including books, articles and manuscripts in English and Japanese. For the research on foreign agencies comparable to RISTEX, web research, document analysis and e-mail interviews are basic tools. Preliminary Results The umbrella term "sociotechnology" includes technology for, as, with, and by society. Technology for society refers to practical activities aiming to solve tangible but often intractable problems. It is more than applied technology. Technology as society was known as social control and is now developed under the name of social engineering. This somewhat Popperian concept (Popper 1936, 1945) covers social activities and structures as a technological system. Technology with society has often been used as a popular adjective "socio-technical" (Emery & Trist 1960), the concept of which now refers to a balanced way of seeing technology and society and particularly focuses on the often complicated interactions and networks of technological and social actors - actors include data, figures, objects, architects, as well as humans in a Latourian sense (Latour 1987). Technology by society may be the most understandable in its first appearance, but probably this concept includes more than usually imagined by the term like collaboration, multiplicity of perspectives etc. Lastly, technology for society is more straightforward - technology oriented to problem-solving in the policy process and the social practice. From a preliminary research we identified three key functions of sociotechnology. The first is oriented to problem-solving. The corresponding disciplines, frameworks and approaches include policy science, finalization of science, knowledge use and exchange, problem-oriented learning and utilization-focused evaluation. The second is extensiveness, comprising of comprehensiveness and interrelatedness. The related keywords are, for instance, STS, evolutionary economics, social engineering, management studies, socio-technical system, network theory, soft systems methodology, creative holism, transition management, problem structuring, and systematic review. The third is collaboration and trans-disciplinarity. These are similar in the sense that both appreciate the collection and diversity of perspectives, drawn from actors in the former and disciplines in the latter. Regional sociology, communication studies, social intelligence, empowerment, appreciative inquiry, participatory technology assessment, regional foresight, and upstream engagement can perform the function of this kind. In this way terms comparable to "sociotechnology" so far we enumerate are mode-2 science, constructive/real-time technology assessment, soft science and technology, participatory action research, and collaborative problem-solving. These will be organized and distributed in a schematic map with the help of the computer applications. Rarely can we find organizations dedicated to the promotion of science and technology for society. Some possible organizations include NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) in the UK, and STW (Dutch Technology Foundation) in the Netherlands.
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ItemJapanese TA-Like Activities in the Sectors of Medical Care, Food and Energy(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-10-03) Matsuo, Makiko ; Yarime, Masaru ; Yoshizawa, GoNote: This is part of the panel presentation "Knowledge Use and Exchange for Policy and Society in Japan: Concepts and Practices." Japanese TA-like activities in the sectors of medical care, food and energy Makiko Matsuo and Go Yoshizawa Given the conceptual and historical survey of TA, this presentation raises the following research questions: what kind of TA-like activities have been implemented in Japan, particularly focusing on medicine, food and energy sectors; what are the needs in these individual sectors for which institutionalization of TA would be able to meet; in which conditions fragmented or networked activities can be regarded as TA. Document analysis and interviews with relevant actors involved in the past and current TA-like activities. The approach is more like action research, by which we investigators change the context to realize the institutionalization of TA by mobilizing and networking these actors and ourselves through mutual learning. Preliminary Results Technology assessment (TA) refers to institutions and practices which support problem-definition (agenda setting) or decision-making for the development of technology and society by anticipating, at an early stage of the technology development, societal impacts of emerging technologies that are difficult to be governed by conventional research, innovation and legal systems. From this perspective, TA-like activities in the following sectors seem fragmented and less comprehensive. In the case of medical care, TA-like activities have been mostly economic assessment for the medical service payment, which is entirely focused on cost-effectiveness just for medical resource allocation, not for ethical and social implications. Advisory councils for ELSI on advanced technologies have no comprehensive discussions crossing over ministries. Inadequacy of agenda-setting also brings discussions to a deadlock - an expert panel on bioethics in the Cabinet Office has been holding years of debate on embryos. The legislation by parliamentary members is so dependent on legislative bureaus and swayed by social conditions. This entails a lack of consistency in debate as exemplified by virtually leaving discussions on transplanting organs from people 15 or younger. As to food, there are increasing applications of science and technology in this sector, such as pesticides, food additives, veterinary drugs, food irradiation, GM foods, health and dietary foods, nano foods, and cloned meat. The need for comprehensive assessment becomes more urgent, not only for social and ethical debate on GM foods and cost-benefit analysis, but also for examining how health foods affect Japanese individual dietary habits and life styles, food culture, food industry etc. Perspectives on sustainable fishery, relationship between energy and agriculture have also been dismissed. Risk assessment currently undertaken by the Food Safety Commission (FSC) is generally effectively conducted for foods subject to pre-market authorization, despite insufficient assessment of other aspects of applied technologies. The energy policy arena abounds in TA-like activities such as a number of plans, strategies, visions and roadmaps to comply with Kyoto protocol. These quantitative technical scenarios are consistent each other in number but they have hardly conducted social impact assessment. For example in the development renewable energy, there is potentially severe conflict over the renewable portfolio standard (RPS) legislation and a future distributed power supply system. There is no apparent clash, no TA-like activity, and no anticipatory governance. Other examples include an insufficient assessment on social, economic and environmental impacts of biomass fuels, the instalment of HEMS (home energy management system) and its consequence, and 24/7 convenience stores - how it affects the reduction of CO2 emissions, local retailers, regional employment, late-night criminal activities, urban life style etc. A more specific issue discussed is risks and regulations on multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). There are controversies and confusions around scientific judgements on a couple of articles that imply this nanomaterial may causes asbestos-like mesothelioma. A precautionary but rather pointless and no evidence-based guideline announced by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) in February 2008 has plunged the nanotechnology industry into a further confusion and nanophobia-phobia (Rip 2006). Our analysis suggests the lack of a precautionary appraisal (Stirling 2007) might be the major cause.
