Tag Archives: science advice

Science advice conference in Brussels, Belgium, Sept. 29 – 30, 2016 and a call for speakers

This is the second such conference and they are issuing a call for speakers; the first was held in New Zealand in 2014 (my April 8, 2014 post offers an overview of the then proposed science advice conference). Thanks to David Bruggeman and his Feb. 23, 2016 posting (on the Pasco Phronesis blog) for the information about this latest one (Note: A link has been removed),

The International Network for Global Science Advice (INGSA) is holding its second global conference in Brussels this September 29 and 30, in conjunction with the European Commission. The organizers have the following goals for the conference:

  • Identify core principles and best practices, common to structures providing scientific advice for governments worldwide.
  • Identify practical ways to improve the interaction of the demand and supply side of scientific advice.
  • Describe, by means of practical examples, the impact of effective science advisory processes.

Here’s a little more about the conference from its webpage on the INGSA website,

Science and Policy-Making: towards a new dialogue

29th – 30th September 2016, Brussels, Belgium

Call for suggestions for speakers for the parallel sessions

BACKGROUND:

“Science advice has never been in greater demand; nor has it been more contested.”[1] The most complex and sensitive policy issues of our time are those for which the available scientific evidence is ever growing and multi-disciplined, but still has uncertainties. Yet these are the very issues for which scientific input is needed most. In this environment, the usefulness and legitimacy of expertise seems obvious to scientists, but is this view shared by policy-makers?

OBJECTIVES:

A two-day conference will take place in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday 29th and Friday 30th September 2016. Jointly organised by the European Commission and the International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA), the conference will bring together users and providers of scientific advice on critical, global issues. Policy-makers, leading practitioners and scholars in the field of science advice to governments, as well as other stakeholders, will explore principles and practices in a variety of current and challenging policy contexts. It will also present the new Scientific Advice Mechanism [SAM] of the European Commission [emphasis mine; I have more about SAM further down in the post] to the international community. Through keynote lectures and plenary discussions and topical parallel sessions, the conference aims to take a major step towards responding to the challenge best articulated by the World Science Forum Declaration of 2015:

“The need to define the principles, processes and application of science advice and to address the theoretical and practical questions regarding the independence, transparency, visibility and accountability of those who receive and provide advice has never been more important. We call for concerted action of scientists and policy-makers to define and promulgate universal principles for developing and communicating science to inform and evaluate policy based on responsibility, integrity, independence, and accountability.”

The conference seeks to:

Identify core principles and best practices, common to structures providing scientific advice for governments worldwide.
Identify practical ways to improve the interaction of the demand and supply side of scientific advice.
Describe, by means of practical examples, the impact of effective science advisory processes.

The Programme Committee comprises:

Eva Alisic, Co-Chair of the Global Young Academy

Tateo Arimoto, Director of Science, Technology and Innovation Programme; The Japanese National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies

Peter Gluckman, Chair of INGSA and Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor, New Zealand (co-chair)

Robin Grimes, UK Foreign Office Chief Scientific Adviser

Heide Hackmann, International Council for Science (ICSU)

Theodoros Karapiperis, European Parliament – Head of Scientific Foresight Unit (STOA), European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) – Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel

Johannes Klumpers, European Commission, Head of Unit – Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) (co-chair)

Martin Kowarsch, Head of the Working Group Scientific assessments, Ethics and Public Policy, Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change

David Mair, European Commission – Joint Research Centre (JRC)

Rémi Quirion, Chief Scientist,  Province of Québec, Canada

Flavia Schlegel, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for the Natural Sciences

Henrik Wegener, Executive Vice President, Chief Academic Officer, Provost at Technical University of Denmark, Chair of the EU High Level Group of Scientific Advisors

James Wilsdon, Chair of INGSA, Professor of Research Policy, Director of Impact & Engagement, University of Sheffield
Format

The conference will be a combination of plenary lectures and topical panels in parallel (concurrent) sessions outlined below. Each session will include three speakers (15 minute address with 5 minute Q & A each) plus a 30 minute moderated discussion.

