On 5 November, cultural historian Joep Leerssen and Laura Hood of The Conversation discussed why and how national cultures obstruct European politics.
Joep Leerssen, 2020 Laureate of the ALLEA Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, is one of the most remarkable figures in the critical analysis of ethnic and cultural stereotyping. In this conversation with Laura Hood, he gave insights into image shifts and trends of European identities.
The event was organised as a part of the Berlin Science Week 2020.
The Madame de Stael Prize for Cultural Values is awarded by ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, jointly with the foundation Compagnia di San Paolo as major supporter.
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ALLEA President Antonio Loprieno participated in the Joint Research Centre (JRC) workshop “Science for policymaking by national academies” on 4 November. The workshop is part to the JRC virtual series entitled “Strengthening and connecting science for policy eco-systems in Europe“.
President Loprieno discussed the contribution of European academies in the provision of science advice to society and policymakers. In his presentation, he argued that academies have historically taken the role of a “disinterested advisor”.
He pointed out to the importance of understanding the boundaries where academies can act or influence in providing science advice. At some point, other actors and policymakers need to take over and turn advice into concrete action.
The debate, moderated by Emanuela Bellan (JRC), covered several questions emerging from previous workshops such as:
how can advisers strike a balance between informal, close relations with policy side (mutual trust) and their independence (scientific integrity, public trust)?;
what does it mean to be an effective knowledge broker? And how can we organize such structures/bodies in eco-systems?
how can we improve the mutual understanding and trust of actors in science and policymaking?
what is the role of the public/citizens in all this?
The event included panellists Rudi Hielscher, Coordinator of SAPEA, Brian Norton, Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy, and Julian Revalski, President of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Among other objectives, the JRC workshop series aims at building a knowledge base to understand in what ways and under what conditions particular building blocks within different eco-systems work and national eco-systems are connected.
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ALLEA’s EU-funded research project PERITIA has launched the new animation video “Why Trust Experts?“. Inspired by their principal investigator Maria Baghramian’s article “Trust in Experts: Why and Why Not”, the video invites everyone to reflect on the role of expertise in our daily lives.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shown once again that experts play a key role in advising politicians and citizens. There may be no better time to ask ourselves some relevant questions about trust in expertise.
How does trust in experts work?
How is trust in science related to trust in media?
Why is trust in expertise important for democracies?
How can we learn to trust trustworthy experts?
The short animation video summarizes the key questions of PERITIA’s research in the context of today’s pandemic crisis and raises some relevant points. It touches upon the different dimensions of trust in expertise from a philosophical perspective, the influential role of media (and social media) in how we access scientific information, or the difficult balance between science independence and policymaking.
In the dedicated webpage “Why trust Experts?“, PERITIA delves into these key questions including resources. The page is available to help you learn more about the topic and find more scientific contributions to the debates from the team and their partners.
About PERITIA
PERITIA is a Horizon 2020-funded research project exploring the conditions under which people trust expertise used for shaping public policy. The project brings together philosophers, social and natural scientists, policy experts, ethicists, psychologists, media specialists and civil society organisations to conduct a comprehensive multi-disciplinary investigation of trust in and the trustworthiness of policy related expert opinion. As part of consortium of 11 partners from 9 countries, ALLEA leads the work on public engament and interaction of the project.
Since the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU of 2018, which placed genome-edited crops under the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) legislation, the scientific community has passionately debated the future of these new breeding techniques.
The new ALLEA report “Genome Editing for Crop Improvement” presents the state of the art of scientific evidence in the field and explores paths to harmonise EU legislation with recent scientific developments, while particularly considering relevant ethical and societal considerations.
The report summarises the discussions between scientific experts, policy-makers and civil-society organisations at a public symposium Genome Editing for Crop Improvement held in Brussels in November 2019, where ALLEA and the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts KVAB invited relevant stakeholders and the interested public to assess and discuss the impact of the ruling on present research and developments in genome editing for plant breeding.
“Widening public discourse on innovation in genome-editing for crop improvement is a key responsibility of the scientific community, including academies across Europe. While these new techniques offer exciting opportunities, it remains vital to see the bigger picture and to also consider public perceptions and cultural differences. This report summarises these diverse strands of research and aims to provide a comprehensive overview to European policymakers and the public.” states Prof. Antonio Loprieno, President of ALLEA.
At the European level, the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU on case C-528/16 of 2018 has been met largely with bewilderment and disappointment among the scientific community involved in research in this field. Scientists are concerned that this legislation will impede European research and leave the continent lagging behind other world regions where regulation is less restrictive.
The present report provides an overview of the latest scientific evidence with respect to safety of genome-edited crops and their possible potential to provide solutions to current and future agricultural challenges. Issues related to the traceability of genome-edited crops and how this will likely affect international trade of food and feed are also addressed.
In addition to the bioscience aspects of the technology, the report discusses economic and social implications of genome editing for crop improvement, and the legal hurdles in readdressing the court decision by legislative means. The authors underline that “public participation should be incorporated into the policy-making process for genome editing and should include ongoing monitoring of public attitudes, informational deficits, and addressing concerns about certain applications of genome editing”.
Key takeaways from the report:
European legislation should follow the features of the plant, rather than the technique used to generate it, to determine its regulatory status.
Targeted genome edits, which do not add foreign DNA, do not present any other health or environmental danger than plants obtained through classical breeding techniques, and are as safe or dangerous as the latter.
Continued legislative and policy restrictions may hamper the selection of more productive, diverse, and climate-resilient crops with a reduced environmental footprint.