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ItemKnowledge Use and Exchange for the Making of National Science and Innovation Strategies(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-10-03) Tahara, Keiichiro ; Yarime, Masaru ; Yoshizawa, GoNote: This is part of the panel presentation "Knowledge Use and Exchange for Policy and Society in Japan: Concepts and Practices." Research questions addressed in this presentation are what kind of information and knowledge was used for the making of the Science and Technology Basic Plan (STBP) and in particular, to what extent academic policy analysis was useful in the making process. A further question is what kind of field in which practitioners, researchers and decision-makers communicate and exchange their knowledges would be effective and legitimate in the making of national science and innovation strategies. Following interviews with working and former government administrators heavily engaged in the making of the Basic Plans, qualitative data analysis is applied to organize interview and document text data and form a logical structure implicitly embedded in the contents of Basic Plans. We also conducted interviews with researchers and practitioners concerning evidence-based policy making or the use and exchange of knowledge on national science and innovation strategies in the Netherlands, France, England and Scotland. Preliminary Results We firstly defined the term "policy analysis" discriminating it from other information and knowledge. For this, a two-dimensional taxonomy of information and knowledge used for policymaking roughly illustrated by Parsons (1995) was developed with more fine-tuned and detailed definitions: 1) Internal vs. External: Whether or not information and knowledge is generated mainly by decision-makers and their affiliated actors; 2)Formal vs. Informal: Whether or not the procedure of information and knowledge generation is authenticated both institutionally and methodologically. Then, policy analysis is defined as an activity with accountability and policy-orientation, or information and knowledge generated thereby. Accountability is the extent to which information and knowledge generation activity is publicly accounted and the responsibility for the activity and account is clear. It comprises explicitness and definiteness of the generation activity and responsibility (voluntary openness), logical consistency and capability of being referred (endogenous logic), and multiplicity and rationality of data and methods (methodological validity). Policy-orientation (exogenous logic) is the extent to which the logic is explicitly consistent with the endogenous logic and is developed directed to the actual policy process. The analytical result shows that internal and formal policy analysis (mainly by NISTEP) and internal and informal policy information has been increasingly used, but external and informal policy analysis has remained unused. We also find that issues on the decision-making system lie in deliberation institutions/processes, institutional void of the discussion of meta-analysis on how policy studies should be incorporated into the decision-making, flawed system of commissioned research, interactions between policymakers and researchers, short job rotation system in bureaucracy, few opportunities for policymakers to increase capacities (to identify what kind of research is necessary) as practitioners, and biased perspectives toward promotion. With regard to the knowledge generation system, first of all, the policy research community is in its infancy. Immaturity of (internal and external) think-tanks and flawed university training system for policy researchers are also issues to be seriously considered when researchers are less aware of policymakers' needs. Generated knowledge itself may not be able to guarantee its quality because of flawed data management system for policy analysis, few studies on national issues but more on bureaucratic sectoral interests, and few long-term studies except Delphi. Furthermore, the focus on review studies (performance evaluation) does not lead to the institutional and procedural reform of the planning. What we are trying to do is actively changing this situation by setting a number of interaction fields and communication spaces in which these actors come to meet. Our reflexive attempt is the workshop jointly organized by academic societies for science and innovation and for science and technology studies (STS), and supported by a science communication network involving working scientists and engineers. The workshop is to be held in March 2009 and the result will be presented in this conference.
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ItemTechnology Assessment in Japan, the US and EU Countries: Reconstruction of the Concepts and History(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-10-03) Yarime, Masaru ; Yoshizawa, Go