1. Introduction
This brief note describes technology assessment activities in Norway, and looks ahead to some of the future prospects for this field. Although Norway has no formal agency responsible for the studies in 'technology assessment', it has had a wide range of activities exploring the social, economic, environmental and safety aspects of new technologies. However, despite a strong research record in many relevant areas a persistent problem - by no means exclusive to Norway, of course - has been lack of coordination and weak links between researchers and policymakers (both in Parliament and the administration). The only advice-giving organisation for the system as a whole - known as the Science Policy Council - was abolished in 1989 and has not been replaced. But this is likely to change in the medium-term future, as a result of an important reorganisation of the Research Council system, and new activities and organisations relevant to technology assessment are actively being discussed at the present time.
2. Technology Assessment Activities in Norway
Technology assessment is not, of course, a well-defined field: it tends to cover activities which range all the way from narrowly-focussed engineering risk assessments through to more wide-ranging work on the social construction and impacts of technological systems. Norway has activities spanning this whole spectrum of concerns.
Beginning with more engineering-oriented risk assessment, the activities have been both public and private in character. For example, as a leading maritime nation Norway has long had a concern for safety at sea, and the (private) shipping classification society Det norske Veritas has been involved for over a century with the mapping, assessment and regulation of maritime technologies. The society has the primary objective of certifying the safety of new techniques for building and operating ships. In recent years this has extended into a concern with the environmental impacts of ships and offshore technologies, and Det norske Veritas has played a leading role in environmental certification. From the public side, the Royal Norwegian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (NTNF) for many years sponsored programmes in risk assessment, and these became particularly important with the emergence of a major oil and gas industry in the mid-1970s. Oil and gas technology posed serious problems concerning safety at work, environmental risk, and regional impacts; indeed the oil industry also had large impacts on the overall pattern of employment and on the economic structure of the country as a whole. All this led to perhaps the first large-scale work on technology assessment in Norway. From 1985 oil and gas became one of the so-called 'priority investment areas' of Norwegian research policy, and in the following six years the public sector spent approximately 150 million ECU on R&D in this field. Just over 5 percent of this went to projects in the broad fields of safety, preparedness and working environment, and a further 5 percent to a programme on 'Oil and Society' sponsored by the Norwegian Council for Applied Social Research (NORAS). The latter programme was closely concerned with macroeconomic issues, with regional impacts, and with general social dimensions of the rise of the oil economy. The programme ended in 1991, but a closely related programme, 'PETFORSK' (petroleum-related research) continues; this programme is directed by Ms. Maya Arnestad.
In Norway, as in most advanced economies, the biggest single field of R&D and technology development is Information Technology (IT). In this field - which received approximately 600 million ECU in public R&D support between 1985 and 1991 - the Royal Norwegian Council for Research in Science and the Humanities (NAVF) sponsored an important research programme between 1986 and 1992. Called 'Technology and Society: Information Technology', this programme had a budget of approximately 2 million ECU: it was directed by Professor Knut Holtan S_rensen. This was primarily a programme of sociological research, within the field of 'Science and Technology Studies'. In fact, the work of the programme extended outside specifically IT topics (such as the psychology of user interfaces, of the development of IT policy) into problems ranging from the role of technology in the everyday life of children, to the role of cars in Norwegian society, with many of the projects bearing close links to what is now sometimes called 'constructive technology assessment'.
A final relevant activity was the "Future Oriented Technology Policy" (FREMTEK) programme initiated by NTNF in 1991, and continued by the Research Council of Norway until the end of 1993. This programme supported policy-makers with research on all aspects of technological change, with particular emphasis on the relationships between innovation, economic growth and the social context. The programme had a budget of approximately 350.000 ECU per year.
After the FREMTEK programme ended, the Research Council of Norway established a new group, the STEP Group (Group for Studies in Technology, Innovation and Economic Policy) to continue the work of the programme. STEP has a five-year contract with the Research Council, and a staff of fifteen researchers. The basis of the work in STEP is the recognition that science and technology policy-making has entered a new phase. On the one hand, it can no longer be thought of purely in terms of research policy. That is, policy-makers are looking beyong research programmes which aim simply at the development of new scientific and technological principles and results. It is necessary to focus also on the application and use of science and technology, by companies and by society as a whole, and this leads directly to an emphasis on the diffusion of technology, and on the role of non-research factors in innovation processes. On the other hand, policy is now being made in a changed scientific and technological context: there is a wider role for science-based technologies, there is increasing internationalisation, and greatly increased concern for environmental constraints.
