Refrain from Creating New IP Rights for Machine-Generated Data, ALLEA Asks EU Institutions

ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, urges the European Commission and other EU institutions to refrain from introducing any new Intellectual Property (IP) right that would protect “machine-generated data”. Regulations should ensure unfettered access to data that is essential to many fields of science.

In a new statement responding to the European Commission’s Public Consultation on the Data Act, ALLEA objects to the proposal of a “data producer’s right” envisaged in the European Commission’s communication “Building a European Data Economy”.

In many scientific fields, including astronomy, biology and geology, scientific data are commonly, and increasingly, generated with the aid of highly advanced digital means and equipment. The statement recalls the principles of Open Science and underlines the vital role of access to data for scientific progress.

“We strongly object to the extension of the existing sui generis database right to embrace machine-generated data. (…) Creating IP rights in such machine-generated data would severely impede freedom of science and bear the risk of creating unwanted monopolies in scientific data sets”, the Federation says.

The authors consider that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the importance of facilitating access to data and data sets held by private or public bodies in favour of scientific progress and the public interest at large.

“Scientists and academic research institutions should therefore be able to fully benefit from current and future data sharing governance structures in the EU”, they argue.

The statement was prepared by the ALLEA Permanent Working Group Intellectual Property Rights (PWGIPR), which assembles legal scholars and IPR experts from across Europe. Since the 1990, the group has prepared and issued reflections, declarations, and recommendations on the most challenging topics of IPR for research and society.

Read the statement

ALLEA Endorses Statement Calling for Action to Help Researchers in Afghanistan

ALLEA has endorsed a statement by Scholars at Risk Europe calling on European Governments and EU Institutions to help scholars, researchers, and civil society organisations in Afghanistan. The joint call urges to secure their lives and careers and proposes some concrete recommendations to take action.

The appeal has been supported by 50 higher education organisations across Europe. Specifically, the signatories seek immediate action from European Governments and EU institutions to:

  • Continue evacuation flights for as long as possible so as to include scholars, students, and civil society actors who have supported the forward-looking, pluralist vision of Afghanistan that the EU, European governments, NATO partners and other international and civil society organisations embraced. Do not end flights until all are safely outwho wish to leave the country.
  • Increase resettlement quotas to help those in need of international protection, including researchers, scholars, and civil society actors. Ensure international protection is provided to current Afghan protection applicants through an expedited process, and prioritise and expedite family reunification applications.
  • Create expedited complementary legal pathways for candidates who demonstrate an existing host institution, job, or sponsor, including for families, that would facilitate their arrival and earliest adjustment. Many European higher education institutions are ready to host scholars in temporary positions; capture that opportunity by expediting the processing of individuals for whom they are ready to step forward, and providing logistical support.
  • Waive any intent-to-return and home residency requirements that may apply to visa applications for Afghan scholars and researchers for the foreseeable future. Barring full waiver, issue authoritative guidance to consular and border officials supporting a determination of satisfaction of the intent to return by showing a willingness to return in the absence of the Taliban, or a credible, durable and rebuttable demonstration that the individual would be able to return and live safely under the Taliban.
  • Establish a dedicated EU fellowship scheme for researchers and scholars at risk, including scholars, students, and civil society actors from Afghanistan, especially women and ethnic and religious minorities, to undertake fellowships, lectureships, researcher positions, or temporary academic positions at European higher education institutions. See the EU-funded Inspireurope project recommendation for a dedicated scheme here. Some funds for such streams might be redirected from existing funds budgeted for Afghanistan programming, but which may not be possible to expend under the current conditions. Nevertheless, new funds will be required to meet the most urgent needs.
  • Establish dedicated national fellowships for researchers and scholars at risk, including scholars, students, and civil society actors from Afghanistan, similar to existing national fellowship programmes run by the PAUSE programme in France and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Philipp Schwartz Initiative in Germany.

