The emergence and institutionalisation of technology assessment in Finland

The term technology assessment (TA) refers to activities or methods with which the impact of technology on society are identified and analysed. The results of the assessment are transmitted to the political decision-making process. The institutional starting point for TA activity was the establishment of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), in the Congress of the United States, in 1972. In the 1980s, smaller parliamentary technology assessment units were founded in five European countries and in the European Parliament. In the wake, several European parliaments have expressed their interest in initiating assessment activities, among them the parliaments of Finland, Italy and Greece (Vig, 1997). In this paper, we shall analyse the history of the institutionalisation of the parliamentary technology assessment in Finland and compare it with the TA practices in other European countries.