KVAB online panel discussion: Genome editing for crop improvement

The Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts will organise an online panel discussion on the conclusions and recommendations of the recent KVAB-ALLEA symposium report “Genome Editing for Crop Improvement” on 3 December, at 16:00 CET. Registration for the event is open.

The discussion will include the lead authors of the report, Oana Dima (VIB), Hubert Bocken (UGent, KVAB), René Custers (VIB), Pere Puigdomènech (CRAG, ALLEA) and Dirk Inzé (VIB, KVAB). The debate will be moderated by Godelieve Gheysen (UGent, KVAB).

The event will delve into the key takeaways of the report, which tackles the impasse of European policy and legislation after the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU of 2018. This decision placed genome-edited crops under the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) legislation. Since then, the scientific community has passionately debated the future of these new breeding techniques.

The publication 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.

Among the conclusions, the authors warned that continued legislative and policy restrictions may hamper the selection of more productive, diverse, and climate-resilient crops with a reduced environmental footprint.

The article also calls for an open, honest dialogue with all stakeholders, including the public, in the decision-making processes for introducing genome-edited products into the market, ensuring that the implications of market introduction are accurately communicated.

Register to the event

Download report

Science Does Not Have a Passport

A commentary by the ALLEA President

It has now been more than 4 years since the decision by the people of the United Kingdom to depart from the European Union. The European research community was united in shock upon receiving the results of the plebiscite and has since, with many voices and on many occasions, raised concerns that scientific collaboration should be looked at as a global concern rather than a political negotiation piece. Scientists are by nature revelling in discourse and disagreement, yet for once we all shared the same sentiment: we are better off together.

In fact, not only are we better off together, after more than 60 years of growing ever closer, of researchers moving about freely across the continent, of multinational research consortia spearheading most innovative scientific breakthroughs, it is inconceivable to disentangle the many co-operations that exist on so many levels across European academia. And even if we were able to do so, the price to pay would be diminished quality of research, something that we can all agree on would be a step in the wrong direction.

It now seems that at long last, the negotiations on the UK departure from the EU are coming to a close. What started as uncertainty on the conditions of future research association of the UK to the EU is now turning into tense anxiety as firm commitments still go amiss and researchers on both sides of the English Channel fear their tried and trusted collaborations with their partners may soon come to a premature end.

Throughout the process ALLEA has continuously reminded decision-makers on both sides of the table that scientific research must not be used as a pawn in political tit-for-tat. In doing so we did not tire to remind them that partnerships are difficult to build, but easy to destroy. At the moment, we are running the danger of doing the latter without any regard on how to rebuild them after.

As if we needed any more reminders of the vital necessity of international research collaboration, this year’s COVID-19 pandemic has made this point ever more pressing. By giving up on long-established and well-functioning research collaboration mechanisms we risk being worse prepared than better prepared for the global challenges to come, COVID-19 was certainly not the last of them.

ALLEA therefore can only reaffirm its call, which we share with our UK Member Academies, to ensure the highest degree of participation of UK research institutions in EU research framework programmes. As a Swiss myself, I know all too well what it feels like to be in a limbo when it comes to the relationship with the EU. But precisely for this reason I do know that Switzerland benefits from being part of the European scientific area much more than any perceived or real loss of sovereignty could take away from.

The scientific endeavour inherently does not have a passport, it is a truly global citizen and it would be a shame to restrict its abilities for the purposes of political negotiations. It is therefore my urgent call to everyone involved to let common sense prevail, to show reciprocal trust and to ensure that we can wake up in 2021 knowing that our colleagues and partners from yesterday will still be our colleagues and partners tomorrow.

Antonio Loprieno

ALLEA President

Can Climate Change Education save the planet? Programme of the webinar is on-line

On 24 November, ALLEA together with the Royal Irish Academy organise a webinar exploring European perspectives on climate change education.

Findings from a recently published ALLEA report “A snapshot of Climate Change Education Initiatives in Europe: Initial findings and implications for future Climate Change Education”  will be a starting point for discussing  climate change education initiatives in Europe which will consider successes, challenges and the future of climate change education throughout Europe. A recent Royal Irish Academy Briefing Paper prepared by Dr Cliona Murphy, Chair of ALLEA’s Science Education Working Group and the Royal Irish Academy’s representative, discusses this report and its implications for Ireland and will be included in the discussions.

Programme of the webinar and the registration can be found on the event’s page. 

ALLEA Webinar on Cultural Memories & Nationalist Sentiments – Recording Is Online

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.

 

ALLEA President contributes to JRC workshop on science for policy

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.

Why Trust Experts?

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.

Academies’ report reviews debate on genome editing for crop improvement

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.

 

Download the report

KVAB report in Dutch

Everything you wanted to ask about science advice #AskRolf

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.

SAPEA Science for policy podcast

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.

Europe on test: the onus of the past – conference publication

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.