Parallel Session I: Scientific advice for global policy

The pathways of science advice are a product of a country’s own cultural history and will necessarily differ across jurisdictions. Yet, there is an increasing number of global issues that require science advice. Can scientific advice help to address issues requiring action at international level? What are the considerations for providing science advice in these contexts? What are the examples from which we can learn what works and what does not work in informing policy-making through scientific advice?

Topics to be addressed include:

Climate Change – Science for the Paris Agreement: Did it work?
Migration: How can science advice help?
Zika fever, dementia, obesity etc.; how can science advice help policy to address the global health challenges?

Parallel Session II: Getting equipped – developing the practice of providing scientific advice for policy

The practice of science advice to public policy requires a new set of skills that are neither strictly scientific nor policy-oriented, but a hybrid of both. Negotiating the interface between science and policy requires translational and navigational skills that are often not acquired through formal training and education. What are the considerations in developing these unique capacities, both in general and for particular contexts? In order to be best prepared for informing policy-making, up-coming needs for scientific advice should ideally be anticipated. Apart from scientific evidence sensu stricto, can other sources such as the arts, humanities, foresight and horizon scanning provide useful insights for scientific advice? How can scientific advice make best use of such tools and methods?

Topics to be addressed include:

How to close the gap between the need and the capacity for science advice in developing countries with limited or emerging science systems?
What skills do scientists and policymakers need for a better dialogue?
Foresight and science advice: can foresight and horizon scanning help inform the policy agenda?

Parallel Session III: Scientific advice for and with society

In many ways, the practice of science advice has become a key pillar in what has been called the ‘new social contract for science[2]’. Science advice translates knowledge, making it relevant to society through both better informed policy and by helping communities and their elected representatives to make better informed decisions about the impacts of technology. Yet providing science advice is often a distributed and disconnected practice in which academies, formal advisors, journalists, stakeholder organisations and individual scientists play an important role. The resulting mix of information can be complex and even contradictory, particularly as advocate voices and social media join the open discourse. What considerations are there in an increasingly open practice of science advice?

Topics to be addressed include:

Science advice and the media: Lost in translation?
Beyond the ivory tower: How can academies best contribute to science advice for policy?
What is the role of other stakeholders in science advice?

Parallel Session IV: Science advice crossing borders

Science advisors and advisory mechanisms are called upon not just for nationally-relevant advice, but also for issues that increasingly cross borders. In this, the importance of international alignment and collaborative possibilities may be obvious, but there may be inherent tensions. In addition, there may be legal and administrative obstacles to transnational scientific advice. What are these hurdles and how can they be overcome? To what extent are science advisory systems also necessarily diplomatic and what are the implications of this in practice?

Topics to be addressed include:

How is science advice applied across national boundaries in practice?
What support do policymakers need from science advice to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in their countries?
Science Diplomacy/Can Scientists extend the reach of diplomats?

Call for Speakers

The European Commission and INGSA are now in the process of identifying speakers for the above conference sessions. As part of this process we invite those interested in speaking to submit their ideas. Interested policy-makers, scientists and scholars in the field of scientific advice, as well as business and civil-society stakeholders are warmly encouraged to submit proposals. Alternatively, you may propose an appropriate speaker.

The conference webpage includes a form should you wish to submit yourself or someone else as a speaker.

New Scientific Advice Mechanism of the European Commission

For anyone unfamiliar with the Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) mentioned in the conference’s notes, once Anne Glover’s, chief science adviser for the European Commission (EC), term of office was completed in 2014 the EC president, Jean-Claude Juncker, obliterated the position. Glover, the first and only science adviser for the EC, was to replaced by an advisory council and a new science advice mechanism.

