The study aims at discussing the challenges companies face a highly competitive market, emphasizing the implications of disruptive innovations mainly for companies established in the market. In order to understand the origin of the concept of disruptive innovation, the study also presents the results of network analysis carried out considering the following information: journals in which articles were published, the country of affiliation of the authors, keywords and year of publication. The reflections presented in the study lead us to various conclusions, among them the perception that organizations need more attention to the anticipation of new trends and scenarios in order to fend off the effects of a disruptive innovation introduced.

We are facing an era, where pressures on health costs are extremely high, and the reforms in health system are almost constant. But over time, one factor remains unchanged – Technology continues being the sustenance of health care. Manufacturers, clinicians, patients, diagnostic and therapeutic technicians, hospital managers, government leaders, among others, either in public or private sector, are increasingly demanding in the sustained seek for information that support its decisions. Those decisions are about different types of issues: if, or how the technology can be developed, whether a technology should or should not enter the market, whether to acquire and use certain technology, and so forth. Such demand is well implied in the growth and development of Health Technology Assessment (HTA). This specialised field is commonly understood according to the International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment (INAHTA, 2003) as an multidisciplinary analysis and decisional field, which studies the implications of clinical, social, ethical and economic development, dissemination and use of health technologies, without neglecting its political analysis (Goodman, 2004). The political decisions made based on HTA reports should be based on scientific evidence, linking efforts between the technical, economic and political dimensions, resourcing to a participatory vision, so that we can translate the best possible decision (Novaes 2006). On the other hand, the success of these decisions depends critically on the skills of the researcher to convey wisdom and confidence in applying rules of argumentation (Grunwald, 2007). In this paper we analyse the technical and methodological aspects of HTA, seen as a tool for evaluating health procedures and techniques. And we analyse the needs for skills and qualifications development of the actors involved in this process.

We are facing an era, where pressures on health costs are extremely high, and the reforms in health system are almost constant. But over time, one factor remains unchanged – Technology continues being the sustenance of health care. Manufacturers, clinicians, patients, diagnostic and therapeutic technicians, hospital managers, government leaders, among others, either in public or private sector, are increasingly demanding in the sustained seek for information that support its decisions. Those decisions are about different types of issues: if, or how the technology can be developed, whether a technology should or should not enter the market, whether to acquire and use certain technology, and so forth. Such demand is well implied in the growth and development of Health Technology Assessment (HTA). This specialised field is commonly understood according to the International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment (INAHTA, 2003) as an multidisciplinary analysis and decisional field, which studies the implications of clinical, social, ethical and economic development, dissemination and use of health technologies, without neglecting its political analysis (Goodman, 2004). The political decisions made based on HTA reports should be based on scientific evidence, linking efforts between the technical, economic and political dimensions, resourcing to a participatory vision, so that we can translate the best possible decision (Novaes 2006). On the other hand, the success of these decisions depends critically on the skills of the researcher to convey wisdom and confidence in applying rules of argumentation (Grunwald, 2007). In this paper we analyse the technical and methodological aspects of HTA, seen as a tool for evaluating health procedures and techniques. And we analyse the needs for skills and qualifications development of the actors involved in this process.

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.

The majority of papers published in the last decades on European Union policy strongly stress the importance of the so-called Lisbon Strategy approved in the year 2000. The same applies to studies and reports on the shift of the European countries towards modernisation and restructuring policy in recent years. This EU development strategy defines a new direction for the coordination of national policies. But why has it become so important? One of the reasons is the fact that many of the papers are based on the concept of “knowledge society” as the key driver for an increased competitiveness of all political and economic regions of Europe. In this context, the term “knowledge” means the inter-linkage of education (including training, qualification, skills) and innovation (including research, information and communication). The use of the concept represents an important shift in the European strategy: further development would not only be based on investment in material infrastructures, but also more on the immaterial ground. However, this Lisbon Strategy was criticised by many politicians and opinion-makers in the first years of this century because the European structures were not prepared for such a quick change. At the same time, the focus for investment moved away from the traditional support of industrial sectors (manufacturing, agriculture and fisheries, construction) towards the “new economy” sectors. The vision of a knowledge society remained appealing also in a changing international context: the Middle East wars (Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel-Palestine) and the fast growth of the Chinese economy. However, the shadows of new recessions have strongly questioned the options made by the European Council. New challenges have emerged with the need to redefine collective strategies in terms of European development as set by the Lisbon strategy. “Europe 2020” is one more attempt to define a new strategy. But at present no clear path has been identifi

