The increasing presence of Li-Ion batteries (LIB) in mobile and stationary energy storage applications has triggered a growing interest in the environmental impacts associated with their production. Numerous studies on the potential environmental impacts of LIB production and LIB-based electric mobility are available, but these are very heterogeneous and the results are therefore difficult to compare. Furthermore, the source of inventory data, which is key to the outcome of any study, is often difficult to trace back. This paper provides a review of LCA studies on Li-Ion batteries, with a focus on the battery production process. All available original studies that explicitly assess LIB production are summarized, the sources of inventory data are traced back and the main assumptions are extracted in order to provide a quick overview of the technical key parameters used in each study. These key parameters are then compared with actual battery data from industry and research institutions. Based on the results from the reviewed studies, average values for the environmental impacts of LIB production are calculated and the relevance of different assumptions for the outcomes of the different studies is pointed out. On average, producing 1 Wh of storage capacity is associated with a cumulative energy demand of 328 Wh and causes greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 110 gCO2eq. Although the majority of existing studies focus on GHG emissions or energy demand, it can be shown that impacts in other categories such as toxicity might be even more important. Taking into account the importance of key parameters for the environmental performance of Li-Ion batteries, research efforts should not only focus on energy density but also on maximizing cycle life and charge-discharge efficiency.

The last decades have shown an increasing amount of research into expectations of science and technology. Especially for emerging technologies, expectations held by different stakeholder are guiding the direction of research and development. In this article the results of an investigation into the expectations of specific actors regarding the development of emerging battery technology for applications in the power grid are presented. It is set up as an explorative study within the framework of Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA). A number of studies since the 1990s have indicated a growing need for energy storage options in the power grid, where batteries appear to be capable of providing a range of valuable services to the grid. Cost-effectiveness on a large scale will however require considerable technical improvements. The configuration of energy storage may differ in the specific location and exploitation of the storage assets, as well as in the investments in new storage capacity. In this study the visions and expectations of several relevant actors are analysed using interviews and surveys in terms of expectations of technological development, expectations concerning stakeholder roles, and channels of interaction between the relevant actors. The results indicate a divide in expectations between the user side of the technology (the electric power industry) and the development side (academic researchers). Opinions differ with respect to the obstacles to technological development, the actors relevant in early technological development, and the most suitable channels for interaction between these actors. It follows from the theoretical background that conflicts in expectations provide the opportunity for the acceleration of technological development and adoption through stakeholder participation. Small interactive workshops, where conflicts identified in this paper are discussed, were identified as a suitable channel in order to reach consensus in visions and expectations for battery technology.

There are thousands of indicators produced to understand and govern our societies. Studies about the way indicators are used in technological innovation are significantly rare, despite the centrality of these decisions to promote growth in our technology-intensive civilization. This book presents what is known and what was discovered in a doctoral research, which analysed innovative business leaders, policymakers and public researchers responsible for technological innovations.

If the question is whether there is a parliamentary technology assessment (PTA) unit in Portugal or Spain, the clear answer is that there is still no such unit at the central state level at the present time, neither in Portugal nor in Spain. The question then has to be modified addressing previous and current efforts to establish PTA and the current framework conditions and opportunities. Practices of PTA are framed here as a democratic innovation in the context of changes in representative democracies. Against this backdrop, the efforts and opportunities to establish PTA in Spain and Portugal are studied. By sketching these developments and outlining the opportunities in these countries, our aim is to contribute to the debate about the likelihood of a new wave of PTA in Europe (Hennen/Nierling 2014).

The paper aims to understand the degree of transition towards e-mobility. The assumption is that the degree of convergence between actors of each system (batteries, vehicles, grid, policies, business models and consumers) is an indicator of changes in the present socio-technical regime. After an introduction to the socio-technical transition towards e-mobility, the paper presents and discusses three technology assessment approaches to several projects related to technology, society and politics. There are several thematic crossovers between all projects presented leading to a synergetic technology assessment. This output results from the overlapping areas between the cases and can be used to first assess the extent of changes in the present socio-technical regime, as well as to extract standards and regulations, acceptance/risk analyses and behaviour changes that could be significant in the context of a transition towards electric mobility.

