Foresight and technology assessment for the Austrian parliament - Finding new ways of debating the future of industry 4.0

The widespread use of information and communication technologies to interconnect manufacturing systems at the shop floor level and along the value chain, also known as Industry 4.0, Advanced Manufacturing or Industrial Internet, has evolved into a topic of heated public debate due to its potential social and economic repercussions. Together with other recent technological advances, it gave rise to calls for strengthening the role of the Austrian parliament as a forum of informed debate about both the promising and the problematic implications of emerging technologies for the future of our economies and societies. In contrast to parliaments in several other European countries, the Austrian parliament has not been endowed with a dedicated foresight and technology assessment (TA) support function up to now. Only recently such a function has been tested in the context of a pilot project on Industry 4.0, which fulfilled a double role of devising and testing a methodology for providing support to the Committee on Research, Technology and Innovation (RTI) and of giving substantive and accessible input to the emerging parliamentary and public debates about Industry 4.0. This paper provides insights into the process tailored to the parliament's needs and its outcomes. The focus is on the design of the process and the facilitation of debates informed by an assessment of opportunities and challenges of Industry 4.0. The underlying analysis of societal implications covers a number of key areas; a summary of the results on skill demands and safety and security serves as an example. In line with the growing attention that is generally paid to foresight and TA in policy making, we reflect on how parliaments may integrate these practices into their procedures and thus acquire a more prominent role as forums for debating the dynamics of future socio-technical change with all its potential promises, drawbacks and associated governance challenges.