David Bruggemen describes the then situation in a May 14, 2015 posting (Note: A link has been removed),

Earlier this week European Commission President Juncker met with several scientists along with Commission Vice President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness [Jyrki] Katainen and the Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation ]Carlos] Moedas. …

What details are publicly available are currently limited to this slide deck.  It lists two main mechanisms for science advice, a high-level group of eminent scientists (numbering seven), staffing and resource support from the Commission, and a structured relationship with the science academies of EU member states.  The deck gives a deadline of this fall for the high-level group to be identified and stood up.

… The Commission may use this high-level group more as a conduit than a source for policy advice.  A reasonable question to ask is whether or not the high-level group can meet the Commission’s expectations, and those of the scientific community with which it is expected to work.

David updated the information in a January 29,2016 posting (Note: Links have been removed),

Today the High Level Group of the newly constituted Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) of the European Union held its first meeting.  The seven members of the group met with Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation Carlos Moedas and Andrus Ansip, the Commission’s Vice-President with responsibility for the Digital Single Market (a Commission initiative focused on making a Europe-wide digital market and improving support and infrastructure for digital networks and services).

Given it’s early days, there’s little more to discuss than the membership of this advisory committee (from the SAM High Level Group webpage),

Janusz Bujnicki

Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Warsaw

Janusz Bujnicki

Professor of Biology, and head of a research group at IIMCB in Warsaw and at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland. Janusz Bujnicki graduated from the Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw in 1998, defended his PhD in 2001, was awarded with habilitation in 2005 and with the professor title in 2009.

Bujnicki’s research combines bioinformatics, structural biology and synthetic biology. His scientific achievements include the development of methods for computational modeling of protein and RNA 3D structures, discovery and characterization of enzymes involved in RNA metabolism, and engineering of proteins with new functions. He is an author of more than 290 publications, which have been cited by other researchers more than 5400 times (as of October 2015). Bujnicki received numerous awards, prizes, fellowships, and grants including EMBO/HHMI Young Investigator Programme award, ERC Starting Grant, award of the Polish Ministry of Science and award of the Polish Prime Minister, and was decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of the Republic of Poland. In 2013 he won the national plebiscite “Poles with Verve” in the Science category.

Bujnicki has been involved in various scientific organizations and advisory bodies, including the Polish Young Academy, civic movement Citizens of Science, Life, Environmental and Geo Sciences panel of the Science Europe organization, and Scientific Policy Committee – an advisory body of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland. He is also an executive editor of the scientific journal Nucleic Acids Research.

Curriculum vitae  PDF icon 206 KB

Pearl Dykstra

Professor of Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Pearl Dykstra

Professor Dykstra has a chair in Empirical Sociology and is Director of Research of the Department of Public Administration and Sociology at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Previously, she had a chair in Kinship Demography at Utrecht University (2002-2009) and was a senior scientist at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) in The Hague (1990-2009).

Her publications focus on intergenerational solidarity, aging societies, family change, aging and the life course, and late-life well-being. She is an elected member of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW, 2004) and Vice-President of the KNAW as of 2011, elected Member of the Dutch Social Sciences Council (SWR, 2006), and elected Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America (2010). In 2012 she received an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant for the research project “Families in context”, which will focus on the ways in which policy, economic, and cultural contexts structure interdependence in families.

Curriculum vitae  PDF icon 391 KB

Elvira Fortunato

Deputy Chair

Professor, Materials Science Department of the Faculty of Science and Technology, NOVA University, Lisbon

Elvira Fortunato

Professor Fortunato is a full professor in the Materials Science Department of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the New University of Lisbon, a Fellow of the Portuguese Engineering Academy since 2009 and decorated as a Grand Officer of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator by the President of the Republic in 2010, due to her scientific achievements worldwide. In 2015 she was appointed by the Portuguese President Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Celebrations of the National Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities.

She was also a member of the Portuguese National Scientific & Technological Council between 2012 and 2015 and a member of the advisory board of DG CONNECT (2014-15).

Currently she is the director of the Institute of Nanomaterials, Nanofabrication and Nanomodeling and of CENIMAT. She is member of the board of trustees of Luso-American Foundation (Portugal/USA, 2013-2020).

