ALLEA’s FP9 Working Group meets in Stockholm to discuss proposal for Horizon Europe

The ALLEA Framework Programme 9 Working Group met in Stockholm on 4 June 2018 on the invitation of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities to agree on future actions concerning the European Commission’s proposal for the next framework programme for research and innovation: “Horizon Europe”.

Credit: The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities

The experts critically assessed guiding principles, structure, funding lines, and clusters of topics envisioned in the proposal, officially presented by European Commissioner Carlos Moedas on 7 June 2018, which over the coming months will be discussed both in the European Parliament and Council. Horizon Europe will run from 2021-2027 with a budget, as proposed by the Commission, of approximately 100 billion Euros.

In the coming months, ALLEA’s working group will develop a set of activities directed both towards Members of the European Parliament and to the relevant committees in the Parliament and Council of the EU in order to help shape and balance out the final legislation on Horizon Europe in line with the needs of the scientific community, represented by academies from across Europe.

Horizon Europe

The proposal foresees a three-pillar structure with pillar I on “Open Science” including funding for the ERC, for Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, as well as research infrastructures. Pillar II is labelled “Global Challenges” and is supposed to receive the lion’s share of the overall budget (more than 50 billion). It hosts five so-called “clusters” (Health; Inclusive and secure societies; Digital and industry; Climate, energy and mobility; Food and natural resources) as well as the European Commission’s in-house science service JRC. The newly established European Innovation Council (EIC) is located in Pillar III (“Open Innovation”) alongside the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and funding for ‘European innovation ecosystems’. In addition to the three pillars, the proposal includes a funding line for “Strengthening the European Research Area” with a special focus on support to the less competitive research systems in Europe. [Click here to access the Commission proposals and background information on Horizon Europe]

ALLEA’s deliberations will include, among others, the proposed conversion of seven societal challenges in Horizon 2020 to five clusters, the new FP’s Global Challenges chapter (Pillar II), the selection and wording of “areas of intervention” of those challenges, and the plans to develop “missions”, which in a cross-cutting fashion are envisaged to form a subset of Global Challenges. Furthermore, the group will address the proposed budget distribution between the different pillars and challenges, as well as the schemes and actions to mitigate the research and innovation divide across Europe and to foster excellence especially in the EU13 countries.

The work will substantially build on and further expand ALLEA’s previous recommendations as set out especially in its Position Paper on Developing a Vision for Framework Programme 9, as well as the joint statement Living Together: Missions for Shaping the Future.

ALLEA publishes Discussion Paper on Loss of Trust in Science and Expertise

The discussion paper focusses on how trust in expertise is placed or refused, highlights the affective dimension of epistemic trust, and discusses the danger of a ‘context collapse’ in digital communication. Experts from academies across Europe reflect on the current situation in which expertise and particularly research and science operate in societies today, and what has changed in relation to trust and trustworthiness.

ALLEA published the first issue of a new discussion paper series with the title “Loss of Trust? Loss of Trustworthiness? Truth and Expertise Today”. The paper addresses current discussions on the so-called “post-truth” era and draws attention to the questions of placing and refusing trust in expertise, and how expertise and scientific evidence are being contested in a changing landscape of communication.

Based on discussions of ALLEA’s international and interdisciplinary Working Group Truth, Trust and Expertise, the paper proposes to refocus the debate on the alleged loss of trust in expertise beyond people’s generic attitudes of trust and mistrust reflected in polls. In doing so, it delves into the question of how people place and refuse trust in expertise, and warns that trust in expertise is “valuable when placed in trustworthy agents and activities, but damaging and costly when misplaced”.

Particularly the “affective conditions in which trustworthiness is determined” should be more strongly taken into account. When people place trust in the information provided, they are “taking a chance in trusting someone” – putting themselves at risk and tolerating vulnerability. Judgements on an expert’s trustworthiness thus carry affective (as well as social and political) aspects that determine how people trust expertise.

For example, ”in order to understand a lack of trust in children’s vaccines”, the paper suggests that “we need to be aware of communication between experts and their audiences but also of the vulnerability that parents experience in conditions of a perceived or real uncertainty”.

