Scientific Advice To Policy Making

Are there connections between the structures of political systems and types of scientific advice to policymak - ing? This volume unites case studies from the Netherlands, France, the European Union and the USA that provide an overview of different institutional arrangements, focusing on issues such as the independence and balance of advice. Common to all is the question which forms of advice can increase the rationality of policymaking without loss of political legitimacy. From the Contents: Mark B. Brown: Federal Advisory Committees in the United States Paul den Hoed and Anne-Greet Keizer: The Scientific Council for Government Policy David Demortain: Designing Regulatory Tools for Pharmaceutical and Food Safety in the European Union Laurent Geffroy, Odile Piriou and Bénédicte Zimmermann: Scientific Expertise in Policy-Making: The Case of Work Policy in France Willem Halffman: The Dutch ́ ́Planning Bureaus ́ ́

‘Scientific advice to politics’, the ‘nature of expertise’, and the ‘relation between experts, policy makers, and the public’ are variations of a topic that currently attracts the attention of social scientists, philosophers of science as well as practitioners in the public sphere and the media. This renewed interest in a persistent theme is initiated by the call for a democratization of expertise that has become the order of the day in the legitimation of research funding. The new significance of ‘participation’ and ‘accountability’ has motivated scholars to take a new look at the science – politics interface and to probe questions such as "What is new in the arrangement of scientific expertise and political decision-making?", "How can reliable knowledge be made useful for politics and society at large, and how can epistemically and ethically sound decisions be achieved without losing democratic legitimacy?", "How can the objective of democratization of expertise be achieved without compromising the quality and reliability of knowledge?" Scientific knowledge and the ‘experts’ that represent it no longer command the unquestioned authority and public trust that was once bestowed upon them, and yet, policy makers are more dependent on them than ever before. This collection of essays explores the relations between science and politics with the instruments of the social studies of science, thereby providing new insights into their re-alignment under a new régime of governance.

Policymakers prepare society for the future and this book provides a practical toolkit for preparing pro-active, future-proof scientific policy advice for them. It explains how to make scientific advisory strategies holistic. It also explains how and where biases, which interfere with the proper functioning of the entire science-policy ecosystem, arise and investigates how emotions and other biases affect the understanding and assessment of scientific evidence. The book advocates explorative foresight, systems thinking, interdisciplinarity, bias awareness and the anticipation of undesirable impacts in policy advising, and it offers practical guidance for them. Written in an accessible style, the book offers provocative reflections on how scientific policy advice should be sensitive to more than scientific evidence. It is both an appealing introductory text for everyone interested in science-based policy and a valuable guide for the experienced scientific adviser and policy scholar. "This book is a valuable read for all stakeholders in the scientific advisory ecosystem. Lieve Van Woensel offers concrete methods to bridge the gap between scientific advice and policy making, to assess the possible societal impacts of complex scientific and technological developments, and to support decision-makers’ more strategic understanding of the issues they have to make decisions about. I was privileged to see them proove their value as I worked with Lieve on the pilot project of the Scientific Foresight unit for The European Parliament’s STOA panel.” - Kristel Van der Elst, CEO, The Global Foresight Group; Executive Head, Policy Horizons Canada “A must-read for not only scientific policy advisers, but also those interested in the ethics of scientific advisory processes. Lieve Van Woensel walks readers through a well-structured practical toolkit that bases policy advice on more than scientific evidence by taking into account policies’ potential effects on society and the environment.” - Dr Paul Rübig, Former Member of the European Parliament and former Chair of the Panel for the Future of Science and Technology

We live in a complex and ambiguous world, where trust in both science and politics can be put into question - where scientific evidence is dismissed and policy decisions contested on the assumption of partiality and private interests. Nevertheless, at present the role of science is crucial to inform policy-making in order to provide clarity and assess the consequences of policy options in a systematic way. In order to ensure that trust in science is maintained, science advice needs to be provided in an impartial, reliable, relevant and transparent way, following a set of principles and building on existing best practices. This scientific opinion, informed by a scientific evidence review report by the Scientific Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA) consortium, makes the following recommendations to ensure the quality and relevance of scientific advice: Engage early and regularly with policy-makers and define together the boundaries of the advice, the question and its scope, as well as the best way to address it. Involvement of stakeholders or the public in the process can also be envisaged. Improve the quality of scientific advice by rigorous synthesis of existing evidence and transparent debate. Analyse and communicate uncertainty and diverging views related to the scientific evidence and the policy options recommended.

