The concept of sustainability met with little interest when roughly 30 ITAS employees started their work in 1995 at today’s KIT Campus North. Although technology assessment was already advising the German Bundestag at the time, it was considered as “worrywarting” by many people and scientifically hardly recognized.

Times have changed: Everyone is talking about sustainability now. In the wake of the energy transition and the digitalization – which have both already been researched by the ITAS predecessor institutions since the 1980s – the need for TA and sustainability research has become more than clear.

Climate change, the necessary transformations, and the increasing desire for public participation have done the rest. The demand for scientific technology assessment is greater than ever.

Starting out as an advice-oriented field of research on the rather hidden grounds of the former research center, ITAS has developed steadily. Today, the institute – now located in the center of Karlsruhe – is a well-recognized institution in science and politics, but also in public and civil society.

This development has been accompanied by strong growth (today more than 150 researchers work at ITAS), many new topics, and networking with researchers from all over the world.

We celebrated our anniversary on 30 June 2025 with a special lecture by sustainability expert Maja Göpel and the school competition “#KA2055: Unsere Stadt, unsere Zukunft“ (#KA2055: Our city, our future).

What will life be like in Karlsruhe and the surrounding area in 2055? What technologies will we be using, and how will they change our lives? In the competition “#KA2055: Our City, Our Future!”, ITAS invited young people to express their wishes and ideas artistically.

Further information:

• To the competition