Fortunato pioneered European research on transparent electronics, namely thin-film transistors based on oxide semiconductors, demonstrating that oxide materials can be used as true semiconductors. In 2008, she received in the 1st ERC edition an Advanced Grant for the project “Invisible”, considered a success story. In the same year she demonstrated with her colleagues the possibility to make the first paper transistor, starting a new field in the area of paper electronics.

Fortunato published over 500 papers and during the last 10 years received more than 16 International prizes and distinctions for her work (e.g: IDTechEx USA 2009 (paper transistor); European Woman Innovation prize, Finland 2011).

Curriculum vitae  PDF icon 339 KB

Rolf-Dieter Heuer

Director-General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)

Rolf-Dieter Heuer

Professor Heuer is an experimental particle physicist and has been CERN Director-General since January 2009. His mandate, ending December 2015, is characterised by the start of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) 2009 as well as its energy increase 2015, the discovery of the H-Boson and the geographical enlargement of CERN Membership. He also actively engaged CERN in promoting the importance of science and STEM education for the sustainable development of the society. From 2004 to 2008, Prof. Heuer was research director for particle and astroparticle physics at the DESY laboratory, Germany where he oriented the particle physics groups towards LHC by joining both large experiments, ATLAS and CMS. He has initiated restructuring and focusing of German high energy physics at the energy frontier with particular emphasis on LHC (Helmholtz Alliance “Physics at the Terascale”). In April 2016 he will become President of the German Physical Society. He is designated President of the Council of SESAME (Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East).

Prof. Heuer has published over 500 scientific papers and holds many Honorary Degrees from universities in Europe, Asia, Australia and Canada. He is Member of several Academies of Sciences in Europe, in particular of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and Honorary Member of the European Physical Society. In 2015 he received the Grand Cross 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Curriculum vitae  PDF icon

Julia Slingo

Chief Scientist, Met Office, Exeter

Julia Slingo

Dame Julia Slingo became Met Office Chief Scientist in February 2009 where she leads a team of over 500 scientists working on a very broad portfolio of research that underpins weather forecasting, climate prediction and climate change projections. During her time as Chief Scientist she has fostered much stronger scientific partnerships across UK academia and international research organisations, recognising the multi-disciplinary and grand challenge nature of weather and climate science and services. She works closely with UK Government Chief Scientific Advisors and is regularly called to give evidence on weather and climate related issues.

Before joining the Met Office she was the Director of Climate Research in NERC’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science, at the University of Reading. In 2006 she founded the Walker Institute for Climate System Research at Reading, aimed at addressing the cross disciplinary challenges of climate change and its impacts. Julia has had a long-term career in atmospheric physics, climate modelling and tropical climate variability, working at the Met Office, ECMWF and NCAR in the USA.

Dame Julia has published over 100 peer reviewed papers and has received numerous awards including the prestigious IMO Prize of the World Meteorological Organization for her outstanding work in meteorology, climatology, hydrology and related sciences. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics.

Curriculum vitae  PDF icon 239 KB

Cédric Villani

Director, Henri Poincaré Institute, Paris

Cédric Villani

Born in 1973 in France, Cédric Villani is a mathematician, director of the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris (from 2009), and professor at the Université Claude Bernard of Lyon (from 2010). In December 2013 he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences.

He has worked on the theory of partial differential equations involved in statistical mechanics, specifically the Boltzmann equation, and on nonlinear Landau damping. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2010 for his works.

Since then he has been playing an informal role of ambassador for the French mathematical community to media (press, radio, television) and society in general. His books for non-specialists, in particular Théorème vivant (2012, translated in a dozen of languages), La Maison des mathématiques (2014, with J.-Ph. Uzan and V. Moncorgé) and Les Rêveurs lunaires (2015, with E. Baudoin) have all found a wide audience. He has also given hundreds of lectures for all kinds of audiences around the world.

