Policy Oriented Technology Assessment Across Europe

This book is open access under a CC-BY license. Policy-making to address grand challenges faces greater complexity than any previous project of modernization. Future scenarios are haunted by uncertainty and there is real ambivalence as to the values that policy should strive for. In this situation decision-makers look to research and innovation to provide answers and solutions. But neither can the great transitions ahead be planned by science, nor will conventional methods of innovation bring such transitions about. A turn to interactive governance is therefore underway with policy-makers and citizens becoming increasingly involved in processes of deliberating futures. Technology Assessment (TA) is the art of structuring such processes. TA goes beyond traditional expert policy analysis by systematically combining a multi-disciplinary evidence base with participatory approaches to policy deliberation. TA thus seeks to act as a hub for serious and transparent dialogue between policy, industry, science, and society about the challenges ahead and the available options for overcoming them responsibly. This volume offers an up-to-date account of the expansion of technology assessment capacities across new European member states. The contributions of this volume are written by leading European researchers and practitioners in technology assessment (TA) and are based on the PACITA (Parliaments and Civil Society in Technology Assessment) project.

New technologies with the potential to improve the health of populations are continuously being introduced. But not every technological development results in clear health gains. Health technology assessment provides evidence-based information on the coverage and usage of health technologies, enabling them to be evaluated properly and applied to health care efficaciously, promoting the most effective ones while also taking into account organizational, societal and ethical issues. This book reviews the relationship between health technology assessment and policy-making, and examines how to increase the contribution such research makes to policy- and decision-making processes. By communicating the value and potential of health technology assessment to a wider audience, both within and beyond decision-making and health care management, it aims ultimately to contribute to improve the health status of the population through the delivery of optimum health services.

"Contributions from participants in the PACITA (Parliaments and Civil Society in Technology Assessment) project, which ran from 2011-15."

This book is open access under a CC-BY license. Policy-making to address grand challenges faces greater complexity than any previous project of modernization. Future scenarios are haunted by uncertainty and there is real ambivalence as to the values that policy should strive for. In this situation decision-makers look to research and innovation to provide answers and solutions. But neither can the great transitions ahead be planned by science, nor will conventional methods of innovation bring such transitions about. A turn to interactive governance is therefore underway with policy-makers and citizens becoming increasingly involved in processes of deliberating futures. Technology Assessment (TA) is the art of structuring such processes. TA goes beyond traditional expert policy analysis by systematically combining a multi-disciplinary evidence base with participatory approaches to policy deliberation. TA thus seeks to act as a hub for serious and transparent dialogue between policy, industry, science, and society about the challenges ahead and the available options for overcoming them responsibly. This volume offers an up-to-date account of the expansion of technology assessment capacities across new European member states. The contributions of this volume are written by leading European researchers and practitioners in technology assessment (TA) and are based on the PACITA (Parliaments and Civil Society in Technology Assessment) project.

Recoge: 1. Introduction - 2. Health Technology Assessment in Europe - 3. Conclusions - 4. Appendix.

The Europaische Akademie zur Erforschung von Folgen wissenschaftlich-techni scher Entwicklungen Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler GmbH (european academy) is con cerned with the scientific study of the consequences of scientific and technological advance for the individual and social life and for the natural environment. The main focus is to examine foreseeable mid-and long-term processes that are especially influenced by natural-and engineering sciences and the medical disciplines. The academy fulfills this task by organizing interdisciplinary expert discussions. Another important issue of the work of the Europaische Akademie concerns the methodology of Technology Assessment as a general issue. This is the main reason that the european academy organized during the past two years a project funded by the European Commission on Technology Assessment. Methods and Impact (TAMI). Together with partners from all over Europe a common understanding of what Tech nology Assessment (TA) is supposed to do was developed. Most importantly it was acknowledged that the core of any TA activity has to be a sound scientific under standing of the relevant phenomena. Communication then is of cordial importance to reach the relevant decision makers as well as the general public. It is true that this phase of the TA process has been treated with too little attention for many years. The communication processes between scientific advisers and policy makers have hence to be further scrutinized.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

The contributors analyse and contrast the need and demand for RIT performance measurement and evaluation within the US and European innovation and policy making systems. They assess current US and European RIT evaluation practices and methods in key areas, discuss applications of new evaluative approaches and consider strategies that could lead to improvements in RIT evaluation design and policies.