António Moniz

This chapter deals with the role of technology in industrial production. Hereby, the enabling character of technology will be strengthened from the perspective of Technology Assessment (TA) in various countries and epochs. Besides the remarkable evolution of technological progress in this sector, the interrelationship of technology with human labor, the creation of specific institutional settings as well as the innovation circles by capital investments must be considered when assessing industrial production. The argumentation line of the article is based on the hypothesis, that the increase of TA studies in the last three decades on industrial production indicates the societal problem orientation of these technological innovations and its impact on employment and job qualification. TA expertise raised awareness of the positive and negative impact of technologies in industry which brings together a variety of options for the decision makers. Furthermore, discourses on ethical values on the future of (industrial) work are highlighted by TA.

Additive manufacturing (commonly known as 3D printing or rapid prototyping) refers to processes used to produce parts in an additive manner by means of computer-aided design (CAD). While additive manufacturing is a technology that can be used in many different application areas, this project focuses on future trends in additive manufacturing (AM) aimed at improving biological functionality (bio-AM) and on its opportunities, barriers and challenges. The big advantage of this technique is that small batches can be produced more economically than with any other manufacturing process. Virtually any structure can be customized, which is particularly important in the healthcare sector. Possible applications include biological implants such as organs and tissues, nutrients, drugs and their transport mechanisms, equipment such as surgical knives and drilling guides, tissues for research, development and training, and personalized prostheses, supports and exoskeletons. Besides exploring such applications, the project will also systematically analyze potential "human enhancement" uses of AM technology and developments in the emerging do-it-yourself (DIY) cultures ("bio/body-hacking"; cyborgism; open source 3D printing movement).

In the first phase of the project, the technological state of the art will be analyzed, as will a wide variety of non-technical aspects, regulatory issues and future trends, also with a special focus on sociotechnical imaginaries (e.g., in science fiction), human enhancement and DIY cultures. This horizon scanning will be accomplished partly by means of expert and stakeholder interviews.

In the second phase, the project will use a variety of foresight and technology assessment methods and will carry out a 360° envisioning exercise with contributions by external experts, entailing an in-depth analysis of selected applications of bio-AM.

The project work will end with a scenario development phase in which the focus will be on likely outcomes of already emerging developments, though further-reaching future perspectives will be taken into account to a certain extent. Taken together, these scenarios will allow for both a broader understanding of the wide range of potential impacts of AM applications and a clearer picture of potential policy challenges relevant to the Members of the European Parliament.

At the beginning of the 21st century there are new expectations and challenges towards Technology Assessment (TA). Among these there is a new awareness on TA issues in education, in particular at universities. While TA was mainly an activity at extra-universitarian research institutions for a long time now there are new developments and initiative towards integrating TA issues in university courses. We will first give an insight into the international development. Secondly we will focus on the “TA and education” landscape in Germany and Portugal in more detail, followed by a description of new and emerging forms of cooperation between Portugal and Germany in this field which might serve as a model or an example for further cooperation between other partners.

This paper is a draft contribution for a definition of the concept of divestment. This topic is still very influenced by definitions from the fields of economics or management. Thus, from a group of definitions and approaches developed by different authors we try to elaborate on this divestment concept, searching for indicators and variables related to this practice. The founded indicators allow us to identify the main consequences and the potential social impacts due to divestment situations. Also we try to develop a methodology of research for analysis and impact framework that come from divestment action of companies.

The resulting economic integration of industrial processes and manufacturing internationalisation lead several authors to argue that world economy is globalised. In this context, the approach to the divestment concept without an social and económical context, does not show a group of associated practices and representations. Choices and options are motivated by exogenous forces that pushes companies to determine strategies that stop capital investment on new equipment goods, or on other imaterial goods. This type of strategy is designated by "divestment". The social level of consequencies are not due to the closing down or de-localization of production units that are divesting, but can be materialised of efects that are irreversible. This means unemployment, de-skilling, labour precarization and even emergence of new forms of social exclusion in former industrialised regions.

At the last National Conference of Industrial Sociology in Portugal (in March 1999) was presented a paper on the topic of “foresight as a technology and employment policy instrument” (A.B. Moniz) where there was a reference to the need of development of this kind of tools and instruments. This need is clear when one should neutralize the negative effects of such policies, and could support the positive influences, especially with the main aims of improvement of quality of working life. Thus, is today possible to make a first balance of the application in Portugal of a type of foresight analysis exercise: the Delphi method. After some of the uses of this method in Portugal on the fisheries socio-economical system and on the relation between information society and employment, we present in this paper a first assessment of such experiments and present some recommendations for future uses of this foresight technique. We conclude that they must be applied within the context of socio-economical perspectives, and not only the technological ones, although they should include that dimension.

The choice over the Portuguese case studies was based on the sample constructed for the application of the firm questionnaires, during the second year of the SOWING project, 1999. This sample was fulfilled of firms among several activity sectors: textile, manufacturing, electronics, transports and software industry, based on NACE – codes (2 – digit level). Thus, we agreed to include in a new database the remaining questionnaires and construct a sample with 113 observations. Concerning the organisational change we make a distinction of three categories of change. First we analyse changes taking place at the inter-firm level (outsourcing, subcontracting, geographic relocation), followed by changes at the organisational level (deconcentration/decentralisation, reduction of hierarchical levels, introduction of cost and profit centres). The third kind of changes analysed will be those taking place at the workplace level (job enlargement/enrichment, changing character of work, work load). The Portuguese studied companies presents a relative uniform pattern considering the variables social competencies, practical knowledge, responsibility and specialized professional qualifications.

This paper summarises the methodological approach and main results of the MARHE project (Employment and Human Resources in the Fisheries Socio-Economic System). This project had as its main aim the search for alternative futures for the fisheries sector in Portugal, with particular attention being paid to the human resources situation and the working and living conditions of the fisheries-dependent populations in the coastal areas. This is a particularly interesting case, since fisheries were once an important activity and they are now in deep recession, even though it is generally recognised that the future utilisation of maritime resources offer an immense potential. As part of the research, a Delphi exercise was implemented involving in two successive stages some of the leading actors and experts dealing with the sector in Portugal. Other initiatives were held in the context of the MARHE project providing direct and indirect inputs to the scenarios and recommendations that were put forward in the sequence of the Delphi exercise. Overall the activities described in the paper contributed to the mobilisation of major actors and to discussions that may have practical implication for the future of the sector, if certain conditions are now met in the follow up to the project.

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.