He participates actively in the administration of science, through the Institut Henri Poincaré, but also by sitting in a number of panels and committees, including the higher council of research and the strategic council of Paris. Since 2010 he has been involved in fostering mathematics in Africa, through programs by the Next Einstein Initiative and the World Bank.

Believing in the commitment of scientists in society, Villani is also President of the Association Musaïques, a European federalist and a father of two.

Website

Henrik C. Wegener

Chair

Executive Vice President, Chief Academic Officer and Provost, Technical University of Denmark

Henrik C. Wegener

Henrik C. Wegener is Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer at Technical University of Denmark since 2011. He received his M.Sc. in food science and technology at the University of Copenhagen in 1988, his Ph.D. in microbiology at University of Copenhagen in 1992, and his Master in Public Administration (MPA) form Copenhagen Business School in 2005.

Henrik C. Wegener was director of the National Food Institute, DTU from 2006-2011 and before that head of the Department of Epidemiology and Risk Assessment at National Food and Veterinary Research Institute, Denmark (2004-2006). From 1994-1999, he was director of the Danish Zoonosis Centre, and from 1999-2004 professor of zoonosis epidemiology at Danish Veterinary Institute. He was stationed at World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva from 1999-2000. With more than 3.700 citations (h-index 34), he is the author of over 150 scientific papers in journals, research monographs and proceedings, on food safety, zoonoses, antimicrobial resistance and emerging infectious diseases.

He has served as advisor and reviewer to national and international authorities & governments, international organizations and private companies, universities and research foundations, and he has served, and is presently serving, on several national and international committees and boards on food safety, veterinary public health and research policy.

Henrik C. Wegener has received several awards, including the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics International Leadership Award in 2003.

That’s quite a mix of sciences and I’m happy to see a social scientist has been included.

Conference submissions

Getting back to the conference and its call for speakers, the deadline for submissions is March 25, 2016. Interestingly, there’s also this (from conference webpage),

The deadline for submissions is 25th March 2016. The conference programme committee with session chairs will review all proposals and select those that best fit the aim of each session while also representing a diverse range of perspectives. We aim to inform selected speakers within 4 weeks of the deadline to enable travel planning to Brussels.

To make the conference as accessible as possible, there is no registration fee. [emphasis mine] The European Commission will cover travel accommodation costs only for confirmed speakers for whom the travel and accommodation arrangements will be made by the Commission itself, on the basis of the speakers’ indication.

Good luck!

*Head for conference submissions added on Feb. 29, 2016 at 1155 hundred hours.

The imperfections of science advice noted amidst rumblings in Europe

The current science advice rumblings in Europe seem to have been launched on Tuesday, July 22, 2014 with an open letter to Jean-Claude Juncker, President-elect of the European Commission, from representatives of nine nongovernmental agencies (NGOs).

From the July 22, 2014 letter on the Corporate Europe Observatory website,

We are writing to you to express our concerns regarding the position of Chief Scientific Advisor to the President of the European Commission. This post was created by Commission President Barroso at the suggestion of the United Kingdom, and was held by Ms Anne Glover since January 2012. The mandate of the Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) is “to provide independent expert advice on any aspect of science, technology and innovation as requested by the President”.1

We are aware that business lobbies urge you to continue with the practice established by Mr Barroso and even to strengthen the chief adviser’s formal role in policy making.2 We, by contrast, appeal to you to scrap this position. The post of Chief Scientific Adviser is fundamentally problematic as it concentrates too much influence in one person, and undermines in-depth scientific research and assessments carried out by or for the Commission directorates in the course of policy elaboration.

