Tag Archives: United Nations Scientific Advisory Board

United Nations’ Scientific Advisory Board recommends scientific investment of up to 3.5% of GDP (gross domestic product)

Somehow, it’s no surprise that the United Nations (UN) Secretary General’s (SG) Scientific Advisory Board has recommended that more money is needed for science and more science advice is necessary, too. Does anyone expect a group scientists to come to another conclusion regarding the money? Admittedly, the science advice is a little more controversial.

A July 9, 2015 UN SG’s Scientific Advisory Board news release on EurekAlert provides details,

Investing up to 3.5% of a nation’s GDP in science, technology and innovation – including basic science and education – is a key benchmark for advancing sustainable development effectively, leading experts say.

In papers released July 9 [2015] in New York, international scientists advising UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon say closing the gap between developed and developing countries depends on first closing international science, technology and innovation (STI) investment gaps.

According to the UN SG’s 26-member Scientific Advisory Board: “While a target of 1% of (Gross Domestic Product) for (research and development) is perceived high by many governments, countries with strong and effective STI systems invest up to 3.5% of their GPD in R&D.”

“If countries wish to break the poverty cycle and achieve (post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals), they will have to set up ambitious national minimum target investments for STI, including special allotments for the promotion of basic science and science education and literacy.”

The Board also recommends specific investment areas, including “novel alternative energy solutions, water filters that remove pathogens at the point-of-use, new robust building materials from locally available materials, nanotechnology for health and agriculture, and biological approaches to industrial production, environmental remediation and management.”

Instituted by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on behalf of the Secretary-General, the Board is comprised of experts from a range of scientific disciplines relevant to sustainable development, including its social and ethical dimensions.

The Board contributes to a process concluding this fall to replace the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, agreed by nations in 2000 for achievement in 2015, with a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), through which progress in improving quality of life around the world will be tracked through 2030.

Among other highlights of the papers presented at UN Headquarters:

The Board recommends a dedicated seat for science at an influential new world leaders’ forum created to promote and monitor sustainable development – the UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development – saying science needs to be engaged “formally in the HLPF as an advisor rather than an observer.”

“This could be accomplished by creating a formal seat for science on the HLPF, and/or by involving the UNSG’s Scientific Advisory Board and organizations such as the National Academies of Sciences, UNESCO, ICSU, Future Earth, regional scientific bodies, and others.”

The High-level Political Forum meets every four years at the level of Heads of State and Government under the auspices of the General Assembly, and annually under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Council. The Forum adopts negotiated declarations.

The Board also suggests engaging scientific bodies in reviews of pending policy decisions against scientific evidence.

“The UN Scientific Advisory Board, ICSU (the International Council for Science), National Academies of Science, and other bodies and networks, in collaboration with UNESCO and the UN system, would run a rigorous process of scientific review and assessment identifying possible risks and opportunities related to key political decisions.”

In addition, the Board calls for an annual Global Sustainable Development Report – a flagship UN publication like the Human Development Report – that monitors progress, identifies critical issues and root causes of challenges, and offers potential ways forward.

The report would synthesize and integrate findings from a wide range of scientific fields and institutions, developed with strong inter-agency support involving a suggested consortium of UN agencies working on sustainable development.

Needed to support long-term thinking: A better educated, informed world

Creating and engaging a better informed and educated public, it adds, would help establish policies that serve humanity’s long-term wellbeing over decisions that favour short-term economic and political interests.

The success of STI “will depend on the efficiency of the science-policy-society interface,” involving stakeholders from governments, civil society, indigenous peoples and local communities, industry and business, academia and research organizations.

“Such an active cooperation of multiple stakeholders will need more than the occasional by-chance interaction of different groups of society. It will require institutionalized architecture that brings together all affected actors to ensure linking scientific information and data as well as findings, scientific assessments and evidence-based advice with both policy and society.”

“Broader societal understanding and support of key scientific findings would make it more likely for science-based actions and evidence-based solutions to also be supported and promoted by decision-makers at all levels.”

The Board underlines that science, technology and innovation can be “the game changer” for the future development efforts.

“It can contribute to alleviating poverty, creating jobs, reducing inequalities, increasing income and enhancing health and well-being. It can assist in solving critical problems such as access to energy, food and water security, climate change and biodiversity loss.”

Not everyone is entirely supportive of this recommendation as Stuart Freedman notes in his July 2015 article (Developing nations urged to spend big on science) for SciDev.net,

Only a handful of countries have reached this figure (3.5%), including Finland and South Korea.

Zakri Abdul Hamid, a board member, gives the examples of Germany, Japan and South Korea, which, he says, upped their science investment to boost economic recovery after the devastation of the Second World War.

But Rafael Palacios Bustamante, a Venezuelan sociologist who specialises in science and innovation policy in Latin America, says this comparison is inappropriate.

“The gap between developing and industrialised countries is much bigger now and our dependence on technology has become more radical,” he says. …

Investing more money is a gamble but the opposite (not investing) is also a gamble and I think there’s the will to invest. From the materials I stumble across, it seems there’s an appetite at the grassroots level for more science as a means towards self-sustaining economies whether the scope is village, city, regional, or national.

For anyone curious about the UN’s Scientific Advisory Board, I wrote an Oct. 24, 2013 posting which listed the members whose two-year terms of appointment are almost complete.