The majority of papers published in the last decades on European Union policy strongly stress the importance of the so-called Lisbon Strategy approved in the year 2000. The same applies to studies and reports on the shift of the European countries towards modernisation and restructuring policy in recent years. This EU development strategy defines a new direction for the coordination of national policies. But why has it become so important? One of the reasons is the fact that many of the papers are based on the concept of “knowledge society” as the key driver for an increased competitiveness of all political and economic regions of Europe. In this context, the term “knowledge” means the inter-linkage of education (including training, qualification, skills) and innovation (including research, information and communication). The use of the concept represents an important shift in the European strategy: further development would not only be based on investment in material infrastructures, but also more on the immaterial ground. However, this Lisbon Strategy was criticised by many politicians and opinion-makers in the first years of this century because the European structures were not prepared for such a quick change. At the same time, the focus for investment moved away from the traditional support of industrial sectors (manufacturing, agriculture and fisheries, construction) towards the “new economy” sectors. The vision of a knowledge society remained appealing also in a changing international context: the Middle East wars (Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel-Palestine) and the fast growth of the Chinese economy. However, the shadows of new recessions have strongly questioned the options made by the European Council. New challenges have emerged with the need to redefine collective strategies in terms of European development as set by the Lisbon strategy. “Europe 2020” is one more attempt to define a new strategy. But at present no clear path has been identified. Whether the

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.

No abstract is available for this item.

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.

In order to understand the decision-making process in a Radiology Department, taking the Magnetic Resonance Equipment as an example, this paper reports a project to be followed. It is a guideline for future work development regarding Technology Assessment in Radiology. The Theoretical Framework is divided is three big issues. The first is “Technology Assessment”. Starting with the definition of some important concepts, the history and development of Technology Assessment will be addressed. The aim of this issue is to give a general main idea concerning TA contextualization. Doing a transposition of this subject to health area, it is also important to understand the particularities of Health Technology Assessment, second issue. Portugal framework on this subject will also be addressed. As so, the Portuguese National Health System is characterized and the decision-making stakeholders identified, has well as the competences for the decision-making process in general. The third issue is Decision-Making and its aim is to give a general elucidation on decision-making matters. To accomplish this, a research methodology was outlined, so that six research questions could be answered and five hypotheses could be accepted or refuted, in the future. With this research methodology, the Portuguese state of the art Magnetic Resonance equipment existence will be studied, using a survey as a resource. In the future, a mapping stakeholder technique will be used to identify the decision making key stakeholders and a survey will be applied to map theirs skills and competences in the process, where a pre-test was already applied. The results of this pre-test are presented.

No abstract is available for this item.

The present article posits constructive technology assessment as the dominant perspective of societal embedding practices in the technical development process by the high-speed train manufacturing industry, resulting from a research study conducted in 2011 (Moretto 2011). The article covers the main elements of the study, being the high-speed train manufacturing industry’s strategic intelligence, technology pattern, knowledge exchange, technology trajectories; and finally presents the arguments justifying constructive technology assessment as the dominant approach.

Technology assessment is essentially a systematic method used to investigate technology developments and assess their potential impacts on society. The assessment of emerging technologies, however, requires special attention. To address technologies at early stages of development, Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) is considered to be one of the best options to bypass the Collingridge dilemma - which fundamentally states that controlling the direction of a technology’s development is very hard. Technologies at early stages of development might appear to be unorganized, chaotic and with high level of uncertainty on future paths to take. Future Oriented Technology Analysis (FTA) represents any systematic process to produce judgments about the characteristics of emerging technologies, its development pathways, and potential future impacts. Technology Assessment is considered to be one of three subjects which form the umbrella concept of FTA. The technology assessed on this project, Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) or Brain-Machine Interface (BMI) is an emerging technology. BCIs can be defined as a technology which allows for the direct communication between the brain and an external device. It is a truly direct connection, with no use of the normal output pathways of peripheral nerves and muscles, allowing for the brain to have control over objects and softwares without intermediates. As an emerging technology, BCI is at its early stages of research and thus many challenges are still ahead. Mainstream adoption is not expected in least 10 years. There are still many problems and challenges to be overcome. The real impacts of BCI will depend directly on the development of competing technologies. If there is improvement in BCI research, then the potential applications and end users could grow dramatically. The findings of this project will be of relevant importance to researchers of the technology (especially on what concerns their interactions with other stakeholders

