Compare methods

	Constructive Technology Assessment	Foresight Scenario Method
Field	Science Technology Studies	Science Technology Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1995	1995
Originator	Arie Rip & Johan Schot (Dutch CTA tradition)	Paul Schoemaker, drawing on Herman Kahn and the Shell/intuitive-logics tradition
Type	Co-evolutionary technology-shaping process	Structured future-construction process
Seminal source	Schot, J., & Rip, A. (1997). The past and future of constructive technology assessment. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 54(2-3), 251-268.	Schoemaker, P. J. H. (1995). Scenario planning: a tool for strategic thinking. Sloan Management Review, 36(2), 25-40.
Aliases	CTA, Constructive TA, Co-evolutionary technology assessment	Scenario planning, Intuitive-logics scenarios, Scenario building
Related	4	4
Summary	Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) is an approach to assessing technology that seeks to influence its design and development, not merely to forecast its impacts after the fact. By broadening the design process to feed societal aspects back to engineers and decision-makers early—while the technology is still malleable—CTA aims to manage the co-evolution of technology and society and to soften the Collingridge dilemma, the bind in which a technology's effects are easy to change before they are known and hard to change once they are.	The scenario method constructs a small set of internally consistent, plausible stories about how the future might unfold, built from the key driving forces and critical uncertainties facing a decision. Rather than forecasting one expected future, it deliberately develops several contrasting futures so that strategies can be tested against a range of possibilities and decision-makers can rehearse responses to what might otherwise be surprises.