Introducing ALLEA’s New Image and Website

Profesor Antonio Loprieno, President of ALLEA.

Dear ALLEA members and friends,

As you are well aware, the year 2019 marks the 25th anniversary of ALLEA. This is a good moment to not only reflect on our history and celebrate our past achievements, but also to map out the path we want to follow. To that end, we determined that our 25th anniversary would be a great opportunity to revitalise our look, refurbish our online presence, and to set our future priorities.

We are therefore thrilled to announce that ALLEA is officially launching a brand-new corporate image which, we feel, better reflects ALLEA’s evolution, values and vision for the future as outlined in ALLEA’s Strategic Priorities 2019-2024.

We are particularly excited to present the new ALLEA website to you. The redesign process was carried out by making you, the members and visitors, our primary consideration. We want to make ALLEA’s virtual space as user-friendly, informative and accessible as possible. The result is for you to judge. Please peruse it at your leisure!

We would also like to introduce the latest issue of ALLEA’s newsletter. This issue focuses on the celebrations and outcomes of our 25th anniversary in Bern last May, and features our latest discussion paper, upcoming events, and new SAPEA reports, among other issues.

Enjoy the read!

Kind regards,

Antonio Loprieno
President of ALLEA

 

To the ALLEA Newsletter

Making Sense of Science: How to Deal with Complexity and Scientific Uncertainty

SAPEA’s most recent Evidence Review Report titled “Making sense of science for policy under conditions of complexity and uncertainty” seeks to tackle the challenge of delivering high-quality scientific policy advice under circumstances of social complexity and scientific uncertainty.

Science advice to today’s policymakers has become more prominent than ever, due primarily to the growing human impact on our world, and the ever-increasing complexity of the knowledge needed for coping with economic, social and environmental challenges. Yet how can we provide good science advice to European Commission policymakers based on available evidence under conditions of scientific complexity and  uncertainty?

This is the driving question of SAPEA’s latest report, which addresses the ever-present dilemma that the issues for which scientific input is most needed by policymakers are also the issues for which the science is most often complex, multidisciplinary and incomplete.

The report concludes, among other things, that:

  • Science advice can help to anticipate future challenges and assist in designing coping strategies or interventions.
  • The focus of science advice must be on a critical review of the available evidence and its implications for policymaking.
  • Scientific advice should not prescribe but inform policies.
  • The purpose and significance of scientific advice depend on the issue and the context.
  • The effectiveness of scientific advice depends on the right composition of advisors and the quality of the dialogue between advisors and policymakers.
  • Scientists, as well as policymakers, should be sensitive to various biases and interests when drawing inferences from data and information.

An Executive Summary of the report can be accessed here, while the full report is available here.

Making sense of science for policy under conditions of complexity and uncertainty is the fifth Evidence Review Report to be published by the SAPEA consortium, an integral part of the European Scientific Advice Mechanism.

 

 

A Year in Review: ALLEA Annual Report released

We are proud to publish ALLEA’s Annual Report 2018/2019.

This document compiles an overview of our activities from May 2018 to April 2019 and takes a look back even further to commemorate our 25th anniversary. We reflect on this quarter century of our federation in the context of the transformations that occurred in the science policy society interface in Europe. ALLEA’s past Presidents and European partners share with us their thoughts on these 25 years of scientific cooperation.

Enjoy the read!

ALLEA’s reaction to the Parliament’s bill concerning the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

On 2 July 2019 the Hungarian Parliament has passed a bill which will strip the Hungarian Academy of Sciences of its research institutes and thereby will transfer the academy’s research capacities to the Eötvös Loránd Research Network (ELKH) under the supervision of the Hungarian Ministry of Innovation and Technology. The decision was made despite stark resistance from within the Hungarian science system as well as from European science organisations, including ALLEA, and is widely considered to be another decision by the Hungarian government to infringe on the freedom of science and research.

ALLEA President Antonio Loprieno said:

“We are worried by the Hungarian government’s attack on academic freedom, which threatens the autonomy of science and thus puts innovation at risk. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences has engaged in good faith and constructively with the government, which instead has chosen to disregard months of dialogue and efforts. As the federation of European academies, ALLEA will back our member academy and all Hungarian scientists and work with them and other international partners to defend science from populist pressures.”

The bill, which still awaits ratification by the country’s President, stipulates that not only the research institutes are handed over to ELKH, but also that the academy makes available their premises and equipment without compensation.

The Hungarian Academy of Sciences has made it clear that this bill is in opposition to basic European funding principles and poses a serious danger to the academic freedom of the institution as well as to the researchers working within this new network.

ALLEA and the academies within the federation deeply oppose such infringements and reject the claim of the Hungarian government that the ELKH will produce more innovative science.

 

Read previous ALLEA statements on this matter here:

ALLEA, EUA and Science Europe joint statement on academic freedom and institutional autonomy (April 2019)

ALLEA reinforces its calls to protect the institutional autonomy and academic freedom of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (February 2019)

ALLEA open letter in support of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (June 2018)