Archive for category: ALLEA News

SAPEA is organising “The Future of Science Advice in Europe”, a series of panel discussions and workshops to be held in Helsinki on 13 November. The one-day symposium will address current experiences and models for providing expertise to policymakers in Europe.

The event will take place at the National Museum of Finland (Kansallismuseo) and counts with the participation of international scholars and practioners. The event will focus on emerging trends, weak signals, and promising opportunities for developing next-generation science advice capabilities for Finland and across Europe.

ALLEA is part of SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies) as one of its five networks. The project aims to provide independent and excellent scientific advice to the European Commission’s Group of Chief Scientific Advisors. As such, SAPEA is part of the broader European Commission’s Science Advice Mechanism.

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ALLEA submitted a statement to the European Commission calling for a strong and well-resourced framework programme guided by principles of excellence, fairness and openness, and making concrete suggestions on their implementation in the current draft of the Commission’s Strategic Plan on Horizon Europe.

Within the frame of open consultations on the EU’s next Research and Innovation Framework Programme Horizon Europe, ALLEA, through its Working Group Horizon Europe, has produced the statement “Delivering Horizon Europe”. Considering the European Commission’s Orientations towards the Strategic Plan implementing the research and innovation framework programme Horizon Europe as well as discussions during the recent Research and Innovation Days, ALLEA reiterates its priorities and provides concrete suggestions for amendments to the programme.

In order to achieve better conditions for research and innovation in the EU in the coming decades, and to position European research successfully in a competitive global environment, ALLEA believes it is of vital importance to consider the following points in the implementation process of Horizon Europe:

• Focus on funding excellence and ‘blue sky thinking’ through successful instruments like the European Research Council (ERC);
• Continue and intensify support for research mobility through programmes like Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) or ERASMUS;
• Arrange for fair and equal distribution of funds on the different clusters of Pillar 2 “Global Challenges and Industrial Competitiveness” in Horizon Europe;
• Follow a broad understanding of innovation which goes beyond technological innovation and hence supports interdisciplinarity, and which recognizes the value of humanities and social sciences in a less technocratic and instrumental way;
• Establish an independent, critical and continuous assessment of “Missions” in Horizon Europe;
• Continue “Institutional Partnerships” from Horizon 2020;
• Ensure Horizon Europe is ‘open to the world’ and allows for broad participation of Associated Countries.

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.