Editorial

This issue’s Special topic “Long-term governance (LTG)” coincides timely with the 30^th anniversary of the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The connection is relevant on two levels, conceptually with regard to research on governance and also with regard to time cycles for technology assessment. 30 years of an institution – does this provide institutional backing for research on long-term governance?

Looking back into the history and present state of ITAS research many topics have been analyzed and framed from governance lenses – ranging from sustainable tourism, via autonomous driving, nanotechnologies and up to artificial intelligence, to name but a few. Also, concepts have been researched including technology governance, global governance, risk governance as well as scientific expertise for parliamentary governance processes at German and European levels. The 10^th anniversary publication of ITAS had coined the slogan “Expertising democracy for democratic expertise”. Long-term governance as a concept for technology assessment highlights the temporal aspect to these approaches for science and technology governance.

In contrast to rather short-term horizons, e.g., election cycles, the long-term can be framed as a generation, or several decades and beyond. 30 years of ITAS cover more than seven election cycles and more than one average generation. This year KIT celebrates its 200^th birthday and the federal state of Germany has a 76 years jubilee. The articles in the Special topic range from regional innovation over climate change to radioactive waste disposal. All of these topics cover time frames longer than most institutional life cycles: Regional innovation depends on the history and development of a region, systematic weather records started in 17^th century, radioactive waste is expected to decay over million of years. Research on LTG thus exceeds most institution’s or nation state’s lifespans but also attention cycles and forecasts in most other research and politics.

Nonetheless, 30 years of ITAS can provide an important conceptual as well as institutional background for LTG by linking research on technological fields to governance approaches complemented with a direct connection to decision making. And maybe LTG acts on the institutions’ life cycle in turn: Research on technology governance with a long-term focus demands an institution with a history and future – providing a sufficient legitimacy at least for the next 30 years.

Linda Nierling