Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA): Innovation Co-design as a Process of Social Enlightenment and Moderation of Expectations

Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) is an approach to inspiring the anticipatory design of technologies and other areas of innovation. It views technology development as multi-layered, dynamic, and heterogeneous. CTA is realised in interaction with multiple stakeholders and in an exchange about their different perspectives and interests. The main objective is to align ongoing innovation processes more closely with realistic contexts of use. CTA does so by processing a broad spectrum of important aspects, such as the interests and constellations of stakeholders, topics and conditions of implementation, and by discussing these issues with the relevant stakeholders. CTA often starts early, while the innovation can still be shaped. CTA shifts and expands the focus of traditional Technology Assessment from the impact of new technologies to design, development, and implementation. To this end, social groups other than just engineers are also brought into dialogue with each other in workshops. Solid research in advance is crucial for the quality of the interaction with the workshop participants. CTA often employs scenarios as ‘boundary objects’ to bring the heterogenous stakeholders into dialogue. These scenarios are highly condensed narratives of socio-technical configurations, innovation path maps, or innovation value chains. CTA is increasingly used to explore new developments or innovation processes other than technological innovations, such as innovations in science, governance, commercial products, or business models. For such uses of the approach the term ‘Constructive Innovation Assessment’ is emerging.