IMPACT ASSESSMENT, FROM UTRECHT

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1 Impact Assessment ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: IMPACT ASSESSMENT, FROM UTRECHT Alan L. Porter To cite this article: Alan L. Porter (1986) IMPACT ASSESSMENT, FROM UTRECHT, Impact Assessment, 4:3-4, 3-12, DOI: / To link to this article: Published online: 06 Feb Submit your article to this journal Article iews: 29 View related articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at Download by: [ ] Date: 30 December 2017, At: 11:44

2 IMPACT ASSESSMENT, FROM UTRECHT * Alan L. Porter I wish to highlight the Conference as context from which this book emerges. This Fourth Annual Conference of the International Association for Impact Assessment is the first held in Europe. For two days (June 27-28, 1985) some 170 participants gathered to consider enironmental, risk, social, and technology assessment issues at Utrecht in The Netherlands. The conference was hosted by Utrecht Uniersity, founded in 1636 a few months before Harard, yet only two years into the experience of a dramatic reorganization to direct multiple disciplines to work together on specific problems. At last count, 69 wellwritten papers were in hand to counter-balance against a strict page limit for this olume. Applying multiple criteria of freshness of ideas, quality of research, and topical distribution led to the book before you. A second olume, entitled Impact Assessment Today, is in preparation by the same editors, to be published by an Arkel (The Netherlands). Four special speakers oriented the conference participants toward the big issues before us. I would first like to share some of their thoughts for they bear on what impact assessment is, and can become. Our special guest speaker, Dr. Piet Thoenes, addressed the state of the Western European welfare state, and planning and citizen participation therein. * Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia

3 4 A. L. PORTER Recent times hae found growing dissatisfaction with.the Welfare State, both by those who gie and those who take.... the Welfare State bureaucracy was ideologically no longer trustworthy, that as an instrument it was too clumsy and too slow to gie due honours to the newly deeloped sense of justice and fairness. Within the society arose new diisions: workers and non-workers; men and women; young and old; born here, born elsewhere. New diisions breaking up the Welfare State solidarity". With this splintering of Welfare State unity in countries like Denmark and The Netherlands, came increasing demands for a say in what goernment did. "Fundamental democratisation is one of the essential characteristics of western societies." After 1960, this led to a wae of "inspraak en medezeggenschap" (public participation) in the family, in the factory, in the school, in church and state. "After 1970 howeer things went really wrong. The economy deteriorated and the goernment as a large scale entrepreneur, rescuing weak firms and stimulating employment, did not show up as an able long term plan- 11 ner" Anyway in recent years there are examples galore of planning which failed because of an oerdose of participation and of participation which failed because of planning with an oerdose of ununderstandable technicalities." Gien d. fficulties with technocratic planning and with fully democratic participation, what shall we do? Dr. Thoenes takes acid rain as an example. "Acid rain and many other of our ecological miseries do not stop at political boundaries. The whole affair can be started and pushed by idealistic indiiduals and protest moements. Howeer, if we want to sole our problem we should find the courage to direct matters to our goernments and to let them make a long term plan for action. More so we should let the EEG make a plan for the whole of Western Europe". Dr. Thoenes closes with two French quotes: "Pour les grands maux, les grandes remsdes. (For big

4 IMPACT ASSESSMENT, FROM UTRECHT 5 problems, big solutions). and from Danton, what he said in a period when France was making world history: "De l'audace, de l'audace et encore de l'audace". (Courage, courage, and eermore courage). That is what we should keep in mind today in a period where it is necessary to plan in uncertainty." Still within the context of planning, but moing to impact assessment concerns per se, Dr. E. an Spiegel presented the perspectie of Mr W.J. Deetman, Minister of Education and Science for The Netherlands. Of particular interest are descriptions of Dutch programs for technology assessment and for research in technology assessment. Noting eeryone's emphasis on technological adances, Mr. Deetman asserts that new technology "may also hae unexpected and unwelcome side-effects which may threaten our quality of life. In recent years attention has been increasingly deoted to these unexpected and unintentional results of technological progress." Technology assessment has a role to play in policy making. "I would argue that policy-makers are increasingly coming to realize that an understanding of all significant effects of a policy is a precondition of good management, optimal deployment of staff and resources and proper accountability, and that this knowledge should ideally be present at an early stage of the proceedings. Een where Parliament does not make demands in this regard, information is being collected on the impact of policies; thus far, howeer, this has not been done in a sufficiently systematic way... I am coninced that research to determine the impact of policies, whether or not it is initiated by the goernment, can help to improe the relationship between the authorities and the public and to legitimate policy. It is important, howeer, that research of this kind should not be seen as an instrument of central bureaucratic con-

