António Moniz

Technology assessment (TA) and TA-like activities in countries like Japan have a unique history and continue to play a role in contemporary science, technology, and innovation (STI) processes. The aim of the discussion of TA’s experience in East Asia is how STI governance is locally enacted in Asian knowledge-driven economies, as TA activities develop in conjunction with STI policies and programs. To render these processes, policies, and programs visible and to understand their implications for STI governance, a panel at the Berlin conference on TA discussed contributions that described and conceptualized, for example, how TA activities have emerged in Asian knowledge-based economies (KBE), in which particular forms (e.g., academic and parliamentary TA programs), to which technologies and/or actors they are linked, and which methods are used and why. The panel also sought to compare and contrast how TA is (or is not) institutionalized in Asian countries and regions, and to point to prospects for expansion of TA capacity. In doing so, the panellists placed the development of TA in a historical, sociological, and comparative perspective, and opened space for critical reflection on the potential, problems, and limitations associated with initiating TA in Asia and with KBEs overall

The objective of the paper is to help to understand recent changes in the structure of R&D activities, by analyzing data on the expenditure of the business sector in research and development (R&D). The results are framed in an international context, through comparison with indicators from the most developed countries, divided by technological intensity and economic activity. The study reveals that the indicators of Portuguese R&D expenditure in the business sector are closely linked both to fiscal policy and to high foreign direct investment in knowledge-intensive industries. It also links these indicators to phenomena such as the abundance of skilled labor in pharmaceutical industries and the government intervention in some sectors of the economy (namely health and rail transportation).

To focus on processes of scientific and technological design and on how newly designed objects are used in different ways than initially intended (“displaced”), the organizers (the Society for Social Studies on Science-4S and the European Association of Studies on Science and Technology-EASST) chose the conference theme “Design and Displacement”. The concept of design here referred to innovative processes in forming new ideas and material objects. This general idea was reflected in a multitude of sub-topics.

“Theory and Practice” of TA, which is referred to in the title of this journal “TATuP”, is usually addressed as a question of TA research. But science is more than research: the field of teaching requires just as much attention, both practically and theoretically. Therefore, a mere collection of individual teaching experiences and best practice examples does not provide a strong enough basis to discuss questions of TA teaching, these must also be embedded in a theoretical context and discussed in their relation to research. In this special issue, we aim to contribute to a combination of theoretical and practical approaches to the relation of TA and “Bildung”.

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This report begins with some general information and analysis of policy and regulation that were the subjects of discussion and exchange in the policy pillar in the first phase of WORKS. The second section is a synthesis of country information on general principles and trends of policy and policy enforcement. This is followed by a summary of sector information for the sectors chosen by the qualitative pillar to be the objects of empirical analysis. The last summarises research questions and dimensions to be guidelines for carrying out case studies and capturing the relevance and effects of policy and institutions at the workplace. –

The aim of the TeleRisk Project on labour relations and professional risks within the context of teleworking in Portugal – supported by IDICT – Institute for Development and Inspection of Working Conditions (Ministry of Labour), is to study the practices and forms of teleworking in the manufacturing sectors in Portugal. The project chose also the software industry as a reference sector, even though it does not intend to exclude from the study any other sector of activity or the so-called “hybrid” forms of work. However, the latter must have some of the characteristics of telework. The project thus takes into account the so-called “traditional” sectors of activity, namely textile and machinery and metal engineering (machinery and equipment), not usually associated to this type of work. However, telework could include, in the so-called “traditional” sectors, other variations that are not found in technologically based sectors. One of the evaluation methods for the dynamics associated to telework consisted in carrying out surveys by means of questionnaires, aimed at employers in the sectors analysed. This paper presents some of the results of those surveys. It is important to mention that, being a preliminary analysis, it means that it does not pretend to have exhausted all the issues in the survey, but has meant that it shows the bigger tendencies, in terms of teleworking practices, of the Portuguese industry.

