Participation and engagement

The function and goals of technology assessment (TA) are multiple. Inter alia, they embrace practices aimed at enhancing societal understanding of the broad implications of science and technology, at providing policy advice about intended and unintended consequences, at expanding democratic input through expanding the range and diversity of visions and voices in policymaking, and at opening up a range of socio-technical futures and exploring alternatives. At the heart of TA lies the proposition that science and technology wield unfathomable power, that it is ill-advised to wait until after the event to manage the consequences, that anticipatory forms of governance are both judicious and necessary, and, relevant to this chapter, that these processes cannot be left to experts alone. In this chapter, the potential of two context-sensitive methods for including non-expert social actors into science policy discussions as a means of generating socially reflexive policy deliberation are explored.