Scientific Advice Mechanisms for Policy

Saturday, February 18, 2017: 8:00 AM-9:30 AM
Room 310 (Hynes Convention Center)
In an ever more complex and globalized political context, scientific advice to policymakers plays an increasingly important role, in particular for addressing the grand challenges ahead such as scarcity of natural resources, food safety, the cost of energy, the impacts of climate change, and aging of the population. Establishing dialogue between science, policy, and society may contribute toward rebuilding citizen confidence in government and strengthening the legitimacy of democracies. The European Commission recently created the Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM), aimed at supporting the Commission with high quality, timely, and independent scientific advice. In parallel, SAM has a structured relationship with scientific advisory bodies and science academies in the European Union member states. This model provides an innovative way to connect the demand and supply of scientific advice. Using a similar rationale, this session promotes an open discussion on how best to deliver science advice institutionally, comparing the new European approach to other science advisory structures worldwide. A particular emphasis is on how to harness the expertise of science academies and learned societies while improving the process through which scientific evidence is delivered to policymakers.
Organizer:
Johannes Klumpers, European Commission
Moderator:
Wolfgang Burtscher, European Commission
Discussant:
Eva Kaili, European Parliament
Speakers:
Henrik C. Wegener, Technical University of Denmark
SAM: A New Mechanism for Independent Science Advice in the European Commission
Pearl Dykstra, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
The Role of Academies and Learned Societies in Science Advice
Peter Gluckman, New Zealand Office of the Prime Minister's Science Advisory Committee
The Global Dimension of Science Advice: Learning From Each Other
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