For anyone interested in the two reports which form the bases for the recommendations,

Science, Technology and Innovation: Critical Means of Implementation for the SDGs (report)

Strengthening the High-Level Political Forum and the UN
Global Sustainable Development Report

First ever UN (United Nations) Scientific Advisory Board launches with 26 members

Thanks to David Bruggeman and his Oct. 23, 2013 posting (on the Pasco Phronesis blog where he tracks science policy issues in the US and other countries/jurisdictions as he is able) for information about the UN (United Nations) and its new scientific advisory board (Note: Links have been removed),

Ending the beginning of a process that has been at least a year in the making, the United Nation named the first members of the Secretary-General’s Scientific Advisory Board (H/T ScienceInsider).

Here’s more from the Oct. 18, 2013 UN press release,

Twenty-six eminent scientists, representing natural, social and human sciences and engineering, have been appointed to a Scientific Advisory Board, announced by the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. The new Board will provide advice on science, technology and innovation (STI) for sustainable development to the UN Secretary-General and to Executive Heads of UN organizations. UNESCO will host the Secretariat for the Board.

The members of the Scientific Advisory Board are:

·         Tanya Abrahamse (South Africa), CEO, South African National Biodiversity Institute;

·         Susan Avery (United States of America), President and Director, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution;

·         Hilary McDonald Beckles (Barbados), Pro-Vice Chancellor and Principal, University of the West Indies;

·         Joji Cariño (Philippines), Director, Forest Peoples Programme;

·         Rosie Cooney (Australia), Visiting Fellow, University of Sciences, Sydney;

·         Abdallah Daar (Oman), Professor of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada;

·         Gebisa Ejeta (Ethiopia), Professor of Agronomy, Purdue University, United States;

·         Vladimir Fortov (Russian Federation), President of the Russian Academy of Sciences;

·         Fabiola Gianotti (Italy), Research physicist and former Coordinator of ATLAS Experiment, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland;

·         Ke Gong (China), President of Nankai University;

·         Jörg Hinrich Hacker (Germany), President, German National Academy of Sciences – Leopoldina;

·         Maria Ivanova (Bulgaria), Professor of Global Governance, University of Massachusetts, United States;

·         Eugenia Kalnay (Argentina), Professor of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences, University of Maryland, Unites States;

·         Eva Kondorosi (Hungary), Research Professor, Biological Research Centre, Academy of Sciences of Hungary;

·         Reiko Kuroda (Japan), Professor, Research Institute for Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science;

·         Dong-Pil Min (Republic of Korea), Emeritus Professor, Seoul National University;

·         Carlos Nobre (Brazil), Senior Climate Scientist, National Secretary for R&D Policies;

·         Rajendra Kumar Pachauri (India), Director-General, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI); Chair, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – Nobel Laureate for Peace;

·         Shankar Sastry (United States of America), Dean, College of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley;

·         Hayat Sindi (Saudi Arabia), Founder and CEO, Institute of Imagination and Ingenuity;

·         Wole Soboyejo (Nigeria), President, African University of Science and Technology (AUST), Garki;

·         Laurence Tubiana (France), Director, Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), Paris;

·         Judi Wakhungu (Kenya), Professor of Energy Resources Management, First Cabinet Secretary, Ministry for Environment, Water and Natural Resources;

·         Ada Yonath (Israel), Director, Helen and  Milton A. Kimmelman Centre for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly, Weizmann Institute of Sciences; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry;

·         Abdul Hamid Zakri (Malaysia), Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia; Chair, Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES);

·         Ahmed Zewail (Egypt), Director, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, United States; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry.

The countries listed beside the individual member’s names appears to be their country of origin, e.g., Abdallah Daar (Oman), Professor of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada, which may or may not be where they are currently located. In any event, they seem to have representation from every continent in one way or another. One other observation, it seems that the gender split is either 50/50 or tilted toward participation from women. (I’m not familiar enough with some of the language groups to be able to identify male as opposed to female first names, not to mention names that are androgynous.)

Moving on, I found these passages of the UN’s news release of particular interest,

“The creation of the Scientific Advisory Board follows on a wide-ranging consultation work entrusted to UNESCO by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.  “It brings together scientists of international stature, and will serve as a global reference point to improve links between science and public policies.”

The Board is the first such body set up by the UN Secretary-General to influence and shape action by the international community to advance sustainable development and eradicate poverty. The initiative derives from the report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future worth choosing (January, 2012). This report recommended the launch of a “major global scientific initiative to strengthen the interface between policy and science. This should include the preparation of regular assessments and digests of the science around such concepts as “planetary boundaries”, “tipping points” and “environmental thresholds” in the context of sustainable development”.

The fields covered by the Board range from the basic sciences, through engineering and technology, social sciences and humanities, ethics, health, economic, behavioral, and agricultural sciences, in addition to the environmental sciences.[emphasis mine]

Board members will act in their personal capacity and will provide advice on a strictly independent basis. They will serve pro bono for two years, with the possibility of renewal for one further two-year term, upon the decision of the Secretary-General. The first session of the Board will be held at the beginning of 2014.

I applaud the range of fields they’ve tried to include in the advisory board. As for serving pro bomo for two years, that’s very good of the individual appointees. Still, It’s hard to know how much time will be required and I doubt anyone is going to be out-of-pocket, as presumably there will be trips and other perks courtesy of the UN or home institutions or someone’s national budget. There’s also the prestige associated with being appointed by the UN to this advisory council (good for the CV), not to mention the networking possibilities that could open up.

Despite pointing out that this is not entirely selfless service, I wish the members of UN’s Scientific Advisory Board well in their efforts.