“Is there a loss of trust?”, asks ALLEA Working Group in first workshop

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On 19 February the ALLEA Working Group Truth, Trust & Expertise held its first thematic Workshop at the British Academy in London. Chaired by the resident Co-Chair of the Working Group Baroness Onora O’Neill of Bengarve, this workshop discussed the central question whether there is a loss of trust and/ or trustworthiness in science and academic research.

ALLEA President Günter Stock welcomed the participants and thanked the British Academy, the Co-Chairs and the members of the Working Group for their engagement, emphasising extraordinary attention the topic attracts in (the?) public debate. The workshop was divided into three thematic sessions, each starting with input statements by two speakers, followed by group discussion. Participants discussed what is meant by trust, what counts as expertise, and what kinds of expertise can be distinguished. In addition, the function of trust in society and institutions, as well as the evidence, if any, of a loss of trust(worthiness) in expertise were explored.

The experts also discussed the various contexts in which trust and trustworthiness exist and how trust can be nurtured and maintained. Major threads of the discussion, conclusions and remaining open questions will soon be published in a Discussion Paper. The findings will also feed into the debates of the scientific symposium “Science in times of Challenged Trust and Expertise”, which will take place on 16 May at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia during the ALLEA General Assembly.

Truth, Trust and Expertise

The ALLEA Working Group Truth, Trust and Expertise is a transnational platform for perspectives on the nature of and relationship between truth, trust and expertise in the field of science. The expert group aims to interrogate and explore current and past dynamics of public trust in expertise and the contested norms of what constitutes truth, facts and evidence in scientific research and beyond.

Learn more about the workshop on our Truth, Trust and Expertise video series.

 

ALLEA General Assembly 2018: Registration is Now Open!

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http://www.alleageneralassembly.org/2018/03/09/registration-is-now-open-2/

Visit General Assembly Website

Registration for the 2018 ALLEA General Assembly is now open! The conference will take place on 16-18 May 2018 in Sofia at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Participation is free of charge, but registration is mandatory for all attendees. Participants are requested to fill in this form. An email confirming your registration will be sent to you once the process is completed. If you are a representative of an ALLEA Member Academy, you are also kindly invited to register for ALLEA’s internal business meeting via the same registration form.

Programme

This year’s General Assembly is composed of three main parts open to the public. The conference programme will start with a light welcome lunch on 16 May at 11:30 and will continue with the opening of the scientific symposium “Science in Times of Challenged Trust and Expertise”, organised under the scientific guidance of the ALLEA Working Group Truth, Trust and Expertise. Leading experts from a wide range of scientific fields will present and discuss the various notions of trust in science and expertise in the so-called “post-truth” era.

On the same evening, ALLEA will award its 2018 Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values. The European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel will hand over the Prize to the 2018 laureate, whose name will be announced in the coming weeks. Following the award ceremony, all participants are invited to join a festive cocktail reception at the National Archeological Museum of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, in close proximity of the meeting venue.

On the 17 May, the European Academies’ consortium SAPEA will organise the science-policy symposium “Shaping European Science Advice: Insights and Experiences”. The event will bring together scientists and policy-makers to analyse and discuss experiences and lessons learned from the European Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) and other science advice systems.

In the afternoon, ALLEA will convene its annual internal Business Meeting (restricted to ALLEA Member Academies’ representatives).

On the 18 May the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences offers to all participants a post-conference cultural programme. During a guided day trip, attendees will have the opportunity to explore the city of Plovdiv, the 2019 European Capital of Culture. A participation fee of 35-45 euros will be charged.

Hotels

Please note that due to the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2018, a large number of international events will take place in Sofia simultaneously. As a consequence, there will be a high demand for hotel rooms during this period. We therefore strongly recommend to book accommodation as early as possible to ensure availability. The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has kindly provided a list of pre-reserved hotels for participants of the ALLEA General Assembly. We are looking forward to welcoming you in Sofia!

Acknowledgements

The 2018 ALLEA General Assembly is co-organised and hosted by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

International partners include the Italian foundation Compagnia di San Paolo, and the European academies consortium SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies).

The Ministry of Education and Science of Bulgaria, representing the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, is the local partner of the conference. The event also takes place under the patronage of the Municipality of Sofia.

ALLEA statement released: The Ownership and Protection of Multinational Inventions

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The ALLEA Permanent Working Group Intellectual Property Rights (PWGIPR) released a statement today titled “The Ownership and Protection of Multinational Inventions – in Particular Inventions Resulting from Publicly Funded Research”.

The statement responds to the increase of multinational inventions resulting from international cooperation in research and development and the implications for the legal framework under which those inventions are managed and protected. The expert group calls for adopting more harmonised legal instruments at the European level with respect to the choice of law(s) governing inventorship. This harmonisation is necessary to reduce legal uncertainty and raise efficiency in multinational research and development.

The increasing internationalisation of research and development has led to more inventions as the outcome of such cooperation. The EU is supportive of these developments and has set up rules to administer this internationalisation. However, neither Regulation (EU) 1290/2013 nor any other legislative measure provides for harmonisation with national law on inventorship, assignment, and patent filing requirements for multinational inventions.

The ALLEA Permanent Working Group Intellectual Property Rights warns that this legal complexity hampers efficiency in the research and development area and leads to legal uncertainty with respect to the choice of law(s) governing inventorship.

