Institute of Technology Assessment


The Institute of Technology Assessment is a research unit of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
The ITA is the only institution in Austria that is fully devoted to technology assessment. The institute organises for many years the internationally renowned annual TA conferences in Vienna and serves as a national and international networking node of the TA community. ITA is a full member of the European Parliamentary Technology Assessment network, is a founding member of the German-speaking Network NTA and is, since 2008, a member of the European Technology Assessment Group.

History

Founded in 1985 as a working group within the former "Institute for Socio-economic Development Research and Technology Assessment", since end of 1987 independent as "Technology Assessment Unit " ); since 1994 an institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Its founding director was the physicist prof. Ernest Braun. Second director was the economist prof. Gunther Tichy scholar, directs the institute. Currently, the institute has approx. 25staff members, among them 20 researchers from the natural and engineering sciences, humanities and social sciences.

Main areas of research

The ITA focuses on the following themes:
ITA recently added a "topics" section describing in plain language the main topics it deals with.

Publications

Some of ITA's publications are published in special series on the publication server of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The institute serves a publisher. These are the following series: