ALLEA at the Berlin Science Week

With its first public webinar, ALLEA will contribute to the major conference, which takes place annually in Berlin and this year also digitally. A webinar “It’s complicated…” Europe facing cultural memories and nationalist sentiments will feature Joep Leerssen, 2020 Laureate of the ALLEA Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values. 

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Defending Truth: From Pseudo-Science to Science Disinformation

Prof. Dan Larhammar is a molecular cell biology professor at the University of Uppsala, the President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences as well as the Chair of ALLEA’s new project ‘Fact or Fake: Tackling Science Disinformation’. In this interview, he shares with us insights into his work on tackling pseudo-science such as homeopathy and alternative medicine, as well as how these trends work to some extent in similar ways as science disinformation efforts.

 

Key takeaways:

  • “It is important to be aware that many who use or provide alternative medicine honestly believe that it works (…). The believers must be offered an honourable retreat, so to speak, if they are to abandon ideas they may have held for many years.”
  • “Science disinformation is a term used not only for different types of distortion of scientific facts but also attacks on science in order to undermine trust, for instance by spreading contradictory information, weaving conspiracy theories, questioning expertise, spreading false rumours about science and scientists, etc.”
  • “People are often extremely reluctant to abandon ideas that they find appealing for one reason or another, or ideas they have been holding for a long period of time. Such ideas may have become part of their personality. (…) Information may even back-fire and consolidate the false beliefs instead of replacing them with scientifically well-founded information.”

 

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ALLEA supports the International Year of Basic Sciences of Sustainable Development 2022

ALLEA is proud to support the initiative International Year of Basic Sciences of Sustainable Development 2022, which aims to highlight the links between basic sciences and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to facilitate a dialogue between the stakeholders and raise the importance of basic sciences.

In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Agenda 2030, an integrated vision to enable sustainable development across the globe. The goals of the Agenda 2030 are closely intertwined with the SDGs. Science has a lot to contribute to achieving SDGs such as affordable and clean energy, climate action, or access to clean water and sanitation.

The initiative highlights that “a basic understanding of natural phenomena, and of those generated by human imagination and organization, is essential for the implementation of Agenda 2030”.

Based on a recommendation adopted by the UNESCO General Conference, the UN General Assembly will be voting on whether to proclaim 2022 the International Year of Basic Sciences of Sustainable Development at their meeting in November.

More information on the IYBSSD here.

ALLEA contributes to European Commission’s consultation on the European Research Area

ALLEA submitted a response to the European Commission’s public consultation on the future of the European Research Area (ERA). This initiative seeks to relaunch and revitalize the ERA and make it better able to address major challenges such as the green and digital transitions, or the COVID-19 crisis.

In its position, ALLEA supports continuous ambition “to broaden the ERA’s outreach and connectivity by promoting open science and research mobility within and beyond its borders, as well as access to research facilities and collections”.

“As innovation is not restricted to technological and economic growth but also concerns social and cultural adaption, it is critical to broaden the remit of the ERA and that Union programmes consider societal values, including fairness/equality, resilience/sustainability, diversity, openness, transparency and trustworthiness,” the contribution states.

The statement points out that “the core of the EU network remains mainly composed of EU-15 participants, with only a restricted number of institutions acting as hubs. Systematic efforts and specific mechanisms are required to encourage researchers across the career cycle and participants from EU-13 and Associated countries to actively shape the EU-wide networks across the ERA.”

The consultation was closed on 3 August and all stakeholder contributions are available here.

Read ALLEA’s contribution.

Disinformation and the manipulation of reality

This session will explore the ethical dilemmas around disinformation and the use of narratives and emotions in manipulating reality. An increasingly influential stream of research demonstrates the integration of cognition and emotion in political decision-making. Political cognition is emotionally shaped. The role of narratives in shaping people’s minds has become an important area of research and debate, in particular in recent years when entire societies have made choices that seem “rationally” counterintuitive.

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Fact or fake? New ALLEA project on tackling science disinformation

ALLEA is pleased to announce the launch of a new project, “Fact or Fake”, aimed at tackling science disinformation. The initiative will identify and discuss the root causes leading to science-averse attitudes in European countries, particularly focusing on disinformation campaigns on Covid-19, climate change, and vaccinations.

The project is led by a scientific committee composed of a multidisciplinary group of experts from across Europe. Its chair is Dan Larhammar, President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The scientific committee will:

  • Promote exchanges and linkages among research, policy, science and communications and media communities on practices and approaches to tackling science disinformation.
  • Develop strategies to address the loss of confidence and trust in scientific evidence.
  • Provide guidance to scientists, science communicators, journalists and policymakers in appropriate ways to navigate and address the issue of science disinformation.