Against this background, the STEP Group carries out research on historical, economic, social and organisational issues relevant for the broad field of innovation policy. Projects cover, inter alia, development and use of new indicators, analysis of R&D performance in Norwegian industry, inter-industry technology flows, mobility of scientific and technical personnel, history of science and technology policy, and so on. The programme has also had a number of projects in the field of risk assessment, and technology assessment at enterprise level, dealing with internal control systems, helicopter safety regulation (in the North Sea), etc. The group is directed by Prof. Keith Smith.
3. Teaching in Science, Technology and Society
It is increasingly recognised that formal training is an important element in developing the competence to understand science and technology issues. In terms of university-level teaching relevant to capabilities in technology assessment, Norway has two significant activities. The first is a series of undergraduate and post-graduate courses in Science, Technology and Society organised by the Centre for Technology and Society at the University of Trondheim. This centre has played a pioneering role in developing Masters and Doctoral research in this field in Norway, and has succeeded in producing a strong flow of postgraduate research: its director is Professor Knut S_rensen.
A newer activity is the ESST (Education in Society, Science and Technology) program at the University of Oslo. ESST is an international collaborative project between fifteen European universities, to establish a common Masters degree program in Science and Technology Studies. It is coordinated by the European Inter-Universities Association, based in Louvain-le-Neuve, Belgium. From 1 July 1993 ESST has been fully supported by the University of Oslo, which has established two staff positions, and a small centre within the Social Sciences faculty. The teaching program began on 1 September 1993; the Director of Studies is Mr. Olav Wicken.
The ESST teaching program consists of two semesters. In the first semester students in each participating university follow a common course in social, economic and historical aspects of science and technology development. In the second semester, each university offers a specialised topic, and students from the universities will travel to whichever university offers the topic which they wish to study. After this, students will write a dissertation for the final degree. Six universities are currently teaching the ESST programme: Madrid, Strasbourg, Brussels (Free University), Limburg, East London, Lausanne and Oslo. The Oslo specialisation course focusses on Science and Technology Policy.
A final technology assessment activity which should be mentioned is the IATAFI group at the High Technology Centre in Bergen. IATAFI is an international association of technology assessment and forecasting institutions: this network is sponsored by the UN, and coordinated by Mr. Jan Andersen.
4. Problems and future prospects
In addition to the activities described above, Norway has had a strong tradition of ex post evaluation exercises aimed at clarifying the operations and impacts of public R&D programmes. During the 1980s, for example, Norwegian public R&D policy was organised around a number of 'priority investment areas', two of which have been mentioned above. Others included biotechnology, materials, and health and environment. All of these areas were subject to more or less detailed evaluation, which covered - among other issues - the appropriateness, efficiency and impact of programmes. Most of these evaluations were organised by The Institute for Studies in Research and Higher Education, Professor Hans Skoie.
These activities, in combination with those sketched above, suggest that Norway has strong resources for TA work. However, the sketch presented here also suggests that forward-looking assessment, particularly assessment relevant for science and technology policy choices, is a weak area in Norway at the present time. But it is very likely that there will be significant changes in the near future.
The reason for this is that over the past three years the
Norwegian government has carried through major changes in the
structure and organisation of the research policy system. The
five research councils which have until now organised much of
Norwegian publicly-supported R&D have been amalgamated into
one organisation, the Research Council of Norway (NFR), with the
objective of creating an integrated and coordinated approach to
science and technology policy. NFR was established on 1 January
1993, and came into existence as an integrated organisation on
1 August 1993. NFR has been given important strategic responsibilities
for the development and implementation of research policy in Norway,
and will act as a policy development agency; the various documents
which established NFR explicitly envisaged that it should act
as a deliverer of ideas and assessments in science and technology
policy. In one way this will differ significantly from other kinds
of TA activities, because NFR is of course an executive agency
of Government, with explicit responsibilities for policy implementation.
However, because Norway is a small country, it is improbable that
there will be any separate Parliamentary TA activity, and therefore
it is very likely that these advice, analysis and assessment functions
will extend both to Parliament and to the general public. NFR
incorporates a new strategy department for this purpose. This
innovative organisation will establish policy analysis work, and
this task is under active discussion at the present time. It is
too soon to predict either the decisions which will be made, or
their outcomes, but some new form of technology assessment process
is very much on the agenda in Norway.
(Prof. Keith Smith)
Contact:
Prof. Keith Smith
STEP Group
(Group for Studies in Technology,
Innovation and Economic Policy)
Storgaen 1, 0155 Oslo, Norway
Tel.: + 47/2242 9780