Interestingly, they offer only one specific instance of Glover’s  advice with which they disagree: genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Note: Links have been removed,

To the media, the current CSA presented one-sided, partial opinions in the debate on the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture, repeatedly claiming that there was a scientific consensus about their safety3 whereas this claim is contradicted by an international statement of scientists (currently 297 signatories) saying that it “misrepresents the currently available scientific evidence and the broad diversity of opinion among scientists on this issue.”4

Unfortunately, that argument renders the letter into an expression of political pique especially since  the signatories are described as anti-GMO both in Roger Pielke’s July 24, 2014 opinion piece for the Guardian newspaper and in Sile Lane’s July 25, 2014 opinion piece for the New Scientist journal. As Pielke notes, the reference to GMOs overshadows some reasonable concerns expressed in their letter (from Pielke’s opinion piece; Note: Links have been removed),

While it is easy to ridicule the recommendation to abolish the science adviser, there is some merit in the complaints levied by the disaffected NGOs. They express concern that the CSA has been “unaccountable, intransparent and controversial”, singling out public statements by Anne Glover on genetically modified organisms. [emphasis mine]

Perhaps surprisingly, these groups find an ally in these complaints in none other than Glover herself who recently complained about the politicization of science advice within the European Union: “What happens at the moment – whether it’s in commission, parliament or council – is that time and time again, if people don’t like what’s being proposed, what they say is that there is something wrong with the evidence.” [emphasis mine]

Pielke’s piece draws parallels between the US situation (in particular but not confined to Richard Nixon’s policies in the 1970s) and Europe’s current situation. It is well worth reading as is Lane’s piece (Sile Lane is Director of Campaigns for Sense about Science; scroll down about 25% of the way), which amongst other arguments, provides a counter-argument to the criticism of Glover’s advice on GMOs,

… No matter that Glover has faithfully and accurately represented the strong scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs – that, in the words of a commission report, are “no more risky than conventional plant breeding technologies”.

This is a position supported by every major scientific institution in the world, and all the scientific academies of countries and regions, but denied by the anti-GMO lobby, which promotes its own alternative “consensus” of a small ragtag group of academics out on the fringes of the mainstream.

There are a number of letters from various organizations countering the July 22, 2014 salvo/letter including this from Sense about Science,

Many other organisations are sending their own letters including nine European medical research organisations and the European Plant Science Organisation representing 227 public research institutions across Europe.

Dear Mr Juncker

We write to you with some urgency in response to a letter you will have just received from nine NGOs urging you to abolish the position of Chief Scientific Advisor to the President of the European Commission. The letter, which includes Greenpeace as a signatory as well as other prominent NGO voices, alleges that the “post of Chief Scientific Adviser is fundamentally problematic” and asks you to “scrap this position”1.

As organisations and individuals who share a commitment to improving the evidence available to policy makers, we cannot stress strongly enough our objection to any attempt to undermine the integrity and independence of scientific advice received at the highest level of the European Commission. …

You can add your name to the letter by going here.

There is a July 28, 2014 posting on the Science Advice to Governments; a global conference website which provides a listing of the various opinion pieces, letters, and other responses. (Note: This global science advice conference being held in Auckland, New Zealand, Aug. 28 – 29, 2014 was first mentioned here in an April 8, 2014 posting which lists the then confirmed speakers and notes a few other tidbits.)

In the end, it seems that everyone can agree as per the comments in the July 22, 2014 letter from the nine NGOs that science advice needs to be transparent and accountable. As for controversy, that will remain a problem as long as human beings live on the earth.

A new science advice network launched in the European Union

On June 23, 2014, the Euroscience Open Forum (in Copenhagen) saw the launch of a new pan-European science advice network. From a June 23, 2014 account by James Wilsdon (more about him in a moment) for the Guardian,

This afternoon, at the Euroscience Open Forum in Copenhagen, a new pan-EU network of government science advisers will hold its first meeting. Senior scientific representatives from twelve member states, including the UK’s Sir Mark Walport, will discuss how to strengthen the use of evidence in EU policymaking and improve coordination between national systems, particularly during emergencies, such as when clouds of volcanic ash from Iceland grounded flights across Europe in 2011.