5 6 A. L. PORTER trol. (He continues)... I (Mr. Deetman) presented a policy document to Parliament last year on integrating science and technology into society. The document was based on discussions in Parliament oer many years on a number of subjects, the most important of which were recombinant DNA research, micro-electronics, innoation, energy and the enironment. When the present Goernment was formed, I was instructed, in my capacity as coordinating Minister for Science Policy, to take steps to increase public understanding of the social and ethical consequences of scientific and technological deelopments. I decided to approach this issue by improing the decision making process in the field of science and technology. Efforts would therefore be made to anticipate possible effects of new adances more promptly, and more carefully and to ensure closer inolement by all those concerned. Underlying these measures was the belief that the quality and the effectieness of new technology are not determined exclusiely by the nature of the innoations themseles. The way in which account is taken of ethical and social consequences when such innoations are introduced is of equal importance... It was explicitly decided to make public information a major element in the program designed to integrate science and technology into society. An independent organization will be set up for this purpose, in conjunction with the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which is responsible for coordinating technology policy. Among the new organization s most important tasks will be to support information serices on science and technology as a whole, to carry out joint projects with other organizations and to deise additional or innoatie information actiities of its own... (A technology assessment studies research program) would inole putting plans for a research program before Parliament each year, based on a systematic analysis of suggestions made by Parliament, goernment departments, research institutes and interest groups. As regards the last of these, the Go-

6 IMPACT ASSESSMENT, FROM UTRECHT 7 ernment intends to experiment with what we proisionally call the "public post box" which would also operate on a decentralized basis with the help of existing organizations, to deal with reactions from the public at large. "...the program should act as an impulse towards innoation by, for instance, concentrating on technology assessment studies which examine hitherto neglected aspects of the question or the impact of technology on groups ignored thus far, and research focusing on new deelopments such as information technology or biotechnology or on deeloping and testing a methodology of technology assessment." In addition to Mr. Deetman's innoatie spirit in technology assessment, I was impressed by a sensitiity to building social science data infrastructure. "In the interests of improed cooperation, a national network is being set up for data and field work facilities and an adisory committee is currently engaged in drawing up plans." Perhaps other nations, including the United States, could profitably follow these Dutch initiaties in technology assessment. Haing considered global and national policy contexts for impact assessment, we follow the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Utrecht, Dr. J.H. Dijkhuis, into the issue of who should be inoled. "Under the aegis of the social disciplines, in particular sociology, impact assessment has addressed itself first and foremost to the social consequences of interentions. As a result of this orientation, it is noticeable that more and more attention is being paid to the experience of change, and the stresses it gies rise to. Looking across to the behaioural sciences, in particular my own discipline of psychology, one cannot help noticing the increasing amount of attention being paid to the effect on behaiour of (changing) social conditions. Thus, in psychological research on stress, what has come to occupy the centre of the stage are the external causes of stress, and the social support systems which can alleiate it. The study of what happens when changes