In the last decades, with the consequent strong competitiveness of an increasingly globalized world, the foresight studies have gained importance in the business environment and also became important tool for formulation of public policy. This work examines the recent foresight studies from Brazil, Finland and Japan, to understand the main goals, motivations and methodologies used. And finally drawing lessons from international cooperation in foresight studies that might be interesting for the Brazilian case. It can be concluded it is extremely useful to look at the studies conducted by countries with more experience in the foresight as a way to deepen and develop methods analysis. The work conducted by Japan and Finland showed that is possible succeed through studies in cooperation, even with the different features of the national reality.

This paper aims to present the main events over the years on public policies for financing R & D in Portugal, with special focus on the QREN (National Strategic Reference Framework). Between 2007 and 2013, is the QREN which provides the framework to be applied to economic policy in Portugal. The Incentives System for Companies Investment is one of the key instruments of economic promotion policies, particularly in terms of promoting innovation and regional development. The review made shows us that there is not still a systemic and integrated policy innovation in Portugal, but there is a set of instruments that can play a role in this policy and also has missed coherence and coordination between them.

This report is the result of the presentation of the Thesis Plan, performed on December 13, 2011, during the activities of the Winter School of Doctoral Program in Technology Assessment. It is intended to describe the main information about the Thesis Plan and also the definition of the main concepts involved. Can also view the presentation file that is available on the page of the student's PhD thesis Ana Cândido in Moodle (http://moodle.fct.unl.pt/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=157805). The following step in this report will be the development of the discipline of “Project IV” and so also the preparation for Doctoral Conference will take place in June 2012.

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 scientific controversy generated around the destiny given to the fraction of hazardous industrial waste produced in Portugal and how the country dealt with this situation was the stand out point in Souselas case. Here, the dominant aspect of the analysis focused on the implementation of a solution for the treatment of hazardous industrial waste. These wastes result from industrial processes contain or are contaminated, by substances that, at certain concentrations, represent a risk to human health or to the environment. Their treatment can be done using co-incineration in existing cement factories. Having in mind the environment analysis of a controversial process, through the statements made by the different actors involved, the case of Souselas was our object of study. Initially, the actors involved in the process were identified and characterized, in terms of position, interests and / or concerns. This analysis has strengthened with the gathering of documentary elements of analysis. In a second phase the historical process was prepared. Only then, the conditions to make an interpretation of what really happened in the process were gathered, then , it was possible to identify which parts were successful and unsuccessful, and to interpret “why” these successes and failures occurred. Thus, after the identification of key variables and leverage points, a causal diagram and a schematic simulation of the behaviour of reference in case Souselas was designed. We conclude that the process of Souselas was a significant milestone with regard to social organization and spontaneous local actors in situations of opposition to central government decisions with local impact. It was also a turning point in governance according to the model of representative democracy, whose technocratic and elitist character is called into question. The Souselas case emphasized itself as a microcosm on the conflict of interests that we find at a global level heightened since the 90s and that

Technology Assessment (TA) considers the knowledge on (possible ou probable) technological effects in the processes of decision making and exploring potencial technological risks with secondary effects. Besides that, it is a scientific process with the aim of contributing the public and political opinion formation relative to social aspects of science and technology. That formation is done in an interactive and communicational mode. It overtakes the legitimacy and technology conflicts problems. TA is dealing with a political process either it is related with a parliamentary level decision on the introduction or limitation of new technologies, or at the level of participative processes of entities interested in the labour sphere. In this study, it is concluded that the TA processes at the level of organization of work can aim to fulfill higher levels of productivity and performance of installed equipment, or even to increase the quality of the product or the production process. That does not mean necessarily increases in income of workers and employees. That is why the participation of these actors is also so fundamental to this process.