You can read the full statement here. Scholars at Risk (SAR) is an international network of over 500 higher education institutions in 40 countries, including over 350 in Europe, whose core mission is to protect threatened scholars and intellectuals. The organisation is inviting higher education institutions willing to host at-risk individuals from Afghanistan to complete a survey here.

For further information on ALLEA’s activities on academic freedom, you can read our dedicated website page.

Nature Medicine Comment on International Health Data Transfer Published

The lead authors of the ALLEA, FEAM and EASAC report ‘International Sharing of Personal Health Data for Research’ published a Comment in the journal Nature Medicine on 2 August. The piece summarises the key takeaways of the joint report, including an assessment of the legal challenges in sharing personal health data with researchers outside the EU/European Economic Area (EEA).

The text highlights that “COVID-19 has shown that international collaborations and global data sharing are essential for health research, but legal obstacles are preventing data sharing for non–pandemic-related research among public researchers across the world, with potentially damaging effects for citizens and patients.”

According to the authors, “over the past two years, it has become apparent that challenges emerge for the sharing of data with public-sector researchers in a majority of countries outside of the EEA, as only a few decisions stating that a country offers an adequate level of data protection have so far been issued by the European Commission. This is a problem, for example, with researchers at federal research institutions in the United States. Transfers to international organizations such as the World Health Organization are similarly affected. Because these obstacles ultimately affect patients as beneficiaries of research, solutions are urgently needed.”

The Comment is based on the joint report which was driven by discussions between experts from across Europe, who were nominated by member academies of ALLEA, EASAC, and FEAM and acted in an individual capacity, bringing together all relevant disciplines and expertise for this topic of great shared importance for all.

The authors of the Comment are Heidi Beate Bentzen, Rosa Castro, Robin Fears, George Griffin, Volker ter Meulen and Giske Ursin. The full comment can be read here. The joint report, information about the project and an interview with Robin Fears (EASAC) on the topic are also accessible on the ALLEA website.

Videos and Illustrations of Science Communication Conference Available

ALLEA and the German science communication organisation Wissenschaft im Dialog organised an international conference on the Future of Science Communication last June. Videos and graphic recordings of the sessions are now available.

Funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, the event brought together different approaches from research and practice to science communication. Experts debated the trade-offs and latest developments of this field in an age of great transformations and crises where science plays a defining role.

Climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, disinformation, target audiences, citizen science or science advice were some of the guiding themes of two days of keynotes, debates, workshops, lighting talks, and a virtual poster exhibition. A closing panel discussion invited leading experts to provide their advice on how to shape the future of the field.

More than 1000 registered participants attended the conference and provided an impetus for stronger networking and further transfer of activities from research to practice and viceversa. Most of the sessions were recorded via Zoom and recorded graphically by illustrator Lorna Schütte.

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Further documentation will be available in the coming months, but in the meantime you can already read a summary with some take-home messages of the conference, as well as reports on the Day 1 and Day 2 of the event published on the German science communication portal wissenschaftskommunikation.de.

New Reports on EU Genome Editing Policy for Agriculture Presented

On 22 July 2021, Re-Imagine Europa (RIE), together with knowledge partners ALLEA and EU-SAGE, presented two reports on innovation in agriculture in a virtual event. The publications look into existing narratives concerning the role of genome editing for crop improvement and potential ramifications for European policy.

 

At the event, titled ‘Beyond the Apple of Discord: Changing our Agri Culture’, science-policy stakeholders discussed the future of new breeding techniques, such as genome editing in crops, in moving towards sustainable European agriculture systems and in addressing climate and environmental-related challenges. Keynote speakers of the event included  Janusz Wojciechowski, European Commissioner for Agriculture; Norbert Lins, Member of the European Parliament; and Urs Niggli, President of agroecology.science. The event was chaired by Professor Louise Fresco, President of the Wageningen University.

 

Invited speakers: Professor Louise Fresco, Wageningen University (top left); MEP Norbert Lins, Chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (top right); EU Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski (bottom left); Urs Niggli, President of agroecology.science (bottom right).

