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Workshop “Share Science, Shape Future – Scientific Advice in Europe: analysis, synergies and perspectives”, November 2024

On 6 and 7 November 2024, the workshop “Share Science, Shape Future – Scientific Advice in Europe: analysis, synergies and perspectives” was held in Rome at the CNR headquarters. The event represented a lively and participative debate on scientific advice in Europe.
The workshop was articulated in six sessions and welcomed by a video message from Prof. Anna Maria Bernini, Minister of University and Research of the Italian Government, followed by the opening remarks delivered by Prof. Maria Chiara Carrozza, president of National Research Council (CNR) of Italy
In the first session prof. Heinz Fassman, president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, presented the report “Align, Act, Accelerate” published on 16 October by the high-level expert group on the interim evaluation of Horizon Europe. In the following session Enric Banda, Frede Blaabjerg and Vladimir Marik, respectively scientific advisors to the governments of Spain, Denmark and Czech Republic, analyzed and widely discussed the mechanism of scientific advice in their respective countries in an interesting exercise to find synergies and new inputs useful to inspire the whole EU ecosystem in this field.
A roundtable dedicated to Role and Perspectives of Scientific Advice in Europe was participated by Karen Fabbri from EU Commission, Maria Chiara Carrozza President of CNR, Janusz M. Bujnicki from the University of Warsaw and Agnieszka Gadzina-Kołodziejska from JRC of EU Commission. Another roundtable focused on Risk Assessment and Scientific Advice on some specific hot topics (AI, Biodiversity, Climate Change, One Health) with expert participation of Maria Cristina Pedicchio from the Agency for the Promotion of European Research (APRE), Hellas Cena of the National Biodiversity Future Center, Lucian Brujan of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and Gabriella Cortellessa of the Institute for Cognitive Sciences and Technologies at CNR.
The final session was an intense moment of reflection about Research and Policy in the future of EU; Letta report and Draghi report were illustrated and commented by Salvatore Capasso, Head of the Department of Social Sciences at CNR and Andrea Brandolini Deputy Director general for Economics Statistics and Research of the bank of Italy. The speakers illustrated how the two reports went in synergy to show the road towards the strengthening of an EU single market that consider research and innovation at the core of the future economic growth while keeping the free circulation of brains and innovative ideas as the fundamental requirement of our societal and cultural progress.

ESAF-5 meeting will take place in Dublin on 26 and 27 June 2019

At the 4th ESAF meeting it was decided that the 5th ESAF meeting will take place in Dublin. We are delighted that Mark Ferguson, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Irish Government, has offered to host the meeting. The meeting will take place on 26 (evening) and 27 June 2019 (meeting until 17.00) at a venue in the centre of Dublin.

 

Fourth meeting of ESAF

The meeting took place in Tallinn on Amsterdam on 27 June 2018. It was hosted by Tarmo Soomere, president of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. Representatives from 12 member countries of ESAF took part, discussing topics at the interface between science, policy, society and politics. The meeting was attended by Keith Sequira, senior advisor and member of the Cabinet of Commissioner Moedas, Janusz Bujnicki,  member of the SAM Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission and Johannes Klumpers and Iphigenia Pottaki, both from the SAM–unit.

Maarja Kruusma, professor of biorobotics and member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, gave a presentation titled ‘IT technology and society in Estonia: the lessons learned and et to come?’. She explained that Estonia has had the relative advantage of starting from scratch when designing innovative digital services for Estonian civilians, as opposed to digitizing existing ‘analog’ services and legacy systems. The presentation was followed by a lively discussion on topics such as trust and the digital divide.

Johannes Klumpers, Head of SAM Unit, gave an introduction of the new topic of SAM: ‘Making sense of science under conditions of complexity and uncertainty’. Contributions of ESAF in the form of an collection of best practices are welcome.

This collection of best practices will also be used for a reflective practice-session at ESAF-5. Members were invited to send in cases.

Group photo in Tallinn, June 2018