The process of placing and refusing trust might also be different from place to place. “Experts and expertise are not monolithic, and we need to engage with the importance of cultural differentiation locally and around the world. Understandably, this can lead to situations where trust is refused not for lack of credibility or confidence, but due to shortcomings in the delivery of the affective and social aspects of judgements of trustworthiness”.

“Experts and expertise are not monolithic, and we need to engage with the importance of cultural differentiation locally and around the world. Understandably, this can lead to situations where trust is refused not for lack of credibility or confidence, but due to shortcomings in the delivery of the affective and social aspects of judgements of trustworthiness”.

Digital communication and the “context collapse”

In addition, digital communication has changed the relationship between expertise and the public. The digitisation of information has led to an idea of knowledge as something that can be searched and found on the internet. This online environment often provides “little clarity about who says what in which context and on the basis of what authority or expertise”. 

The paper warns that new landscapes of communication sometimes imply a “context collapse”: “in an online environment where everything is content, the truthfulness of text, image, and sound can often no longer be determined directly from the context. In addition, whether something is true or trustworthy on social media is far less important than whether it is liked, and what is liked has economic value without any account to expertise”.

Finally, another crucial point raised by the paper is that the importance of achieving transparency and accountability whilst still encouraging academic freedom needs to be thought through further. “The initial response to claims that experts were not trustworthy was to regulate them more closely. […] We need to know whether our accountability systems support the intelligent placing and refusing of trust”.

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Health Inequalities – how do different disciplines deal with it?

The symposium “Health Inequalities – an interdisciplinary discussion on socioeconomic status, health and causality” took place on 24 May in Amsterdam. This event was featured by a joint project initiated by ALLEA in cooperation with the Federation of European Academies of Medicine (FEAM), and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

From left to right: Wim van Saarlos (President KNAW), Graham Caie (ALLEA Board Member), George Griffin (President FEAM), Bernard Charpentier (former President FEAM), Johan Mackenbach (Professor at Erasmus Medical Centre). Picture credits: Inge Hoogland

The symposium gathered representatives from across disciplines that are interested and committed to exploring unresolved issues in the context of substantial differences in health among different socioeconomic groups. The discussion was led by experts with backgrounds in various disciplines that ranged from public health, sociology, economics, and genetics. Speakers elaborated on current findings as to what extent factors like income and education determine socioeconomic disparities, and examined various methodological options to analyse the causal relationship between socioeconomic status and health, and the main mechanisms that link low socioeconomic status to ill-health and premature death. Speakers also cast a light on the challenges they face when assessing the causal effects and the associated methodologies in place within their disciplines.

Jay Kaufman, Professor at McGill University, Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, & Occupational Health. Picture credits: Inge Hoogland

Moderated by the Chair of the project’s Scientific Committee, Professor Johan Mackenbach (KNAW), each of the sessions addressed the framework of mechanisms that generate social inequalities in health, while taking into account that other variables, such as geographical position, are also likely to affect these to a lesser or greater extent.

Followed by a panel discussion, speakers came to interact with the audience that was comprised of academics and scholars, junior researchers and university representatives as well as the public.

 

SAPEA provides evidence for the European Commission on Carbon Capture and Utilisation technologies

SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies) has published its second Evidence Review Report titled Novel Carbon Capture and Utilisation Technologies: research and climate aspects. The report explores whether Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) technologies have the potential to contribute significantly to mitigating the effects of climate change.

As an integral part of the Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM), SAPEA was asked to produce this Evidence Review Report to inform the Scientific Opinion of the European Commission Group of Chief Scientific Advisors in response to a request from Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete.

CCU technologies aim to extract carbon dioxide from either concentrated sources or directly from ambient air, and then use it as a raw material for carbon-containing products, such as fuels, chemical products, and building materials.

The report identifies a need for innovation in policy domains, and from systemic and technology perspectives. Some main recommendations in these areas are as follows:

  1. Measures, regulations and incentives should be used to examine the energy system (including CCU) in a holistic, integrated, coordinated and transparent manner.
  2. A systemic approach is required when evaluating the energy system and CCU systems, and further development is needed in stakeholder awareness and consistency of definitions.
  3. Key technological challenges must be tackled in the areas of collection and purification of CO2 from different sources, synthesis of green-hydrogen and technologies for carbon dioxide conversion to fuels and chemicals.