The length and cost of the authorisation process makes it, except for major industrial players, hardly possible to bring into culture and commercialise plants developed with new biotechnological breeding techniques.
To enhance sustainability and to reduce the usage of chemicals, access is needed to the most advanced technologies enabling the improvement of existing varietal heritage and increasing the ability to respond to new challenges of changing environments. These new technologies may contribute to a reduction of the environmental footprint of agriculture.
An open, honest dialogue with all stakeholders, including the public, is needed in the decision-making processes for introducing genome-edited products into the market, ensuring that the implications of market introduction are accurately communicated.
Professor Heuer is the Chair of the European Commission’s Group of Chief Scientific Advisors which provides independent and high quality scientific advice to the College of European Commissioners, and an experimental particle physicist. Before joining the Group of Advisors, he was CERN Director-General until December 2015.
On 3 November at 11:00, Professor Heuer will answer your questions and discuss with you how to make politicians listen and understand science and why it is important live on YouTube.
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In September, SAPEA – one of ALLEA’s flagship projects – launched a series of podcasts on science advice for policy. Invited experts and science advice practitioners reflect on how far we should rely on science to make political decisions, what makes a good science advisor, what to do when the evidence is incomplete or controversial, what happens when science advice goes wrong, and other questions on science-policy interactions.
So far, six episodes have been published. They feature:
Clarissa Rios Rojas, a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge.
Mark Walport, a member of the SAGE committee, and former chief scientific advisor to the UK.
Vladimír Šucha and Marta Sienkiewicz, editors of the Joint Research Centre’s new science advice handbook.
Bart Koelmans, a chair of the advisory groups on microplastics pollution for the UN and EU.
Rolf Heuer and Pearl Dykstra, respectively the chair and deputy chair of the European Commission’s Group of Chief Scientific Advisors.
Peter Gluckman, the chair of the International Network for Government Science Advice, and a former chief science advisor to New Zealand.
The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.
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The Polish Academy of Sciences published a book based on the contributions to the 2019 ALLEA conference organized at its Institute of Philosophy and Sociology in Warsaw.
The texts collected in this volume focus on the Central-Eastern part of the European Union. The countries of this area still experience effects of their dependence on the Soviet Union and decades of authoritarian rules. These effects are clashing with the memory of the end of unwanted communist experiment, due to successful popular uprising and favorable international situation. The publication examines how the recent past of former “communist” states affects their performance in the integrating Europe, points out the problems of national and European identity, the question of solidarity and perception of interests.
“Europe on Test: Narratives of Union and Disunion” is a series of conferences under the patronage of ALLEA and hosted by selected Academies of Sciences and Humanities in various European cities. It seeks to address recent political developments and other aspects of relevance that may pose a challenge for the future of Europe as a community.
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On 20 October the EU research ministers at a Ministerial Conference on the European Research Area adopted the Bonn Declaration on Freedom of Scientific Research, thereby strengthening the protection of academic freedom in Europe.
Enabling scientists and researchers to follow their research interests freely and unimpeded by political constraints is one of the core principles of the European Union and ALLEA is delighted to see a strong commitment by the EU Member States to continue standing up for these rights.
“The Bonn Declaration is an important step in the right direction. In the recent past, the European research community has endured clear infringements on academic freedom. This declaration is a sign that we can no longer stand idly by and continue business as usual and makes a clear connection between trust in science and its independence. It is important to stress that academic freedom also involves the responsibility of the research community to openly communicate their findings not only to their peers, but also to the wider public”, says ALLEA President Antonio Loprieno.
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An expert roundtable discussion on International Large-Scale Studies of Achievement (by invitation only) on 21 January 2021;
Public webinar entitled “From STEM to STEAM Education ” in Spring 2021.
These events forerun a physical conference which was initially planned for January 2021 but was postponed due to the COVID 19 pandemic. The conference is envisaged to be held later in 2021 if conditions allow, and will be hosted by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine UNESCO Center for Science Education and the National Academy of Educational Sciences, supported by the Polish Academy of Sciences via its Representative Office in Kyiv.
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ALLEA is pleased to announce the PERITIA webinar ‘Who to trust on Covid-19: When science advice gets “dirty” in the political mud’. The event will take place on 2 November (14:00-15:00 CET) and is part of the Berlin Science Week. Registration is already open.
The one-hour Q&A webinar will delve into the impact of this pandemic on trust in expertise with a particular focus on three questions:
What lessons can we draw from the handling of the pandemic for understanding trust in policy-driven expertise?
How have different countries dealt with the delicate enterprise of communicating and relying on uncertain and evolving evidence and advice in extremely difficult times?
Is a loss of public trust in expertise the “collateral damage” of this crisis or are people trusting experts more than before?
PERITIA experts will join the discussion with Dr Shane Bergin, who will moderate an interactive debate where participants will lead the questions of the roundtable. The speakers include:
Prof Maria Baghramian Professor of American Philosophy at University College Dublin PERITIA Lead Investigator
Prof Bobby Duffy Director of The Policy Institute at King’s College London
Dr Carlo Martini Assistant Professsor of Philosophy at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University
PERITIA is an EU-funded research project and ALLEA is part of the consortium. The project explores the conditions under which people trust expertise used for shaping public policy. It brings together philosophers, social and natural scientists, policy experts, ethicists, psychologists, media specialists and civil society organisations to conduct a comprehensive multi-disciplinary investigation of trust in and the trustworthiness of policy related expert opinion.
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