SAPEA

SAPEA


Providing scientific evidence to inform policymaking, especially at European level, is an important part of our work.


The Scientific Advice Mechanism to the European Commission

The Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) provides independent scientific evidence and policy recommendations to the European institutions by request of the College of Commissioners.

The SAM consists of three parts:


The Group of Chief Scientific Advisors

The Group of Chief Scientific Advisors is a key part of the Scientific Advice Mechanism. Their role is to provide independent scientific advice and policy recommendations to the College of European Commissioners to inform their decision-making, and thus contribute to the quality of EU legislation.

The Group is composed of up to seven Advisors. They are chosen for their outstanding level of expertise, covering a wide range of scientific fields.

The goal is to have a broad vision which collectively reflects an understanding of important scientific developments, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research.


SAPEA

SAPEA’s role in the Scientific Advice Mechanism is to provide independent, high-quality reviews of the evidence to inform the policy recommendations made by the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors.

SAPEA is a consortium of Academy Networks, funded by Horizon Europe, representing a large number of academies from different countries. Through these Networks, theybring together outstanding expertise from natural sciences, engineering and technology, medical, health, agricultural and social sciences, and the humanities.


The Secretariat

The Scientific Advice Mechanism is supported by the SAM secretariat, established within the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission.

This secretariat:

  • acts as a liaison between the Advisors, SAPEA, and the European Commission
  • analyses the policy background to the requests for advice
  • supports the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors in their work
  • works with SAPEA and the Advisors to communicate about the work of the SAM

  • Titles of Advisors
    • Nicole Grobert – Chair of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors
      Professor of Nanomaterials, University of Oxford
    • Nebojša Nakićenović – Deputy Chair of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors;  Director of The World In 2050; Former director-general of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
    • Naomi Ellemers – Member of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors
      Distinguished Professor of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University
    • Maarja Kruusmaa – Member of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors
      Professor of Biorobotics, Vice-rector for Research, Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech)
    • Eric Lambin – Member of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors – Professor of Geography and Sustainability Science, Université catholique de Louvain and Stanford University
    • Alberto Melloni – Member of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors
    • Professor of History of Christianity, University of Modena/Reggio Emilia
    • Eva Zažímalová – Member of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors Professor of Plant Anatomy and Physiology, Czech Academy of Sciences


  • Names of Academy Networks
    • Academia Europaea – a European non-governmental association acting as an academy.
    • ALLEA  – The European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities,
    • FEAM – The Federation of European Academies of Medicine
    • Euro-CASE – The European Council of Academies of Applied Sciences, Technologies and Engineering
    • YASAS – the Young Academies Science Advice Structure

More information about the work of Scientific Advice Mechanism on the dedicated website: Scientific Advice Mechanism


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:


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.

Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in our publications, including on this website, are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union, the European Commission, or any funding authorities.
Within the Scientific Advice Mechanism, SAPEA is funded by the European Union. The activities of associated partners Academia Europaea and Cardiff University are funded by UKRI (grant number 10033786).