To produce the CCU Evidence Review Report, SAPEA brought together experts from across Europe, via the European Academy Networks. The experts formed a working group which was chaired by Professor Robert Schlögl (Fritz-Haber-Institute, Germany), and Professor Marco Mazzotti (ETH Zürich, Switzerland).  

Professor Bernard Charpentier 2018 Chair of the SAPEA board said:

“SAPEA is delighted to present its second Evidence Review report. This report is the result of hard work and commitment from our working group, who have shown dedication to explaining what current knowledge can tell us about potential future developments in the field of CO2 management, energy and climate action. This topic is another example of successful collaboration with the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors and we are pleased to have had the opportunity to contribute to policy making in this important area.”

The SAPEA evidence review report is available at: www.sapea.info/carboncapture

A write-up from SAPEA’s expert workshop on Carbon Capture Utilisation is available at: www.sapea.info/workshopccu

The Group of Chief Scientific Advisors’ Opinion is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/sam/pdf/sam_ccu_report.pdf

Learn more at www.sapea.info

New recommendations on Open Data in Science in Europe

Recommendations put forth by the European Members of the International Council for Science

The European Members of the International Council for Science (ICSU) have released a statement containing a series of recommendations concerning Open Data in Science. The recommendations aim to make data more easily accessible to researchers, so as to enhance the overall quality and effectiveness of European scientific output, and to enable better verification of research results, thereby enhancing their reliability.

These recommendations are the result of the workshop “Open Data in Science: Challenges and Opportunities for Europe”, which took place on 31 January 2018 in Brussels, organised in partnership between the European Members of ICSU and ALLEA.

You may read the full statement here.

 

Antonio Loprieno becomes the new President of ALLEA

The President of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences and former rector of the University of Basel takes over the Presidency of ALLEA for the 2018-2021 term during the General Assembly at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Professor Antonio Loprieno assumed the Presidency of the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, ALLEA (All European Academies), today at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia. He takes office for the term 2018-2021 following his election in 2017, and succeeds Professor Günter Stock, who was ALLEA’s President for the years 2012-2018.

Antonio Loprieno, current President of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences and former Rector of the University of Basel, was unanimously elected by the delegates of ALLEA Member Academies during the 18th General Assembly in Budapest on 4 September 2017. The hand-over of the Presidency and the election of the ALLEA Board for the term 2018-2020 both took place during the 2018 General Assembly, carried out at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences based in Sofia.

In his acceptance speech, Loprieno underlined the importance of academies as interdisciplinary and independent centres of scientific excellence serving the public above politics and national entities:

“I look forward to working closely with academies across Europe to give science the prominence it deserves. In times of fiercely contested facts in the public debate, the role of academies is ever more indispensable as non-partisan institutions designed to help science and research flourish in our knowledge societies.“

Antonio Loprieno studied Egyptology, linguistics and Semitic studies at the University of Turin in Italy. In the 1980s, he taught at various European universities, including the University of Göttingen in Germany and the University of Perugia in Italy. From 1989 to 2000, he was Professor of Egyptology at the University of California Los Angeles. He served first as Professor at the University of Basel from 2000–2006 and then as Rector from 2006-2015. Among other positions, he was President of the Rectors’ Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS) from 2008–2015, and holds the Presidency of the Austrian Science Board (Österreichischer Wissenschaftsrat).

Professor Antonio Loprieno (new ALLEA President, right) and Professor Günter Stock (immediate past President of ALLEA, left) shake hands after the election of the former in Budapest in 2017.

From Trusting Science to Shaping Science Advice

The European academies’ General Assembly included a two-day international scientific conference. This year’s discussions revolved around the challenges posed to science in its role as a trusted source of evidence and expertise, as well as new experiences and examples of science advice to policy-making across Europe.

On 16 May, during the symposium titled “Science in Times of Challenged Trust and Expertise”, renowned scholars and an international audience discussed the underlying causes and consequences of the alleged loss of trust, as well as questions on how scientific evidence can and should be acquired and communicated across academic disciplines and traditions.  On 17 May, scientists and policy-makers debated recent examples of science advice from academies to policy as part of the science-policy symposium Shaping European Science Advice: Insights and Experiences, organised by the European Academy Networks’ project SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies).