 

The RIE-led Task Force on Sustainable Agriculture and Innovation aims to better understand the emotions and values behind different perspectives and to see if, with ambitious European climate, sustainability, and biodiversity goals as clear priorities, it is possible to find positive pathways forward.

During the event, the task force presented two reports that look at what we can learn from existing narratives and the potential implications for policy actions. For a short description of the task force and a summary of the reports, see “Overview of the Reports on Sustainable Agriculture and Innovation”. 

In the first report, “Beyond the Apple of Discord: Existing Narratives and Ways Forward”, the task force focuses on how different stories, symbols, images, and metaphors are used to inform the debate on the future of European agriculture. The report specifically describes the role of these emotions and narratives in framing the way we think about using genome editing for crop improvement. 

As stated by Prof. Louise Fresco, “Rather than focusing on the ‘apple of discord’ we should address the ‘apples of confusion’; there is a lot of common ground, but we must identify and address where the confusion lies.” 

 

 

The second report, “White Paper on the Regulation of Genome Editing in Agriculture” aims to describe the attributes of an ideal regulatory system that balances the need for embracing innovation in agriculture, such as new genomic techniques, whilst ensuring protection of human health, the environment, and biodiversity. The report also presents five policy options to be considered in the upcoming debate on genome editing between the Council, the European Parliament, and relevant stakeholders.  

In his opening remarks, Janusz Wojciechowski, European Commissioner for Agriculture, reassured that “For us it is crystal clear that any policy decision should protect human and environmental health. Making European Food Systems sustainable and resilient is one of our key objectives.” 

 

 

The task force is currently planning a follow-up meeting to be held in the European Parliament in Brussels in October/November 2021 (date and time to be announced and depending on Covid restrictions). This meeting will consider, amongst other things, how to further develop a shared vision for sustainable European agriculture systems and which policy options should be further pursued to achieve these goals.

ALLEA-GYA Event Report on Research Assessment Published

ALLEA and the Global Young Academy (GYA) have published a report covering the key takeaways of their webinar ‘Research Assessments that Promote Scholarly Progress and Reinforce the Contract with Society’. The event brought together science and policy stakeholders to rethink current research assessment models.

The report tackles three main questions debated by presenter Ellen Hazelkorn (BH Associates) and discussants Kostas Glinos (European Commission), Michael Hill (DORA Steering Committee), and Martin Dominik (Global Young Academy):

  • How can we strike a balance between funding of research to advance scientific progress in itself on the one hand, and public accountability in terms of societally relevant research on the other when assessing research?
  • How can the societal relevance of research best be assessed and who defines the criteria?
  • How should research assessment be done?

Among other messages, the report underlines that:

  • All research that significantly adds to the scholarly record holds the potential of being translated into concrete value for society sooner or later, although not necessarily by those who originally carried out that research.
  • Societal accountability covers a wide sphere of impact, hence there is a need to include researchers from the social sciences and people with expertise on social impact, as well as co-expertise between researchers and lay-people.
  • Meaningful assessments will need to respect and be tailored to a specific context, provide an answer to a concrete question, and meet the aim of the assessment.

The report is based on a webinar held on 25 November 2020 and moderated by Roger Pfister (Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences). The video can be watched on ALLEA’s YouTube channel. The work was led by the ALLEA Permanent Working Group Science and Ethics.

This project is part of a strategic partnership between ALLEA and the GYA, which seeks to strengthen cross-border collaboration between researchers from different age groups, disciplines and career stages. Building on and further consolidating existing forms of cooperation, both organisations aimed to analyse and rethink current research assessment models, as well as scientific publication and peer-review practices.

Download Event Report

Noam Chomsky on Academic Freedom and Intellectual Dissent

US linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky delivered the keynote “The University at Times of Crisis” as part of the international conference “Academic Freedom and Intellectual Dissent” co-organised by Scholars at Risk and ALLEA on 8 June. 

