In this webinar, held by Insights Wales on the 6th November, Professor Ole Petersen and Louise Edwards explained how the SAM works, highlighting policy impacts using examples from environmental policymaking.
The webinar was chaired by Catherine Arnold, with two presentations from Professor Ole Petersen CBE FMedSci FLSW MAE ML FRS, Director of the Academia Europaea Cardiff Knowledge Hub and Louise Edwards, Manager of the Hub.
Key messages
Professor Ole Petersen gave an overview of his experience of working in both policy for science (particularly in Wales) and science for policy. He explained the role of the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism and the consortium SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies). He highlighted how SAPEA uses academies to deliver evidence reviews, grounded in the most robust knowledge available. Academia Europaea (AE) is a key partner in the SAPEA consortium. The Academy has a number of Hubs across Europe, including one based at Cardiff University. The AE Cardiff Hub carries out AE’s work in SAPEA, establishing Wales as a central player in the Scientific Advice Mechanism.
Professor Petersen also highlighted SAPEA’s core principles, including relevance, scientific excellence, transparency, independence, and diversity. These principles are key to producing high-quality evidence review reports with clear and transparent results.
Louise Edwards opened her talk with examples of environmental policymaking at European level, covering the topics Food from the Oceans, Microplastics, Biodegradable Plastics and Solar Radiation Modification.
As background, she provided context on how policy development works at the European Commission. She then explained the process of the Scientific Advice Mechanism, which starts with a scoping paper. Scoping is followed by evidence gathering by interdisciplinary expert working groups assembled by SAPEA. The SAPEA Evidence Review Reports inform policy recommendations made by the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors. Following publication, there are outreach programmes across different audiences and stakeholder groups. There is always an evaluation of policy and other impact.
Louise concluded by announcing upcoming SAM publications on Solar Radiation Modification (SRM), due to be released shortly.
Discussion and Q&A
Presentations were followed by a Q&A session, where the audience put forward questions. These included Brexit’s impact on research funding, and opportunities for early-career researchers to be involved in science advice.
Watch the webinar
View the recording.