Andrea Pető, 2018 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize laureate

The event also included the award ceremony of the All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values. Professor Andrea Pető (Central European University) was awarded the 2018 prize for her wide-ranging scholarly work on gender studies and European contemporary history. The award was handed over by the European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Mariya Gabriel, during a festive ceremony at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The laureate delivered a lecture entitled “Parallel stories in European history”.

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Andrea Pető receives the 2018 ALLEA Madame de Staël Prize

European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel awarded the Prize to Andrea Pető, Professor of the Central European University, during a festive ceremony at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia.

Andrea Pető, Professor at the Department of Gender Studies of the Central European University in Budapest (Hungary), received the 2018 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values today at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia. She was honoured for her outstanding scholarly contribution on Europe’s memory of the Second World War, the Holocaust and political extremism from a gender perspective.

Professor Pető is the fifth scholar to be awarded the 20,000 EUR Prize, at the initiative of ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, with the co-sponsorship of the Italian foundation Compagnia di San Paolo.

European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel handed over the Prize certificate during an award ceremony organised as part of the European academies´ annual meeting. Commissioner Gabriel praised Pető`s ingenuity in approaching Europe`s history and memory.

“Andrea Pető is a worthy recipient of this year’s Mme de Staël prize for her groundbreaking intellectual contributions in her work on women’s history in Eastern Europe. The Mme de Staël prize is unique in highlighting the importance of the social sciences and the vision of a common European identity. My congratulations to Andrea Pető for this prize and to ALLEA for choosing such an outstanding scholar”, Gabriel said.

In her acceptance speech, Pető reminded the audience to remember the “great women predecessors” in science such as Madame de Staël, who have fought for Europe`s common values. In a lecture on the parallel stories of Europe, Pető delved into the lives and struggles of Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Madame de Staël-Holstein, namesake of the ALLEA prize and a leading intellectual figure of Europe`s 19th century, as well as Júlia Rajk, the wife of László Rajk, the Hungarian Minister of Interior Affairs executed during the country’s first Stalinist show trial in 1949.

“We can all derive strength from this individual, physical joy. And we need to derive strength for our value-based fight, just like Germaine and Júlia did, because they knew that it will be a long one. There is but one thing we cannot avoid when it comes to a fight: fighting it”, she remarked.

Professor Günter Stock, ALLEA President and chairman of the Prize jury welcomed the 2018 laureate by pointing out that exploring the relationship between gender and memory is indeed a necessary activity to unsilence women in their historical context and he finished with a  cautionary reminder: Andrea Pető’s “work of unsilencing oppressed groups can only flourish when academics are free to pursue their research unimpeded by higher powers, no matter if they are governmental, economical, or indeed societal”.

The ALLEA Prize was established to commemorate that despite variations in definition and geographical boundaries over the centuries, there has always been a deep-rooted understanding of European culture as connected by an inherent diversity supported by a dynamic and vigorous intellectualism.

About Andrea Pető

Andrea Pető (Budapest, 1964) is Professor in the Department of Gender Studies at the Central European University in Budapest (Hungary) and a Doctor of Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Author of 5 monographs, editor of 31 volumes, as well as 261 articles and chapters in books published in seventeen languages. In 2005, she was awarded the Officer’s Cross Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary by the President of the Hungarian Republic and the Bolyai Prize by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2006.

Her publications include Geschlecht, Politik und Stalinismus in Ungarn. Eine Biographie von Júlia Rajk (2007); Women in Hungarian Politics 1945-1951 (2003); Napasszonyok és Holdkisasszonyok. A mai magyar konzervatív női politizálás alaktana (2003), Interdisciplinary Handbook Gender: War (2017), Women and Holocaust: New Perspectives and Challenges (2015), co-authored with Louise Hecht and Karolina Krasuska; Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe (2016), co-authored with Michaela Köttig and Renate Bitzan; Gendered Wars, Gendered Memories. Feminist Conversations on War, Genocide and Political Violence (2016), co-authored with Ayşe Gül Altınay, and Political Justice in Budapest after World War II, co-authored with Ildikó Barna (2015), among others.