This report looks at how scientific advice can best support crisis management during transnational crises, such as those provoked by natural hazards or pandemics. Scientific advice has an important role to play in all phases of the crisis management cycle - preparedness, response and recovery. It can be particularly valuable during the sense-making period when a crisis occurs and develops. However, this value is dependent on the quality and timeliness of the advice and most importantly its relevance to the decisions that crisis managers and policy-makers have to make during a crisis. Generating rigorous scientific advice requires access to relevant data, information and expertise, across scientific disciplines and across borders. Ensuring this advice is useful requires effective connections between scientific advisory processes and crisis management mechanisms, including at the international level.

The role of science in policymaking has gained unprecedented stature in the United States, raising questions about the place of science and scientific expertise in the democratic process. Some scientists have been given considerable epistemic authority in shaping policy on issues of great moral and cultural significance, and the politicizing of these issues has become highly contentious. Since World War II, most philosophers of science have purported the concept that science should be “value-free.” In Science, Policy and the Value-Free Ideal, Heather E. Douglas argues that such an ideal is neither adequate nor desirable for science. She contends that the moral responsibilities of scientists require the consideration of values even at the heart of science. She lobbies for a new ideal in which values serve an essential function throughout scientific inquiry, but where the role values play is constrained at key points, thus protecting the integrity and objectivity of science. In this vein, Douglas outlines a system for the application of values to guide scientists through points of uncertainty fraught with moral valence. Following a philosophical analysis of the historical background of science advising and the value-free ideal, Douglas defines how values should-and should not-function in science. She discusses the distinctive direct and indirect roles for values in reasoning, and outlines seven senses of objectivity, showing how each can be employed to determine the reliability of scientific claims. Douglas then uses these philosophical insights to clarify the distinction between junk science and sound science to be used in policymaking. In conclusion, she calls for greater openness on the values utilized in policymaking, and more public participation in the policymaking process, by suggesting various models for effective use of both the public and experts in key risk assessments.

We live in a complex and ambiguous world, where trust in both science and politics can be put into question - where scientific evidence is dismissed and policy decisions contested on the assumption of partiality and private interests. Nevertheless, at present the role of science is crucial to inform policy-making in order to provide clarity and assess the consequences of policy options in a systematic way. In order to ensure that trust in science is maintained, science advice needs to be provided in an impartial, reliable, relevant and transparent way, following a set of principles and building on existing best practices. This scientific opinion, informed by a scientific evidence review report by the Scientific Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA) consortium, makes the following recommendations to ensure the quality and relevance of scientific advice: Engage early and regularly with policy-makers and define together the boundaries of the advice, the question and its scope, as well as the best way to address it. Involvement of stakeholders or the public in the process can also be envisaged. Improve the quality of scientific advice by rigorous synthesis of existing evidence and transparent debate. Analyse and communicate uncertainty and diverging views related to the scientific evidence and the policy options recommended.

Controversies over issues such as genetically engineered food, foot-and-mouth disease and the failure of risk models in the global financial crisis have raised concerns about the quality of expert scientific advice. The legitimacy of experts, and of the political decision-makers and policy-makers whom they advise, essentially depends on the quality of the advice. But what does quality mean in this context, and how can it be achieved? This volume argues that the quality of scientific advice can be ensured by an appropriate institutional design of advisory organisations. Using examples from a wide range of international case studies, including think tanks, governmental research institutes, agencies and academies, the authors provide a systematic guide to the major problems and pitfalls encountered in scientific advice and the means by which organisations around the world have solved these problems.