![]() This report continues a series of similar reports compiled by the respective presidency of the EPTA network. The Annual EPTA Conference 2016 'The future of labour in the digital era: Ubiquitous computing, virtual platforms and real-time production' was thus devoted to this timely and exciting topic. It is therefore not surprising that the member institutions of the European Parliamentary Technology Assessment (EPTA) network have already devoted a number of projects on labour issues related to digitalisation. Technology assessment (TA) always tries to be at the forefront of such debates. Just take the conflicts surrounding Uber and AirBnB and their entry to traditional markets, as well as the vision of the so-called Internet of Things or cyber-physical systems, as the most prominent issues. The associated challenges to the labour market, working conditions, wages, and the blurring boundary between private and professional life are the topic of intensive political and societal debate in many countries. ![]() Thus, the article goes beyond the mere statement “TA has politics” by illustrating how the politics of TA manifests in distinct ways in different roles of TA practitioners in policy advice.ĭigitalization, automation and increasing robotisation in health care, industry and beyond, coupled with the advent of platform-based competitive mediation of work (crowdworking) – all impact on the future of work and labour. Our analysis further exemplifies how these roles differ in a) the reference to and interpretation of core principles such as scientificity, neutrality and relevance and b) their strategies of managing the boundary between science and politics. These roles vary, inter alia, in the dominant modes of policy advice and the aspired function in politics and society and correlate with specific project and advisory constellations but also with paradigmatic beliefs of TA practitioners. Our study shows that practitioners take up multiple roles: the decisionist advisor, the deliberative practitioner, the governance facilitator, the engaged academic, and the agenda-setter. Concomitantly, the roles of scientific policy advisors have diversified.Based on an empirical study of advisory practices at the Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, we ask which advisory roles TA practitioners adopt. ![]() Over past decades, the notion of policy advice in technology assessment (TA) has widened, going beyond traditional advice in the form of expert opinions by adding a broad range of brokerage activities.
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