Technology Assessment (TA) considers the knowledge on (possible ou probable) technological effects in the processes of decision making and exploring potencial technological risks with secondary effects. Besides that, it is a scientific process with the aim of contributing the public and political opinion formation relative to social aspects of science and technology. That formation is done in an interactive and communicational mode. It overtakes the legitimacy and technology conflicts problems. TA is dealing with a political process either it is related with a parliamentary level decision on the introduction or limitation of new technologies, or at the level of participative processes of entities interested in the labour sphere. In this study, it is concluded that the TA processes at the level of organization of work can aim to fulfill higher levels of productivity and performance of installed equipment, or even to increase the quality of the product or the production process. That does not mean necessarily increases in income of workers and employees. That is why the participation of these actors is also so fundamental to this process.

WThis report aims to be the gathering of the main ideas that culminated in the presentation at the 1st Winter School of the PhD Programme on Technology Assessment (FCT-UNL) in December 2010. It is a guideline for future work development regarding Technology Assessment in Radiology, particularly having Magnetic Resonance Imaging, as an example. Therefore, as a background, it is necessary to understand what is “Technology Assessment”, how it developed and what it Europe’s interest in this area. Doing a transposition of this subject to health area, it is also important to understand the particularities of Health Technology Assessment. Portugal framework on this subject will also be addressed. As so, the Portuguese National Health System is characterized and the decision-making stakeholders identified, has well as the competences for the decision-making process in general. More generally, the different stakeholders perception involved in decision making, the mapping skills on technology assessment and decision making, the identification of indicators present in this decision making in Radiology, particularly in Magnetic Resonance area, are subjects to be addressed. To accomplish this, a research methodology was outlined, so that six research questions could be answered and five hypotheses could be accepted or refuted, in the future. With this research methodology, the Portuguese state of the art Magnetic Resonance equipment existence will be studied, using a survey as a resource. In the future, a mapping stakeholder technique will be used to identify the decision making key stakeholders and a survey will be applied to map theirs skills and competences in the process, where a pre-test was already applied.

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).

Technology assessment is essentially an approach, a collective of the systematic methods used to scientifically investigate the conditions for and the consequences of technology and technicising and to denote their societal evaluation. It is an investigation about the technological developments as well as an evaluation of its potential impacts on society. The assessment of emerging technologies, however, requires special attention. Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is an emerging technology which allows for the direct communication between the brain and an external device. It is a truly direct connection, with no use of the normal output pathways of peripheral nerves and muscles, allowing for the brain to have control over objects and software without intermediates. To address these kinds of technologies at early stages of development, Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA), a member of Technology Assessment approaches, has been considered as one of the most fitting approaches. As an emerging technology, BCI is at its early stages of research and thus many challenges are still ahead. Mainstream adoption is not expected in least 10 years many challenges are yet to be overcome. Therefore, the objective of this article is to discuss and present a methodological approach to assess brain-computer interface technology considering constructive technology assessment and future oriented technology analysis as the main processes to undertake the assessment. The assessment will focus only on the non-invasive type of BCI and for medical applications in three defined areas: Communication & Control, Motor Substitution and Motor Recovery for a time horizon of 10 years, 2022. These areas were chosen based on the capability of BCI to serve as a replacement of normal neuromuscular pathways. That makes it one of the best technologies to help people in activating and controlling assistive technologies which enable communication and control of the environment. However, the real impacts o

In this work we propose the use of Social Network Analysis to understand the positioning of the concept of Open Innovation in the literature, offering thereby a complementary approach to existing literature review up to now. The main motivation of this network analysis is to contribute to the understanding of the concept of Open Innovation, with its spread to different areas of knowledge over the years and its relationship with other concepts in the literature. Some 403 articles published in the database of the Science Direct during the years 2003 to 2011 were analyzed. The data was collected separately by year, considering the following information: journals in which the articles were published; countries of origin of the articles’ authors, keywords of these articles and year of publication. The results reveal the intense growth of the use of the words "Open Innovation" in articles from different areas of knowledge, as well as its increasing interconnection with other concepts, allowing the understanding of its diffusion in the literature.

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.