Today’s [June 24, 2014] meeting is indeed the product of dedication: a painstaking 18-month effort by Glover [Anne Glover, chief scientific adviser to the outgoing President of the European commission, José Manuel Barroso] to persuade member states of the benefits of such a network. One of the challenges she has faced is the sheer diversity of models for scientific advice across Europe: while the UK, Ireland and (until recently) Czech Republic have a government chief scientist, several countries – including Portugal, Denmark, Finland and Greece – prefer to use an advisory committee. In another handful of member states, including Italy, Spain and Sweden, science advice is provided by civil servants. Others, such as Austria, Hungary and the Netherlands, look to the president of the national academy of science to perform the role. The rest, including France and Germany, use a hybrid of these models, or none at all.

The new network intends to respect this diversity, and not advance one approach as preferable to the others. (Indeed, it could be particularly counter-productive to promote the UK model in the current EU climate.)

Interestingly, Wilsdon goes on to note that a Chief Science Adviser for the European Union is a relatively new position having been in existence for two years (as of 2014) and there is no certainty that the new president (not yet confirmed) of the European Union will continue with the practice.

Wilsdon also mentions an international science advice conference to take place in New Zealand in August 2014. You can find out more about it in my April 8, 2014 posting where I noted that Wilsdon is one of the speakers or you can go directly to the conference website,  2014 Science Advice to Governments; a global conference for leading practitioners.

Getting back to James Wilsdon, this is the description they have for him at the Guardian,

James Wilsdon is professor of science and democracy at SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex. From 2008 to 2011 he was director of science policy at the Royal Society.

He’s also known in Canada as a member of the Council of Canadian Academies Expert Panel on The State of Canada’s Science Culture as per my Feb. 22, 2013 posting. The report is due this year and I expect it will be delivered in the Fall, just in time for the Canadian Science Policy Conference, Oct. 15 -17, 2014.

Finally, you might want to check out Wilsdon’s Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/jameswilsdon) for the latest on European science policy endeavours.

Nanotechnology and the Council of Canadian Academies assessment report

I started discussing the Council of Canadian Academies and its mid-term assessment report (Review of the Council of Canadian Academies; Report from the External Evaluation Panel 2010) yesterday and will finish today with my thoughts on the assessment of the Council’s nanotechnology report and its impact.

Titled Small is Different: A Science Perspective of the Regulatory Challenges on the Nanoscale (2008), the Council’s report is one of the best I’ve read. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants an introduction to some of the issues (and was much struck by its omission from the list of suggested nanotechnology readings that Peter Julian [Canadian MP] offered in part 2 of his interview).  Interestingly, the Council’s nanotechnology report is Case Study No. 3 in the mid-term expert panel assessment report’s Annex 6 (p. 33 in the print version and p. 37 in PDF).

Many respondents were concerned that Health Canada has made no response to, or use of, this report. However, Health Canada respondents were highly enthusiastic about the assessment and the ways in which it is being used to inform the department’s many – albeit still entirely internal – regulatory development activities: “We’ve all read it and used it. The fact that we haven’t responded to the outside is actually a reflection of how busy we’ve been responding to the file on the inside!” [emphases mine]

The report has been particularly valuable in providing a framework to bring together Health Canada’s five – very different – regulatory regimes to identify a common approach and priorities. The sponsor believes the report’s findings have been well-incorporated into its draft working definition of nanomaterials, [emphasis mine] its work with Canadian and international standards agencies, its development of a regulatory framework to address shorter- and longer-term needs, and its creation of a research agenda to aid the development of the science needed to underpin the regulation of nanomaterials in Canada.

I think the next time somebody confronts me as to why I haven’t responded externally to some notice (e.g., paid my strata fees), I’ll assure them that I’ve been ‘responding on the inside’. (Sometimes I cannot resist the low-hanging fruit and I just have to take a bite.)