Environmental concerns over the use of fossil fuels and their resource constraints have increased the interest in generating electric energy from renewable energy sources (RES) to provide a sustainable electricity supply. A main problem of those technologies (wind or solar power generation) is that they are not constant and reliable sources of power. This results inter alia in an increased demand of energy storage technologies. Related stake holders show a big interest in the technical, economic and ecologic aspects of new emerging energy storage systems. This comes especially true for electrochemical energy storage systems as different Li-Ion batteries, Sodium Sulfur or Redox Flow batteries which can be utilized in all grid voltage levels, a wide range of grid applications as well as end user groups (e.g. private households, industry). A prospective and active Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) can help to minimize potential mismatches, wrong investments, possible social conflicts, and environmental impacts of new energy storage technologies in an early development stage. It is insufficient to exclusively look at the operation phase to assess a technology. Such an approach can lead to misleading interpretations and can furthermore disregard social or ecological impact factors over the whole life cycle. Different energy storage technologies have to be evaluated in a prospective manner with a full integrated sustainability and life cycle approach to form a base for decision making and to support technology developers in order to allow distinctions between more or less sustainable battery technology variations. Therefore CTA is used as a scientific approach using several “neighbouring” engineering orientated disciplines e.g. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) or Life Cycle Costs (LCC) and their methodologies which were initially developed for other purposes.The aim of the presented PhD Thesis is to make an economic, technological and

The summer school “Renewable Energy Systems: Role and Use of Parliamentary Technology Assessment” was the first European Summer School with a pure focus on technology assessment. The aim of the three-day long summer school of the European project Parliaments and Civil Society in Technology Assessment (PACITA) was to create awareness of the potential of technology groups in Europe. Therefore, the summer school involved keynotes, practical exercises, mutual reflection, cutting edge training and networking to deal with the theme of renewable energy systems out of the perspective of Technology Assessment (TA), to meet transition objectives or to critically assess energy technologies.

Four categories of innovations have been identified by Freeman and Perez: incremental innovations, radical innovations, new technological systems (systemic innovations), and technological revolutions or new techno-economic paradigms. New techno-economic paradigms represent changes in technological systems that are so far-reaching in their effects that they have a major influence on the behaviour of the entire economy. Scarcity of oil and external costs like global warming are the key arguments and the main drivers of the change of the current paradigm. They will affect especially the mobility of individuals and the interlinked business models. Novel business models within newly created markets will raise e.g. extended mobility services, activities aiming at the infrastructure, new opportunities in the field of energy transmission and supply and even new strategies of recycling, reusing or reducing the use of resources in order to address global scarcity issues. Especially for the established players of the automotive industry like original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or 1st and 2nd tier suppliers this implicates opportunities and risks at the same time. But also new players will get the chance to create and enter new markets with new or extended products or services and lead the new value chain. This paper compiles and evaluates current approaches and business models of selected OEMs together with upcoming players. Additionally their positions within the existing value chain are being analyzed and classified. Bringing together the identified drivers of changes with current trends within the automotive industry the authors also show new concepts of extended business models, e.g. the idea of an ecosystem, that have the potential to cause an additional shift of power within the global mobility value chain.

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).

In this paper we reflect upon how policy-makers look for, interpret and use evidence for reflection and policy development. We propose an exploratory framework that sets out two of the elements necessary to a conceptualization of what may explain the way in which evidence and indicators are used in STI policy development: the type of evaluative approach and the styles of governance.

The present work deals with the use of innovation indicators in the decision-making process. It intends to contribute to the discussion on the construction, use and analysis of indicator systems and also to evaluate its weight on decision-making in innovation. The goal is to help understand how innovation indicators can influence technology policy and through it, society at large. This work will start by analysing the use of indicators (their problems and consistency) and other sources of information that contribute to build the opinions of innovation decision makers. This will be followed by a survey and interviews with main innovation actors. The results will shed light on the impact of the use of indicators by the innovation community – both in terms of technology policy and in the social sphere. Proposals and implications for the future will be advanced, hopefully adding new contributions to the governance of the science, technology and innovation field.

