Information and knowledge play an increasingly important role in the
implementation of public policies, in particular those of the Central
and Eastern European Countries. They are involved in many respects in
the elaboration of scientific programs. They are more and more present
in the political decision making process and as topic for scientific
conferences. They are often at the centre of international discussions
on related topics, for example, differences in approaches to produce and
apply knowledge or different responses to social function of
information. A major lesson of these past years applies to democracy.
Europeans demand more involvement in decisions that concern them. This
demand goes weH beyond decision making. For public action to be
acceptable and efficient, the whole process should become more
democratic, from the defmition of the problems, to the implementation
and the evaluation of solutions. In the context of conducting research
on the consequences of scientific and technological advance, the
Europäische Akademie Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in Germany and the Academy
of Science of the Czech Republic organised a conference on the
relationship between "democracy-participation-technology assessment" in
February 1999. The objective of the workshop was to express and to the
problems of transition "from exchange various viewpoints and attitudes
information society to knowledge society. " The great response given to
the international conference underlines the need not only for Central
and Eastern European Countries to take into consideration more common
projects like this for the future.