As for the second paragraph where they claim that Health Canada has incorporated suggestions from the report for its nanomaterials definition, that’s all well and good but the thinking is changing and Health Canada doesn’t seem to be responding (or to even be aware of the fact). Take a look at the proposed definition in the current draft bill before the US Senate where in addition to size, they mention shape, reactivity, and more as compared the Health Canada 1 to 100 nm. size definition. (See details in this posting from earlier in the week where I compare the proposed US and Canadian definitions.)

Additionally, I think they need to find ways to measure impact that are quantitative as well as this qualitative approach, which itself needs to be revised. Quantitative measures could include the numbers of reports disseminated in print and online, social networking efforts (if any), number of times reports are mentioned in the media, etc. They may also want to limit case studies in future reports so they can provide more depth. The comment about the ‘internal’ impact could have been described at more length. How have the five different Health Canada regulatory regimes come together? Has something substantive occurred?

Finally, it’s hard to know if the Julian’s failure to mention the council’s report in his list of nanotechnology readings is a simple failure of memory or a reflection of the Council’s “invisibility”. I’m inclined to believe that it’s the latter.

Science advice and technology assessment in Canada?

Thank you to the folks at The Black Hole blog for their very incisive post about the recent (released April 28, 2010) mid-term assessment report of the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA). Here’s a brief excerpt from what The Black Hole posting,

Created in 2005, the Council of Canadian Academies is a not-for-profit corporation that supports science-based, expert assessments to inform public policy development in Canada. It was created with $30 million seed funding from Government which expires in 2015 and just underwent its midterm assessment last week. The report was generally positive and indeed to the casual reader it would appear the CCA has a lot to be proud of and not much to worry about. Digging a little deeper though, one gets the feeling that the CCA is facing a critical juncture in its existence and faces the very real possibility of becoming a heck of a lot less effective in 2015.

The blogger, Dave, goes on to explain that the concerns arise from the CCA’s “lack of visibility” and its “dependence on government sponsors” (I assume this means funding). Given that the CCA is the only agency that provides comprehensive science advice for Canada, this could mean the loss of a very singular resource will  in the foreseeable future.

In looking at the report very briefly I too noticed a few things that rang warning bells. From the report (p. 9 in print version, p. 13 in PDF),

Recognizing that a great deal of Canada’s intellectual capital lies within the country’s three Academies – the RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences – these organizations were designated the founding members of the Council. The relationship between the Council and its three Member Academies, however, has not [emphases mine] been as productive or cooperative as it could be.

As far as I’m concerned there’s no chance for survival if the CCA can’t develop a good working relationship with its academies. Further, this working relationship will determine the success of the CCA’s efforts to address its “invisibility.” In the report there are three recommendations for communication efforts to make the CCA more visible (p. 13 in print version, p. 16  in PDF),

RECOMMENDATIONS

14. The Board should lead the development of a new communications strategy that builds on the Council’s considerable assets: its reputation, quality product, enthusiastic panellists and scientific advisors, and its key partners, the Academies.

15. The Council should empower and support this broadened scope of voices to engage with a wide range of key stakeholders who could be identifying topics and/or making use of their findings.

16. The Council should continue to seek opportunities to work with the Academies to contribute to international science advisory bodies.

All of there recommendations are reliant on support from the member academies.

On another note, I find the complete and utter of lack interest in communication efforts to the general public fascinating (I’ve skimmed through the report and have to spot anything that concretely addresses it). They are unrelentingly focused on experts and policy makers. I understand that public outreach is not part of the official mandate but the CCA does release reports to the media and arguably they would like their reports to have some impact on the larger society. They might even be interested in public support when the next federal budget that will have an impact on their activities is due or if they try to increase revenue streams to include something other than government funding. At the very least, they should acknowledge the presence of a much larger world around them and their stakeholders (how do they define stakeholders, anyway? aren’t Canadian citizens stakeholders?).

This indifference to the Canadian citizenry contrasts mightily with the approach Richard Sclove (mentioned in this posting earlier today) is trying to implement with regard to technology assessment in the US. In fact, the indifference contrasts with material I see that comes from the US, the UK, and from the European Community.