Dear Friends and Colleagues,
As we approach the festive season and the end of 2024, I look back at some of the major events of the year in which the AE Cardiff Hub has been involved and pay some tributes.
Our most important task remains the work for the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism via SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies). The most significant task has been our co-ordination of the Evidence Review on Solar Radiation Modification. The substantial report has now been completed and published on 9th December. At the request of the Commission, the Cardiff Hub – in collaboration with Cardiff University’s Library Services – is now providing literature reviews for every SAPEA project and not only for those co-ordinated by AE Cardiff. This has grown to become a major success story for the Hub as our service is highly valued and seen as essential. We provided significant input to the Evidence Review Reports on Successful and timely uptake of artificial intelligence in science in the EU, published in April 2024, as well as One health governance in the European Union, published in November 2024. The Cardiff Hub has also co-ordinated SAPEA’s strategic development planning. Our work for SAPEA’s second grant period (2022-2024) is now complete. Because of Brexit and its aftermath, the funding for the Cardiff Hub’s SAPEA work has in this period been provided by the UK Government through Innovate UK.
In addition to our work for SAPEA, we have also been requested to provide literature reviews to assist the work of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE). The EGE is an independent advisory body of the President of the European Commission, and it has been a real honour and privilege to have been invited to provide literature reviews to support the group’s important work on Defending Democracy in Europe.
We have again this year organised a number of conferences, both in-person and virtual, mostly following up on SAPEA and EGE projects, and often organised in partnership with other organisations. The well-attended major in-person conference on What is Life? held at the University of Innsbruck in August, featured a plenary session with lectures by the Nobel Laureates and AE members Sir John Walker FRS and Hartmut Michel ForMemRS, as well as myself. In November, in co-operation with Connects UK, we organised a conference at Cardiff University on AI: what does it mean for research, for society and for you? It was a pleasure for me to introduce this meeting together with the Chief Scientific Advisor for Wales, Jas Pal Badyal FRS. Throughout the year, we have organised a number of well-attended webinars on topical subjects including, AI, Strengthening Democracy, Reaching out to Society, and two on explaining the European Scientific Advice Mechanism.
Our website is very active. In addition to publishing the outcome of the webinars, we have conducted a substantial number of interviews with MAEs, covering all the major branches of the Academy’s science and scholarship. These interviews are the most popular items on our website. We continue to lead on communications to the AE membership, specifically by compiling and publishing the monthly newsletters and bulletins.
On a personal note, I am participating, at the very end of this working year, in an event organised by the AE Hub in Budapest in co-operation with the Hungarian National Biomedical Foundation and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. It is the 23rd Meeting of Nobel Laureates and Talented Students at the University of Szeged and it will be a real privilege for me to be lecturing together with the Nobel Laureate Martin Chalfie ForMemRS.
Happily, the SAPEA project continues and has secured funding (Euro 8 millions) for its third period starting 1st January 2025, continuing through to April 2029. Cardiff University is, for the first time in this project, an independent beneficiary, and our share of the Horizon Europe grant amounts to Euro 900K.
Finally, I want to thank the extraordinarily effective Cardiff Hub team. The reputation of our Hub Manager, Louise Edwards, continues to soar, in Brussels and indeed throughout Europe. Louise drives forward all our projects with incredible energy and efficiency. Juliet Davies has been a tower of strength in the organisation of our many successful events, with Alice Sadler making an outstanding contribution. I am, as always, grateful for the support from the Chair of our Steering Group, Sir Mark Walport FRS MAE as well as Cardiff University’s President and Vice-Chancellor, Wendy Larner FRSNZ.
I wish you a peaceful Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Ole
Ole H Petersen CBE MAE ML FRS
Director of the AE Cardiff Knowledge Hub
Published 4th December 2024. For more information contact AECardiffHub@cardiff.ac.uk