In his keynote, Chomsky reflected on the crisis and privatisation of universities and academic institutions. He advocated for enabling  the scientific community to make use of research funds without the intervention of politicians or donors.

He pointed out to this underlying tension within academic institutions as one of key aspects impeding the scientific community to reach an ideal of academic freedom. “Looking over the centuries, the ideal has often been uphill, but it has been a constant battle to try to sustain it in the face of external, social, economic and ideological pressures”, he argued.

He also challenged the idea of attributing the drivers of innovation and discovery in today’s societies to private businesses’ risk-taking. “This doctrine is mostly myth. Most of this work takes place in the public sector with public funding”, he stated.

An international conference on academic freedom

Chomsky’s keynote was preceded with an address by Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins and followed by Q & A with the public moderated by Maria Baghramian (University College Dublin).

The conference focussed on the importance of intellectual dissent and academic freedom to democratic societies in a Western, particularly European, context. The speakers and the panel discussed the scope and the limits of academic freedom in the context of political populism, neoliberalism and the exigencies of the post Covid social and educational landscape.

Topics of the event included but were not limited to academic freedom in relation to other core academic values, e.g. openness, trustworthiness, research integrity, and social responsibility; the scope and limits of intellectual dissent and academic freedom; ways of strengthening academic freedom in a changing university funding landscape, the impact of social media on academic freedom and lessons from a global pandemic.

The full video of the events and the programme can be accessed on this webpage.

Working Group Kick-Started Project on Climate Sustainability in Academic System

On 5 July 2021, the newly constituted working group met for the first time to take up its function within the ALLEA project ‘Climate Sustainability in the Academic System’. 


Led by its member Die Junge Akademie (German Young Academy), the project aims to develop a proposal for a sustainable transformation of academia that is deliberated, balanced and accounts for all relevant perspectives such as to meet the challenge of a climate sustainable academia without compromising excellence in research and without diminishing international exchange and collaboration in academia.  

The members of the working group – which represent a variety of disciplines and, to a large extent, member academies of ALLEA – discussed the scope of the project and a preliminary timeline. In addition, the group has started to review existing data on the climate impact of academia and to take stock of pertinent best-practice examples set in motion in similar contexts. As such, the group intends to elaborate on considerations relative to climate sustainable academia and present these early next year. 

Members of the Working Group 

  • Carlo Barbante – National Academy of the Lincei, Italy 
  • Magnus Breitholtz – Stockholm University, Sweden 
  • Valerie Domcke – Die Junge Akademie, Germany 
  • Astrid Eichhorn – Die Junge Akademie, Germany  
  • Antonin Fejfar – Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic 
  • Raphael Heffron – Young Academy of Scotland/Royal Society of Edinburgh, United Kingdom 
  • Jan Hladky – Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic 
  • Debbie Hopkins – University of Oxford, United Kingdom 
  • Agnes Kreil – ETH Zurich, Switzerland 
  • Ambreena Manji – Learned Society of Wales, United Kingdom 
  • Mykolas Poškus – Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Lithuania 
  • Jana Prodanova – Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Macedonia 
  • Sverker Sörlin – KTH Stockholm, Sweden 
  • Diarmuid Torney – Royal Irish Academy, Ireland 
  • Bart Vermang – Young Academy of Belgium/Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, Belgium 

Energy Transition Needs to Accelerate Urgently, Says EU’s Scientific Advice Mechanism

There are many possible pathways towards a carbon-neutral future — and achieving it by 2050 is possible but requires urgent action. This is the conclusion of a group of top scientists tasked by the European Commission with advising on how to facilitate the energy transition in Europe.

The European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism published two major documents on a systemic approach to the energy transition in Europe yesterday:

In these documents, the experts underline that the energy transition is far from a purely technical challenge. To make the transition a reality, we need to solve a huge systemic problem, coordinating countless individual voluntary decisions on investment, consumption and behaviour across Europe.

