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SCIENCE MEETS PARLIAMENTS
Co-organised by European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) and
the European Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) Panel
15 September 2015 | European Parliament | Brussels
STATEMENT BY PROFESSOR GÜNTER STOCK (ALLEA)
as part of the session
SCIENCE'S ANSWER TO THE EU AND NATIONAL POLICY-MAKERS' EXPECTATIONS
(11.15 – 12.30)
Dear Vice President of the European Parliament McGuiness,
Dear Commissioner Moedas,
Dear Commissioner Navracsics,
Dear Mr Rübig,
Dear Mr Šucha,
Dear Mr Buzek,
Dear Members of the European Parliament,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
These days, it almost seems trivial to state that we are living in a world which is, to a large
extent, determined by scientific knowledge and the technical implementation of conclusions
that have been established by science. And yet, there are still gaps – hopefully not everwidening gaps – between policymakers and the scientific bodies that provide evidencebased recommendations. For that reason, it is of utmost importance that we explore better
ways to provide scientific advice not only at the national level, which we scientists all do, but
also at the European level. The latter goal is currently being elaborated between five large
academy organisations, including ALLEA, in cooperation with the European Commission.
To help close the gap between scientists and policymakers, in the academies across Europe
we started at different levels, with parliamentary breakfasts, lunches, and evenings, even
today I believe we will benefit from a very interesting exercise where scientists from all over
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Europe can interact with European Parliamentarians. These are ways of gradually improving
the trust and interest in science within the European Institutions. And here, the European
Parliament plays a special role, because Parliamentarians from all EU countries expose the
different views which exist all over Europe. Our efforts to deepen this trust can only succeed
if our scientific advice and the way we come to our advice are transparent, have a reputation
of quality and follow certain rules which are indispensable if we want to be heard in the long
term.
On the other hand, there is a second gap: between the scientific community and the public
at large, both in the European and national sense. We scientists have a clear need to present
the news of the scientific community to the general public. Of course, we all know that it is
harder to define a “European public” than it is to define a national public. Nevertheless, we
already have our elected European Parliamentarians, and we can also point to those
decisions being taken in Brussels which are heard and have an impact all over Europe. Just as
the politicians do, scientific organisations need this “European” channel of communication
as much as they need their national channels. This is what ALLEA, for example, strives to
achieve by bringing together almost 60 academies of sciences and humanities in the Council
of Europe region. ALLEA not only seeks to improve the communication between the
academies and the European policymakers regarding such issues as science policy and
scientific advice, but we are also interested in ultimately bringing the services provided by
the academies across Europe to the larger European public as well. And we believe that a
very effective way to achieve this is for the knowledge of the combined academies to feed
into European policymaking by way of the scientific advice mechanism.
The ethics and the mechanics of scientific advice are at the core of how the academies are
helping to organise and establish this scientific advice mechanism for Europe. We warmly
welcome the European Institutions’ support so far towards working together to establish
this mechanism and I believe that together we have made much progress in the few short
months since the mechanism was first announced by President Juncker.
Naturally, at this still early stage in the process, important questions remain unclear that are
crucial for the organisation of the mechanism, including details regarding the future
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interactions between the academies and existing policy advice providing bodies like the JRC
as well as the planned scientific committee called the High Level Group.
There are many examples of what academies can achieve and what they have already been
discussing at the European level. For instance, many of the academies have extensively
worked on issues of utmost importance for all European countries, such as demographic
change, and discussed their findings with the public and with policymakers at the national
level. In order to address this issue also at the European level, just last March ALLEA teamed
up with the European Science Foundation (ESF) and the European Parliamentary Research
Service (EPRS) to host a roundtable debate between experts and policymakers on how
science can concretely contribute towards creating policies for tackling the challenges of
demographic change. The event helped to illuminate in particular the value of
interdisciplinary research – especially in the social sciences and humanities – in facing these
urgent challenges both in the short- and long-terms and we received very positive feedback
showing that our input was appreciated by the attending Members of the European
Parliament and policy officers from the European Institutions.
As it happens, this very evening we will repeat this successful format in the library reading
room of the EPRS with a debate on “Inequalities in Europe” which you are of course very
welcome to join.
Other successful examples I would like to mention include the excellent recommendations of
EASAC on shale gas extraction and, here on the national level again, the significant scientific
endeavour conducted by the academies in Germany concerning energy and climate change,
what we call die Energiewende, or the shift toward renewable forms of energy. For this truly
ambitious and not exactly uncontroversial target set by the German government, the
academies in Germany jointly undertake the initiative ‘Energy Systems of the Future’ in
order to provide input for an evidence-based discussion of the challenges and opportunities
inherent to the German energy transition. The advice is based on the project’s eight working
groups which identify relevant issues while Interdisciplinary ad-hoc groups develop policy
options for the implementation of a secure, affordable and sustainable energy transition.
The recommendations of the project are published in position papers and communicated
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and discussed both with policymakers and the wider public at an annual public event,
hearings and workshops with relevant stakeholders as well as in meetings and background
discussions with parliamentarians.
So, dear colleagues, please be assured that science can indeed make a significant
contribution towards resolving pressing future challenges and questions, and we can do it in
an effective way by providing crucial information about issues where most scientists have
already reached a consensus. But we create options, not immediate solutions. And this is
why our advice that is coming from the group of European academy organisations is not
advice which can be conjured within a few short hours. Rather, it is advice which has taken
the time to collect and assess all the existing scientific knowledge and conclusions from
many scientists in order to make what we call an educated guess, which is desperately
needed more often than most of us like to admit.
By way of conclusion, please allow me to offer a last word on the issue of communicating
scientific findings and advice from scientific institutions to the media and public. I really think
it is of utmost importance that we all join forces, “we” being academies, individual scientists
and scholars, and other scientific organisations, as well as the advising bodies such as the
JRC. We should collaborate whenever possible and talk to the media about science in order
to widely distribute our messages.
Thank you very much.
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