7 8 A. L. PORTER - are introduced in human situations must be pre-eminently a multidisciplinary task, because the different leels (meso, macro, micro) form, as it were, inseparable links in a chain." Dean Dijkhuis goes on to note impact assessment work at Utrecht. "The first publication appeared in It dealt with the impact of an increase in the number of academics in the managerial labour market in The Netherlands. Subsequently, projects were initiated on regional deelopment and on the future of our country as a whole. These studies utilized scenario techniques. More recently, projects hae been deeloped in the area of health care systems, with particular reference to the problem of aging. The impact of innoation in educational systems has also been inestigated. Lastly, I would like to mention the attention which is deoted in our faculty to the study of research methods, in particular scenario techniques. The Board of the Faculty intends to do eerything in its power to stimulate further research on the field of impact assessment." A fitting close to this preamble was offered by the Rector Magnificus of the Uniersity, Dr. Otto J. de Jong, quoting the New Testament. "Would any of you think of building a tower without first sitting down and calculating the cost, to see whether he could afford to finish it? Otherwise, if he has laid its foundation and then is not able to complete it, all the onlookers will laugh at him: 'There is the man', they will say, who started to build and could not finish'." My second purpose in this introduction is to outline what is to come. Table 1 offers my "instant index" - my perception of which papers address which topics. Not surprisingly, many papers touch on a range of topics. That makes it difficult to order the papers in a definitie fashion. Howeer, the columns show the papers in the order they appear and there are clusterings. The first three papers explicitly address the future; they do forecasting. The next four papers (Murdock et al. through Muth and Lee) emphasize sociale impacts. Barendregt and Walker deal

8 IMPACT ASSESSMENT, FROM UTRECHT 9 with water, with Walker, Nijkamp, and Papp each coering some aspects of impact ealuation and policy analysis. Canter and Fairchild, Carly, and Storey go beyond impact assessment to deelop post-eia impact management. Leyten compares how fie Western European countries are organizing technology assessment efforts. And, the final fie papers (Eers through Waller) direct attention to impact assessment in deeloping countries. Table 1 also proides a quick scan of current issues in impact assessment (IA). In find the focus on building theoretical foundations for social impact assessment (SIA) notable. Likewise, note the attention directed beyond IA per se to monitoring of actual impacts sustained from deelopments, to ealuate how well IAs hae anticipated these, and to build impact management programs. As the tally of case settings shows, the conference presented a good blend of European and North American experiences. It also points to the "growth" area of IA in deeloping countries. Following are brief synopses of the papers to aid you in identifying those of keen interest. Becker describes the construction of health care scenarios incorporating major health deelopments influencing The Netherlands to 2000, and identifying important alternatie health serice patterns to be considered. Keilman concentrates on how to quantify uncertainty in population forecasting, considering ariants due to the effect of qualitatie social hypotheses affecting quantitatie trends. Forecasting practice and errors in The Netherlands sere as illustration. Rossini forecasts office automation technology deelopments through 2000, an arena in which changes in information technologies will drastically affect work life. Murdock et al. assess the present status of socio-economic impact assessment, examining the state of knowledge in predicting economic, demographic,public serice, fiscal and social impacts. They spell

9 10 A. L. PORTER out needs for conceptual and methodological improement and offer three scenarios for the future of socio-economic IA. Boskma presents eidence that social simulation can allow realistic social interaction under simulator control. This can contribute to SIA, with certain alidity limitations discussed. Peters describes the use of planning cells, with citizens paid to participate, to ealuate four alternatie energy future scenarios for West Germany. The use of alue tree analysis proides a ehicle to arrange expressed alues in a hierarchical structure. - Muth -- and Lee present a compelling argument for considering social structures as explanatory, rather than simply descriptie, factors in SIA. They exemplify this in an empirical study of structural differentiation in 52 rural Alaskan communities as a predictor of social pathology. -- De Boer deelops a model of parallel social processes at work behind community response to soil pollution, backed by extensie interiew data from The Netherlands. Walker presents a systematic method for screening candidate policy alternaties to determine the most suitable set on which to conduct IA. Screening is illustrated in a study to deelop water management policy for The Netherlands. NijkamE reiews multiple criteria analysis methods for applicability to impact ealuation. Canter -. and Fairchild lay out a systematic approach for post-eis (enironmental impact statement) enironmental monitoring. Carley conceptualizes post-ia socio-economic and enironmental monitoring in eight categories pertinent to policy processes. The case of an offshore oil and gas deelopment in Canada. Social impact monitoring is presented as an important tool in the oerall policy process. Eers discusses how the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Deelopment (OECD) has attended to EIA for aid projects to deeloping countries. Ways to prioritize those projects most in need of assess-

10 IMPACT ASSESSMENT, FROM UTRECHT 11 ment and identification of constraints in carrying out EIA warrant attention. Porter -- et al. construct a technology deliery system model to assess the potential uses and implications of microcomputers in deeloping countries.

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