This means transforming the entire European energy system — a change which will affect every part of our society and require huge investment during the transition. It must be done in a socially equitable way. And we already need to accelerate progress if we want to achieve the EU’s target of net zero emissions by 2050.

Professor Peter Lund, chair of the SAPEA working group that wrote the report, said:

“The SAPEA report does not recommend an unequivocal policy package for Europe, but rather a set of policy options addressing various important facets of the overall challenge of the energy transition to reach carbon neutrality.

“However, as a central conclusion, any successful policy must involve a carbon pricing mechanism, in both the EU Emissions Trading System and Effort Sharing Regulation sectors, that delivers a sufficiently high carbon price while putting the pricing in a socially just frame.”

Professor Antonio Loprieno, the chair of the SAPEA Board and President of ALLEA, added:

“The transition of the energy system to tackle climate change is a key challenge and priority for the European Union, and its implications will impact on all parts of our societies, including a range of technical, economic, and social aspects. It is particularly important, that policymakers are well informed by science while making decisions on such complex issues.

“This report takes a multidisciplinary and systemic approach and provides evidence-based observations for achieving the EU’s emission targets by 2050 from an energy system transition perspective, thus brings the best and newest scientific knowledge into policymaking.”

 

SAPEA is part of the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism. Together with the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors, it provides independent scientific advice to European Commissioners to support their decision-making. SAPEA brings together outstanding expertise from natural, applied, and social sciences and humanities, from over a hundred academies, young academies and learned societies in more than 40 countries across Europe. ALLEA is involved in SAPEA as one of its European academy networks.

Learn more about SAPEA and their Evidence Review Reports here. 

 

 

 

 

Future of Science Communication Conference: Moving Forward Research & Practice

How can we connect research and practice in the science communication field? How can science communication help make science more trustworthy? What lessons have we learned on the relationship between science and politics during the Covid-19 pandemic? Over 1000 participants joined two days of digital discussions and workshops to tackle these and more questions at the Future of Science Communication Conference.

After a year of planning and curating, the event took place in digital format on 24-25 June, co-organised by ALLEA and Wissenschaft im Dialog, the organisation for science communication in Germany and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the scope of Germany’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The international conference brought together actors from research and practice of science communication. Its goal was to sensitise the various stakeholders from science, science communication and politics to the respective challenges and to provide an impetus for stronger networking and transfer between the ‘science of science communication’ and European practitioner communities.

Attendees could enjoy three keynotes and six panels, participate in ten workshops and attend three lightning talk sessions, a poster session and a matching session. All sessions were related to one of five topics: Science & Politics, Trust in Science, Target Groups of Science Communication, Open Science & Citizen Science, and Fake News & Disinformation.

“We are at a Fork in the Road moment in science communication.” – Mike Schäfer (University of Zurich)

From Science Communication to Trust in Science

Day one started with welcoming words from Thomas Rachel MdB (Parliamentary State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research) and the ALLEA President Antonio Loprieno, before featuring two keynotes by Mike Schäfer (University of Zurich) and the Chief Scientific Advisor to the European Commission Nicole Grobert (University of Oxford), who shared input from their scientific and political perspectives.

Schäfer presented an overall analysis of the science communication field with three main questions: how can we move forward, what is going well, what is not going so well. His take-home message was to recognise that science communication is in a “Fork in the Road” moment. Institutions, scientists and communicators should work together to push forward and scale up the synergies between practice and research. For instance, he proposed to increase “inreach” into science: motivate, train, support, valorize and sensitize scientists for societal demands.

The Chief Scientific Advisor Nicole Grobert added a science advice perspective to the discussion and provided insights on how to communicate emergency and strategic science advice. Particularly, she suggested to follow four key questions when communicating science advice for policy:

  • What we know
  • What we don’t know
  • What is uncertain
  • What cannot be known

The discussions continued in the afternoon with the panel “Trust in Science: nurtured, built or earned?”, moderated by Dr. Birte Fähnrich (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences/Zeppelin University) and with speakers Rainer Bromme (University of Münster), Maria Baghramian (University College Dublin/PERITIA), John Besley (Michigan State University) and Tracey Brown (Sense About Science).

