The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is a partner of the IANUS consortium. KIT is one of the largest scientific research institutions in Europe, the largest in Germany and the only university in the federally funded Helmholtz Association, which in turn is the largest research organisation in Germany. KIT is also a German university of excellence, combining a technical university tradition dating back to 1825 with the Helmholtz tradition of focusing on major and pressing issues facing society, science and the economy. At KIT, more than 5,500 scientists work together on a broad interdisciplinary basis in the natural sciences, engineering, economics, humanities and social sciences, as well as in teaching. In total, it has more than 9000 staff employed. Constant contact and exchange with society, for example through ‘real laboratories’, is an important goal of KIT.
In IANUS, KIT is represented by the Institute for Technology Assessment and System Analysis (ITAS), which is a globally leading institution in the strongly interdisciplinary and increasingly transdisciplinary field of technology assessment (TA), an important institution of scientific policy advice, of parliaments in particular, and a pioneer in ‘real lab’ activities and other public participation and societal co-creation activities in science, technology and innovation in Germany and beyond. It was founded in 1995, but is part of a more than half-century history of TA, systems analysis and policy advice in KIT’s federally funded predecessor institution.
At the EU level, ITAS has been conducting projects for the European Parliament since the 1990s and has coordinated the European Technology Assessment Group (ETAG) since 2005. This network of European TA institutions advises the Panel for Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) of the European Parliament. ITAS has also participated in a large number of projects funded by the European Commission since the 1990s.
Within IANUS, KIT-ITAS mainly leads the societal co-creation activities, where a wide range of stakeholders and external researchers will work together with the IANUS consortium on a broad variety of science, technology and innovation cases and controversies, using a wide range of methods, including novel experimental methods. The ITAS research group ‘Life, Innovation, Health and Technology’, which is also involved in the ongoing Horizon Europe project “iRECS – improving Research Ethics Expertise and Competences to Ensure Reliability and Trust in Science”, is in charge of the KIT-ITAS work in IANUS.