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Trust in Expertise: Spectra of Science and Knowledge Production

Second thematic meeting of the ALLEA Working Group Truth, Trust & Expertise held on 15 May 2018 at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia.

On 15 May, the ALLEA Working Group Truth, Trust & Expertise held its second of three thematic Workshops at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia. Chaired by Professor Ed Noort, Co-Chair of the Working Group, this workshop discussed the role of science and research in relation to the trustworthiness of methods and evidence across different academic disciplines.

In four thematic sessions, the speakers of the workshop presented different disciplinary perspectives on how to create trustworthy knowledge, discussed how greater inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation could be made possible, how historical, geographical and ethical contexts matter, and how changing norms and practices are impacting the mode of scientific production and publishing. Some of these  and  previous discussions were followed up  on the next day at the scientific symposium “Science in Times of Challenged Trust and Expertise”, as part of 2018 ALLEA’s General Assembly.

Professor Noort (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, KNAW) thanked the members of the Working Group and the invited guests from the Croatian and Bulgarian Academies for their participation, and emphasised the necessity for critical (self-)reflection on the role of the countless scientific institutions, disciplines and methods regarding an alleged loss of trust in expertise.

The major talking points and conclusions drawn from the workshop will be published in the second issue of the ALLEA Discussion Paper series. They will also feed into the third workshop on “Changing Landscapes of Communication” in Amsterdam on 31 August 2018 under the chairmanship of Professor José van Dijck (KNAW).

Learn more about the Truth, Trust and Expertise Working Group here. You can access the first discussion paper by the Working Group on the issue of loss of trust here. You can also watch our video series on Truth, Trust and Expertise here.

Antonio Loprieno is the new president of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences

Antonio Loprieno, Professor of History of Institutions and former Rector of the University of Basel, was appointed as Maurice Campagna’s successor on 1 May 2018.

At their meeting on 18 October 2017, the delegates of Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences elected Professor Antonio Loprieno to be the next president of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences.  In addition to this role, Professor Loprieno was elected in 2017 as the next President of ALLEA and will assume this position on 17 May during the ALLEA General Assembly in Sofia at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

“The primary function of the Academies is to build bridges between science and society. As President, I aim to increase dialogue with the public and to shape how science is integrated into the social discourse,” said the new president of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences in a public statement.

Antonio Loprieno studied Egyptology, linguistics and Semitic studies at the University of Turin in Italy. In the 1980s, he taught at various European universities, including the University of Göttingen in Germany and the University of Perugia in Italy. From 1989–2000, he was appointed Professor of Egyptology at the University of California in Los Angeles. He then worked at the University of Basel, first as Professor from 2000–2006 and then as Rector. In addition, he served as President of the Rectors’ Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS) from 2008–2015.

Learn more: Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences

The future partnership between UK and EU countries after Brexit

Participants of the meeting at the Royal Society Chicheley Hall, January 2018

On 29-30 January 2018, representatives of European research academies convened at the Royal Society at Chicheley Hall to discuss the potential of future partnerships and collaboration between UK and EU academies after Brexit. ALLEA was represented in the meeting by its President, Professor Günter Stock. One result from this meeting was the statement “An ambitious and close future partnership between the UK and Europe. A Future Partnership Project”. The document sets out a shared commitment to an ambitious and close future partnership between the UK and other European countries.

The statement demonstrates the commitment of research communities across the wider European Research Area to a future partnership between the UK and the EU that enables excellent research and innovation to flourish across Europe, actively supports collaboration and cooperation, and avoids introducing barriers to them. ALLEA, jointly with other organisations, wants to ensure that UK and EU researchers continue to work closely together to their mutual benefit and that of the wider global community.

This statement is part of the Royal Society and Welcome Trust “Future Partnership Project”, which explores what an ambitious and close UK-EU partnership on research and innovation could look like in practice.

You may read the statement in here. This statement remains an ongoing document; further signatories from the scientific research community are welcome. Please contact science.policy@royalsociety.org if you would like to add your or your institution’s support.