The outcome of the project is aimed to address both the recipients and the creators of science disinformation, examining the problem through a multi-disciplinary lens. Target audiences include researchers and research institutions, science communication practitioners and journalists, as well as policymakers at the national and European levels. 

The project is supported by  Compagnia di San Paolo and builds upon ALLEA-related activities such as ALLEA Working Group Truth, Trust and Expertise  and the Horizon 2020 project PERITIA, which explores the conditions under which people trust expertise used for shaping public policy.

Call for new members for the Global Young Academy

The Global Young Academy is looking for new members. Applications are sought from young, independent scholars who combine the highest level of research excellence with a demonstrated passion for delivering impact.

The call is open to all scholars working in any research-based discipline, including the sciences, medicine, engineering, social sciences, the arts and humanities.

Applicants should be in the early to middle years of their independent careers. The majority of the GYA members are aged 30-40 and the typical period from completion of a PhD or similar degree is 3-10 years. Applicants falling outside these ranges are still invited to send their applications with a justification for why they should be considered.

More information on how to apply can be found here.

ALLEA urges European Parliament to protect Horizon Europe from budget cuts

ALLEA released a statement today in reaction to the European Council deal for the the next Multiannual Financial Framework (2021-2027) and on the EU plan to tackle the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the statement, this proposal represents “a severe and long-term threat to Europe’s capacities as a world leader in science, research and innovation“. ALLEA welcomes the ambition of Members of the European Parliament to seek and secure a larger budget for Horizon Europe and other key research and innovation funding measures:

“In times when fundamental and applied research, evidence-based policy making, and scientific collaboration across boundaries and disciplines are more important than ever to tackle the challenges ahead posed by the pandemic and beyond, governments need to prioritise and increase R&I funding both on national and EU level. 

ALLEA is particularly concerned about the agreement’s implications for the next EU R&I funding programme whose budget has been cut multiple times throughout the Council summit on 17-20 July. Horizon Europe’s budget is now decreased by more than 15% as compared to the latest European Commission’s proposal (May 2020), and is one third lower than the €120 billion figure proposed by the European Parliament, supported widely across the European scientific community including ALLEA and its academies.”

Read the full statement.

Trust in Expertise at times of Covid-19

The EU-funded research project PERITIA just launched its first newsletter dedicated to Covid-19 and trust in expertise. The issue includes highlights from the first five months of the project with a selection of essays, news, interviews, blog posts, and podcasts from its team dealing with how the pandemic is affecting trust in expertise and science advice systems. A general introduction to the project’s research agenda emphasizes three key questions:

  • What is the role of expertise in democracies?
  • How should science inform political decisions?
  • How can we prevent a populist backlash against expertise?

If you are curious about how PERITIA’s team has engaged in public debates and research around these questions, we kindly invite you to take a look and let us know what you think. If you enjoy it, don’t forget to subscribe here.

The project is conducting a comprehensive multi-disciplinary investigation of trust in, and the trustworthiness of, policy-related expert opinion. Its research will develop a theoretical framework to understand the fundamentals of trust, which will be complemented empirically with surveys and in-lab experiments.

Science advice and public engagement

A central part of PERITIA’s work will consist of a comparison of existing science advice mechanisms in four European countries. PERITIA researchers will investigate how expert advice is elicited and which of the available models is more trust enhancing.

The project’s plans also reach beyond research. Investigators seeks to design effective indicators and tools to build trust in expertise informing policy. Their conclusions will be tested in a series of citizens’ forums where experts, policymakers, and citizens will engage in face-to-face discussions on climate change.

ALLEA is a partner in the PERITIA consortium, which is formed by eleven organisations from nine countries, and is leading its work on communications and public engagement. The project is a follow-up of the ALLEA working group Truth, Trust and Expertise.

ALLEA launches Open Science Task Force

ALLEA has launched a task force dedicated to open science and chaired by Luke Drury (Royal Irish Academy). The ALLEA Open Science Task Force will contribute to the development, coordination and implementation of Open Science policies and initiatives with an emphasis on issues relevant to the European Research Area.  

The group will draw on the expertise of ALLEA’s national academy members in promoting science as a global public good that is as open as possible and as closed as necessary and paying close attention to specific considerations of the social sciences and humanities.  

The task force will:   

  • work together with the Global Young Academy in assisting the creation and implementation of the European Commission Open Access publishing platform;   
  • contribute to the expert consultations on the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science;  
  • liaise with other pertinent stakeholder organisations on Open Science.  
  • amplify the voice of the European Academies in this policy area 

Past work on Open Science 

ALLEA has actively contributed to the open science debate since the early 2000s through various initiatives and working groups. Recently, it published the ALLEA Response to Plan S , the open access proposal initiated by European funders, as well as the policy paper Towards Implementing the European Open Science Cloud.  

For more information on the rationale behind the task force, check out Luke Drury’s op-ed on the ALLEA Digital Salon.