3. Approaches

The question is how to anticipate the effects of S and T advances before too many irreversibilities have accumulated. Several approaches have been proposed to resolve this dilemma. All of them tend to move the evaluation of technological choices upstream, once the effects are there and can easily be objectified in the research and innovation processes, so as to take better account of ethical and societal issues in the orientation of technological development. These approaches can be classified into five groups, depending on whether they are based on :

• impact assessment: these methods inherit from TA and shift the focus from impact assessment, once technologies are known, to the processes of their design, development and integration into society. Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) is the culmination of this approach; it advocates early...