New topics for the TAB

Following the announcement in early 2014 by Patricia Lips, Chair of the Committee for Education, Research and Technology Assessment [CERTA], that a new consultation round to identify new TA projects had been launched among all the committees and parties within the German Bundestag, a good 40 study proposals were submitted to the CERTA by the beginning of May. All the project proposals were examined in detail by the TAB in conjunction with the new collaborative partners in order to submit proposals for possible adoption as projects to the TA Rapporteur Group. After an in-depth joint discussion during the all-party TA rapporteur meeting in early June 2014, the MPs selected a list of eleven projects (plus three topics which will be addressed in the form of discussion forums or workshops). Six further topics were fundamentally endorsed which, subject to the adoption of a corresponding resolution in the course of 2015/2016, could be addressed by the TAB.

In its final session before the summer recess, the CERTA approved the new projects. The topics are as follows:

• Online citizen participation in parliamentary work
• New electronic media and addictive behaviour
• Digital media in education
• Human-machine interaction
• Pharmaceutical residues in drinking water and water bodies
• Opportunities and threats of mobile and digital communication in the workplace
• Data-Mining – social and legal challenges
• Dealing with ignorance in exploratory experiments
• Balance of interests in infrastructure projects: Options for action with regard to local communication and organization
• Assessment of daylight saving time
• Additive manufacturing processes (»3D printing«)

02.07.2014