In their statement, the ALLEA experts observe the lack of harmonisation and invite the European Commission to (i) analyse the effect of diverging national rules on inventorship, assignment, and patent filing requirements on research and development in the EU, (ii) assess the appropriate scope and substance of legislative measures and remedies at EU level, and (iii) initiate discussions with regard to the prospect and feasibility of adopting harmonised legal instruments on the international level.

The ALLEA Permanent Working Group Intellectual Property Rights combines decades of highly specialised expertise in the European legal framework for patents and copyrights. Among other topics, the expert group focuses on the legal challenges of Intellectual Property Rights and the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. Previous related statements include inter alia “On the Status of the Patent System of the European Union” published in 2015.

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Ethical Aspects of Open Access Workshop: A Windy Road

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The ALLEA Permanent Working Group on Science & Ethics organised the workshop Ethical Aspects of Open Access: A Windy Road on 1 February 2018, hosted by the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts in Brussels.

For anyone involved in academia, Open Access has become a topic hard to miss. The European Commission’s Open Science agenda as well as funding and research organisations alike encourage the open publication of research articles on an ever greater scale and with good reason as there is little doubt that publicly funded research should be as open as possible to the public.

Though, after around 15 years since the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge, one of the most influential statements on Open Access, the research community must attest that several unintended consequences and ethical conundrums have marred the full-scale implementation of Open Access in the European Research Area.

ALLEA workshop

To identify some of these issues and to discuss possible solutions, the ALLEA Permanent Working Group on Science & Ethics organised the workshop Ethical Aspects of Open Access: A Windy Road on 1 February 2018, hosted by the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts in Brussels. The event was attended by around 80 participants from across Europe.

The speakers of the workshop covered issues ranging from editorial responsibilities in the Open Access world to ways of identifying questionable and unethical publishers.

The speakers of the workshop covered issues ranging from editorial responsibilities in the Open Access world to ways of identifying questionable and unethical publishers. Further issues that were addressed were the need to balance transparency with resilience and the effects of Open Access on the assessments of research performance. Relevant organisations such as the Committee on Publication Ethics, the Directory of Open Access Journals, and EMBO were among the represented organisations.

The workshop was concluded with a panel debate, bringing together representatives from European academies, young academies, funding organisations, European universities, and the European Research Council.

The presentations of the workshop are available on the ALLEA website here.

A more detailed report of the workshop will be published in due course.

European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity translated into Dutch, French, Hungarian, Spanish

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ALLEA released today the translations to Dutch, French, Hungarian and Spanish of The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, which was published originally in English on 24 March 2017.

 

Europese gedragscode voor wetenschappelijke integriteit

Dutch

 

  

Code de conduite européen pour l’intégrité en recherche

French

 
 

A kutatási integritás európai magatartási kódexe

Hungarian

 

  

Código Europeo de Conducta para la Integridad en la Investicación

Spanish

 

The document serves the European research community as a framework for self-regulation across all scientific and scholarly disciplines and for all research settings. It is recognised by the European Commission as reference for all EU-funded research projects and as a model for organisations and researchers across Europe.

The overall objective of the publication is to empower individual researchers and a variety of research bodies, funding agencies and publishers by creating a common understanding of how research should be conducted. It sets out principles of research integrity, criteria for good research practice, and describes how to prevent violations of research integrity. 

The Code of Conduct sets out principles of research integrity, criteria for good research practice, and describes how to prevent violations of research integrity. 

The revision addresses emerging challenges emanating from technological developments, open science, citizen science and social media, among other areas revision is motivated by current developments in the European research funding and regulatory landscape, changing institutional responsibilities, and evolving review procedures.

In addition, the Code of Conduct is applicable to expanding open access publishing, and the use of digital repositories, and takes into account new ways of communicating science and involving citizens in research. Read more

Translations

The Code of Conduct will be available in official EU languages thanks to the the European Commission’s Translational Services and the support of ALLEA Member Academies. Finalised translations will be made available here. Translations to other official EU languages will be released in the coming months.

The above translations were made possible with the kind collaboration of the following Member Academies:

An external authorised translation into Turkish was produced by the ALLEA Member Academy Bilim Akademisi on June 2017. 

Araştırmalarda Dürüstlük Konusunda Avrupa Davranış Kod (Turkish)

Support for the Joint Statement for FP9 “Living Together: Missions for Shaping the Future”

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Organisations representing the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Europe have published the joint statement “Living Together: Missions for Shaping the Future”. The signatories call for more inter- and transdisciplinarity and a conscientious framing of ‘missions’ in the future EU Research and Innovation Framework Programme 9 (FP9), putting forward suggestions that take account of social, cultural, legal and ethical challenges ahead. 

The statement responds to a call by the High-Level Group on maximising the impact of EU Research & Innovation Programmes, the so called “Lamy-Group”, to “adopt a mission-oriented, impact-focused approach to address global challenges”. It stems from a joint initiative by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) and ALLEA.

In case you would like to show your support to the statement as an organisation, you can do so by writing a short message including the name and the logo of your organisation to kaiser@allea.org. You will then be added to the list of supporters below.

Support the statement

 

 

You can download the statement in the following link:

Living Together. Missions for Shaping the Future

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supporting organisations