SAPEA
Providing scientific evidence to inform policymaking, especially at European level, is an important part of our work.
About the Scientific Advice Mechanism
In 2015, the European Commission (EC) set up a new Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) to support the Commission with high-quality, timely and independent scientific advice for policymaking. SAM is formed by the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors (GCSA), the SAPEA consortium (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies) and a dedicated Unit staffed by the EC’s Research and Innovation and Joint Research Centre Directorates General.
About SAPEA
Academia Europaea is a member of the SAPEA consortium, together with the European academies:
SAPEA produces independent evidence review reports that are used by the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to make policy recommendations to the EC. This transparent process ensures that the EC’s proposals for policy and legislation are well-informed.
How it works

Our work in SAPEA
The Cardiff Hub was given responsibility for most of the management and delivery of the SAPEA work on behalf of Academia Europaea, and is the lead coordinator of three projects to date:
- Food from the Oceans
- Making Sense of Science for Policy
- Biodegradability of Plastics in the Open Environment

We also:
- oversee the work of the Cardiff University Libraries, which has responsibility for systematic reviews within SAPEA
- run plagiarism checks of the SAPEA reports
- coordinate the AE nominations to the working groups set up by SAPEA for the production of evidence review reports.