The debate focussed on how to create a concept of trust in science useful for science communication. Speakers debated how to frame such debate for practical approaches, from focusing on the causes of distrust to understand the importance of trustworthiness in science. Their advice to the science communicators was:

  • Make the right questions about science (Brown).
  • Talk about your honesty, good intentions, competence (Besley).
  • Explain the process of science (Baghramian).
  • Foster epistemic trust (Broome).

“The infodemic in fact preceded the Covid-19 pandemic by many years” – Cissi Askwall (VA Public & Science)

Are we living an “infodemic”?

The second day was kicked off by our third keynote speaker, Cissi Askwall, sharing her perspectives from science communication practice, who argued that the “infodemic in fact preceded the Covid-19 pandemic by many years”.

Friday’s first panel “Fake News & Disinformation: A pandemic of its own?” developed further this question. The debate featured Natali Helberger (University of Amsterdam), Dan Larhammar (ALLEA/Royal Swedish Academy) and Philipp Lorenz-Spreen (Max Planck Institute for Human Development) and was moderated by journalist Kai Kupferschmidt. Panellists discussed digital media literacy and the importance of including schools in the debate on fake news. Lorenz-Spreen added: “We cannot rely on the idea that with the next generation and digital natives problems with fake news will disappear. We can see even university students today can be victims of fake news.”

In a pre-recorded impulse video, Dietram A. Scheufele (University of Wisconsin-Madison) challenged common wisdom on the relevance of disinformation in today’s science communication debates: “There is very limited social scientific evidence, if any, to suggest that misinformation directly connects to more pro-social behaviours, for instance, physical distancing or getting vaccines when available”. The moderator Kupferschmidt provided additional thought-provoking ideas and key takeaways on a Twitter thread:

Friday also featured a panel discussion on science and politics moderated by ALLEA President Antonio Loprieno. The panel included Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius (Alfred Wegener Institute), Dr. Janusz Bujnicki (International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw), Prof. Dr. Ortwin Renn (Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies Potsdam) and Dr. Bella Starling (Vocal / Wellcome Engagement Fellow / Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust). A key question that centred the debate was: What do policymakers want from scientists? Ortwin Renn had some suggestions:

In the final panel discussion, panellists touched on the question whether there is a gap between research and practice in science communication. Brian Trench (Dublin City University/PCST Network) asked whether instead we are overstressing this disconnection between the science of science communication and science communication practice. He also presented his manifesto for a future of science communication that is authentic, engaged, open, surprising, uncertain, ethical, inclusive, unfinished and interpreting.

“Science Communication is about interpreting the meaning of science for people” – Brian Trench (Dublin City University/PCST Network)

SAPEA and PERITIA workshops

Two ALLEA projects also found space in the programme. The workshop “Communicating microplastics risk: Balancing sensation and reflection” was hosted by SAPEA and featured Bart Koelmans (University of Wageningen), Sabine Pahl (University of Vienna), Lesley Henderson (Brunel University) and Toby Wardman (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies).

Additionally, our PERITIA colleagues organized two workshops, “Trust in science in social surveys: challenges, measurement and case studies” and “Using experiments to fight science disinformation online: an evidence-based guide”. The first workshop provided an overview on the nuances and complexity of measuring trust in science across countries and different contexts.

The second workshop led by Carlo Martini (PERITIA) offered an overview on strategies to tackle disinformation attempts with the use of attention and monetary incentives interventions on social media. The contribution of John Cook (Monash University) brought additional perspectives on the use of gamification to foster critical thinking. Read more about this on our interview with him at the ALLEA Digital Salon.

 

For further reading on the contents of the conference, you can find the summaries of Day 1 and Day 2 published at the German science communication portal Wissenschaftskommunition. More documentation will be published in the coming months. If you want to receive future updates, subscribe to the ALLEA newsletter.