This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of technology assessment (TA) practices, theories, methods and cultures across the globe. Highlighting the significant influence of rapidly changing technology on human life and development, it examines diverse perspectives on how TA can be developed to better meet the challenges of the future. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of technology assessment (TA) practices, theories, methods and cultures across the globe. Highlighting the significant influence of rapidly changing technology on human life and development, it examines diverse perspectives on how TA can be developed to better meet the challenges of the future. Covering both theory and methodology, expert contributors analyse the deep changes caused by technological advances at the individual, collective and global level. They identify approaches and methods that can lead to informed, considered decisions on technology and responsible handling of their consequences. Chapters explore a wide range of TA applications across different cultural contexts as well as in various fields including AI, climate engineering, healthcare and work. Drawing on extensive practical experiences from a global movement, this Handbook is an invaluable resource for scholars and practitioners of technology assessment. It is also an important guide for students of science and technology studies, the ethics of technology, risk assessment and responsible research and innovation.

Technological advance affects almost all areas of human life. Rapid digitization, increased mobility, new biotechnologies, and nanotechnology deeply influence, amongst others, industrial production, entertainment, work, military affairs, and individual life. Besides overwhelmingly positive effects on wealth, comfort, innovation, and development, this also raises questions of unintended effects, of tensions with democracy, of the role of citizens, and of its sustainability facing environmental issues. Tools and procedures are needed to cope with this challenging situation. Technology assessment (TA) has been developed more than fifty years ago to enable science, the economy, and society to harvest the potential of new technology to the maximum extent possible and to deal responsibly with possible adverse effects. It was developed more than 50 years ago in the U.S. Congress and has diversified considerably in the meantime. Parliamentary TA in many European states and at the international level, participatory TA at the local and regional levels worldwide, and TA as part of engineering processes are the most relevant fields today. Technology assessment is a growing field of interdisciplinary research and scientific policy advice. This volume (a) gives an overview of motivations of TA, its history and its current practices, (b) develops a fresh theoretical perspective on TA rooted in social theory and philosophy, and (c) draws conclusions from the theoretical perspective for the further development of TA’s practices. It provides the first comprehensive view on the growing field of TA at the international level.

Assistive Technology Assessment Handbook, Second Edition, proposes an international ideal model for the assistive technology assessment process, outlining how this model can be applied in practice to re-conceptualize the phases of an assistive technology delivery system according to the biopsychosocial model of disability. The model provides reference guidelines for evidence-based practice, guiding both public and private centers that wish to compare, evaluate, and improve their ability to match a person with the correct technology model. This second edition also offers a contribution to the Global Cooperation on Assistive Technology (GATE) initiative, whose activities are strongly focused on the assistive products service delivery model. Organized into three parts, the handbook: gives readers a toolkit for performing assessments; describes the roles of the assessment team members, among them the new profession of psychotechnologist; and reviews technologies for rehabilitation and independent living, including brain–computer interfaces, exoskeletons, and technologies for music therapy. Edited by Stefano Federici and Marcia J. Scherer, this cross-cultural handbook includes contributions from leading experts across five continents, offering a framework for future practice and research.

How well does technology assessment (TA) relate to women's lives? If women are underrepresented in the long-term research and development process that leads to scientific advancements, how can TA understand technology aimed at women? It can't, claims the author of Technology Assessment: A Feminist Perspective. A relative new field, TA examines the social aspect of technology and provides information critical to decision making, policy development, safety standards, and avoiding litigation. Until gender analysis is introduced into all assessments of new technologies, Janine Marie Morgall argues, TA can't evaluate technology's impact upon women. Morgall investigates two areas of technology that affect women's lives: productive (clerical work) and reproductive (health care). Case studies of clerical workers and health care recipients illustrate gender-specify effects of technology ranging from word processors to treatments for infertility. These studies convincingly demonstrate that TA encourages innovations without questioning their effects on women. Issues of dominance, control, and conflicting values emerge from Morgall's feminist perspective and support her call for gender analysis of new technologies. In the series Labor and Social Change, edited by Paula Rayman and Carmen Sirianni.

The term health technology refers to drugs, devices, and programs that can improve and extend quality of life. As decision-makers struggle to find ways to reduce costs while improving health care delivery, health technology assessments (HTA) provide the evidence required to make better-informed decisions.This is the first book that focuses on the s