Towards the Information Society

Information and knowledge play an increasingly important role in the implementation of public policies, in particular those of the Central and Eastern European Countries. They are involved in many respects in the elaboration of scientific programs. They are more and more present in the political decision making process and as topic for scientific conferences. They are often at the centre of international discussions on related topics, for example, differences in approaches to produce and apply knowledge or different responses to social function of information. A major lesson of these past years applies to democracy. Europeans demand more involvement in decisions that concern them. This demand goes weH beyond decision making. For public action to be acceptable and efficient, the whole process should become more democratic, from the defmition of the problems, to the implementation and the evaluation of solutions. In the context of conducting research on the consequences of scientific and technological advance, the Europäische Akademie Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in Germany and the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic organised a conference on the relationship between "democracy-participation-technology assessment" in February 1999. The objective of the workshop was to express and to the problems of transition "from exchange various viewpoints and attitudes information society to knowledge society. " The great response given to the international conference underlines the need not only for Central and Eastern European Countries to take into consideration more common projects like this for the future.

Information and knowledge play an increasingly important role in the implementation of public policies, in particular those of the Central and Eastern European Countries. In the context of conducting research on the consequences of scientific and technological advance, the Europäische Akademie Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler (Germany) and the Academy of Science of The Czech Republic organised a conference on the relation between "Democracy, Participation and Technology Assessment". The workshop provided an overview of the status and perspec- tives of Technology Assessment (TA) in the individual coun- tries of Central and Eastern Europe. It also showed the com- plexity of creation of space for TA type activities in indi- vidual countries - for independent activity of both experts and the public based on individual responsibility. The book consists of the final version of the presented papers and new contributions initiated by the workshop. Moreover, the authors reflect the ideas and incentives sounded in the dis- cussions. The book is addressed to researchers in the fields of social science, humanities, information technology and technology assessment in particular. It may be also be of interest to policy-makers and the wider public concerned with information society.