This work examines a recent study that used various forecasting methods and in particular the Delphi method, to understand how the indicators were selected during the development of the prospective study. It can be concluded that the indicators in the study were selected through discussion on existing knowledge (formal and informal) and the broad consensus of the respective community, which established and confirmed the choice of indicators as the most relevant to prospectively examine the matter concerned. The technical support provided to choose certain forecasting methods as well as to choose the methods that could not be used throughout the development of the work, contributed to the strength of the list of indicators.

This working paper is based on the development of the Thesis Plan presented for the Units Project II and Project III at the 1st Winter School of PhD programme on Technology Assessment at FCT/UNL. It focuses the methodology analysis and includes empirical information elements, in order to understand how composite indicators of innovation can influence technology policy decisions. In order to test the hypotheses raised in the Thesis Plan, two separate phases were designed. On the first part, the work tests hypotheses 1 and partially 2, identifying the quality, depth and limitations of three famous complex indicator-based systems, namely the Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard, the European Innovation Scoreboard 2008 and Innovation Union Scoreboard 2010. On the second phase, the remaining hypotheses are tested adding media databases analysis, which will provide complementary information to a set of interviews to policy makers, in order to understand the role of the composite indicators on technology decisions.

In the context of the revitalization of the Portuguese railway sector with the construction of the high-speed railway network, the working paper proposes an analysis of the results found from the application of an innovation scoring to the Portuguese branch of a global multinational in the railway business. The aim of this exercise is to learn on the innovation management flow between the global corporation and the local branch in Portugal. It also aims to assess the degree of local innovation multinationals generate in view of such type of mega public investments. The working paper is structured in five chapters. In chapter one introduces the innovation scoring tool, instrument of work; chapter two covers the methodology used; the chapter tree presents the case study, subject of research; chapter four presents the findings; and chapter 5 closes with concluding remarks.

The study focuses on the public participation during the decision-making process of the High Speed Rail Project (popularly known as TGV) in Portugal. The study analyzes the media references on the topic and its actors in a quantitative and qualitative way from September 2008 to November 2009 anchored in the 2009 Legislatives and Local elections. The work concludes that despite the political polarization around the High Speed Rail Project, contributing to bring it to public debate, it didn’t allow for an improvement in qualitative information that could allow the emergence of an active and informed citizen participation in the debate.

This paper analyses the application of the Innovation Scoring model and its results to the railway business branch of a foreign multinational. Results confirm some enrolment in non-core Research & Development connected to the commercial activity of selling trains. Two main determinants were found to support this enrolment: the impact of a new Portuguese law imposing R&D investment for public contracts; and a certain degree of openness in the multinational’s innovation strategy based on predictable growth for the Portuguese market. The study also confirms the usefulness of the Innovation Scoring model, leaving some suggestions for improvement such as tailoring for multi-decision centres, implementing it through a third party, reducing the number of questions and introduction of a product evaluation methodology.

“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”.

“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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The objective of the paper is to contribute to the understanding of the knowledge economy in Portugal, presenting data and revealing specific characteristics of the Portuguese business R&D, using a framework of available tools such as international comparisons, technology intensity and sectors of the economy. This study concludes that Portuguese business R&D expenditures reveals strong elements of economic terciarization, and an important presence of foreign direct investment in knowledge intensive industries. Furthermore, the study revealed less significant determinants such as the existence of skill labour in pharmaceutical industries and the role of the state in some sectors (wealth and rail transportation).

The relationship between the changes of the global economy and individual working conditions formed the background of the first WORKS conference “The transformation of work in a global knowledge economy: towards a conceptual framework”, held in Chania, Greece from 21st – 22nd September, 2006 and attended by around 50 European researchers. Experts from academia and trade unions from all over the world were invited to give insights into their field of research, contributing to one of the main topics of the conference: (i) globalisation and organisational restructuring, (ii) workers’ organisation, the quality of working life and the gender dimension and (iii) global experiences and recommendations.