The aim of the TeleRisk Project on labour relations and professional risks within the context of teleworking in Portugal – supported by IDICT – Institute for Development and Inspection of Working Conditions (Ministry of Labour), is to study the practices and forms of teleworking in the manufacturing sectors in Portugal. The project chose also the software industry as a reference sector, even though it does not intend to exclude from the study any other sector of activity or the so-called “hybrid” forms of work. However, the latter must have some of the characteristics of telework. The project thus takes into account the so-called “traditional” sectors of activity, namely textile and machinery and metal engineering (machinery and equipment), not usually associated to this type of work. However, telework could include, in the so-called “traditional” sectors, other variations that are not found in technologically based sectors. One of the evaluation methods for the dynamics associated to telework consisted in carrying out surveys by means of questionnaires, aimed at employers in the sectors analysed. This paper presents some of the results of those surveys. It is important to mention that, being a preliminary analysis, it means that it does not pretend to have exhausted all the issues in the survey, but has meant that it shows the bigger tendencies, in terms of teleworking practices, of the Portuguese industry.

The increasing degree of inter-dependency and integration of economy at a global scale motivated the globalization of scientific and technological knowledge from manufacturing, to the marketing and the strategic management of companies that act as protagonists of these processes. Globalization of markets is inter-connected with intensive incorporation of knowledge in economy. In this sense the continuous evolution of the manufacturing industry structure for an increased high intensity technology elements, namely information and communication technologies, implies that these industrial sub-sectors are conditioning the global performance of economy, the productivity gains and as a consequence the levels of economical and employment growth. This study on “R&D, Innovation and Employment Creation” for the Portuguese Observatory of Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP-MQE) is updating information on the articulation between Job creation, innovation, technology, and R&D. A diagnosis of the state of national S&T research and of processes of technological and organizational innovation was made, as well of the interfacing structures between the knowledge sector and the economical activities. Were made 12 case studies at companies with some innovation activities, interviews to unionists and to Professional associations, and public offices. Was made also a survey to a selected sample of technological infrastructures.

Science and technology (S&T) are considered to be a central source, or at least a basic medium, of societal and industrial innovation, while innovation is conceived to basically feed the regeneration of our welfare. The suppliers of S&T in Europe as well as the users of their „products“, are confronted with a number of challenges today. We want to stress here that it was not the primary goal of our Advanced Science & Technology Policy Planning (ASTPP) Network to come up with proposals how the strategic character of European S&T policies could be strengthened. The ASTPP-network instead focuses on one aspect: the provision of strategic intelligence necessary to identify and develop strategic choices. The underlying hypothesis is that the existing body of experiences with technology foresight, technology assessment and S/T policy evaluation provides a basis for the development of an advanced S&T policy „planning“ approach by trying to enhance, interlink or even integrate the growing, but still dispersed experience in these three areas of intelligence. By „intelligent“ we mean that the inter-relatedness of S&T, industrial efforts, societal needs and political interventions becomes more transparent so that interactive collaboration between them will be facilitated.

This is the second interim report of the research project "Information Society, Work and the Generation of New Forms of Social Exclusion" (SOWING). It is based on a firm survey conducted in the eight regions participating in the research project — Flanders (Belgium), Lazio (Italy), Niederösterreich (Austria), Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, the Stuttgart area (Germany), the Tampere region (Finland) and the West London area (U.K.). The aim of this report is to present a broad overview of the collected data. In general, only simple statistical methods have been applied. The report focuses on a regional comparison; however, the data have also been analysed by firm size, measured by quantity of staff, and industrial sector. It should be seen as a first step in the data analysis; it may also give some hints for a more strategic analysis of the survey data.

Today one can understand the wider use of the anthropocentrism concept applied to the production architectures, emerging a new value of the intuitive capacities and human knowledge in the optimization and flexibilization of the manufacturing processes. Having a flexible production and assembly system architecture that exists at UNINOVA-CRI, we will try to develop some exploratory hypothesis on the applicability of the hybridizing concept and its repercussions in the definition of working places, in their organization and formation of working teams. We will underline some aspects that should be taken into consideration when are design such systems, including some ergonomical aspects.