The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) just published a new report called Planetary Health. An emerging field to be developed.
The press release and a  summary or  the full report you can read here.

If climate change, biodiversity loss and other environmental changes continue unabated, billions of people will face serious health risks by the end of this century resulting from heat stress, flooding, food shortages, infectious diseases, migration and conflicts. Research examining the connection between such environmental changes and human health (the field of study known as Planetary Health) is still in its infancy. The report reviews existing scientific knowledge in this area and offers a list of questions for researchers to address.

The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) and the international publisher Springer have published: ‘Preparing for Digital Disruption’. This Open Access book can be downloaded free of charge (as an ebook) or can be ordered as a deluxe hardcover book via the Springer website.

Digital Disruption

This book offers an analysis of why preparations for digital disruption should become a stated goal of security policy and policies that aim to safeguard the continuity of critical infrastructure. The increasing use of digital technology implies new and significant vulnerabilities for our society. However, it is striking that almost all cyber-security measures taken by governments, international bodies and other major players are aimed at preventing incidents. But there is no such thing as total digital security. Whether inside or outside the digital domain, incidents can and will occur and may lead to disruption. While a raft of provisions, crisis contingency plans and legal regulations are in place to deal with the possibility of incidents in the ‘real world’, no equivalence exists for the digital domain and digital disruption. Hence, this book uniquely discusses several specific policy measures government and businesses should take in order to be better prepared to deal with a digital disruption and prevent further escalation.

Springer Book Series: Research for Policy

In this series, we publish internationally relevant studies of the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy. Many of the cross-cutting issues that affect Dutch policymaking, also challenge other Western countries or international bodies. By publishing these studies in this international open access scientific series, we hope that our analyses and insights can contribute to the policy debate in other countries.

More information about the Springer Series can be obtained here.

About the WRR

The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) is an independent advisory body for government policy. The task of the WRR is to advise the Dutch government and Parliament on strategic issues that are likely to have important political and societal consequences. More information about the WRR can be obtained here.

Essay “Acquiring, assessing and weighing. The use of knowledge in policy advice in times of crisis”.

Preparing for the next crisis means being aware that it will inevitably come. This is the conclusion drawn by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), the Health Council of the Netherlands (GR) and the Council for Public Administration (ROB).

The role of scientific advisors in crisis situations
In crisis situations, scientific advisors play an essential role in the timely acquisition and interpretation of relevant knowledge. It is then the task of politicians and administrators to assess and weigh the knowledge and, on that basis, to decide how to tackle the crisis. The essay highlights three key lessons:

1. Adaptivity: crises require politicians, administrators and advisory bodies to demonstrate adaptability. During a crisis, scientific advisors can proactively formulate questions and provide guidance to strike upon answers that will help mitigate the crisis. In addition, they can provide policymakers with greater manoeuvrability by looking further ahead.
2. Multidisciplinarity: Advisory boards are composed of different scientific disciplines that can share areas of overlap, but that can also sometimes clash. It is absolutely vital in a crisis in which far-reaching decisions must be made that the full range of perspectives receive due consideration. This requires practice, which can be achieved when advisory bodies endeavour to collaborate more often when crises are not at hand.
3. Division of responsibility: tasks and responsibilities are distributed between science, advice and decision-making. Advisory bodies should guard against these responsibilities becoming too intertwined. This becomes particularly vital the longer the crisis persists and the more prominent the role of politics and governance becomes.

The essay is the result of a conference convened by the three bodies to examine the role of knowledge in dealing with an acute, chronic or predicted crisis. During the conference, scientists from a range of disciplines, politicians and administrators discussed these issues.

About the WRR
The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) is an independent advisory body for government policy. The task of the WRR is to advise the Dutch government and Parliament on strategic issues that are likely to have important political and societal consequences. More information about the WRR can be obtained here.