How far should we rely on science to make political decisions? What makes a good science advisor — or a good science advice system? What do we do when the evidence is incomplete or controversial? What happens when science advice goes wrong and how can we fix it? We explore these questions, and many more, in conversation with the researchers, policymakers and communicators who make science advice happen around the world. The Science for Policy podcast is produced the Scientific Advice Mechanism to the European Commission and hosted by Toby Wardman. The many and varied opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the guests themselves. They do not necessarily represent the views of SAPEA or the European Commission.
Episodes
Monday Apr 22, 2024
Michael Bang Petersen on integrating psychology into policymaking
Monday Apr 22, 2024
Monday Apr 22, 2024
Politicians don't really have a great understanding of the citizens they serve, according to Michael Bang Petersen. In place of evidence from decades of psychological research, they tend to substitute their own instincts and common sense, together with more or less apposite fragments of behavioural science and economics. Nowhere was this more evident than during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when opportunities to build trust and communicate science were squandered. Tune in and settle down for an intriguing tour of how things ought to be done.
Monday Apr 08, 2024
Dilek Fraisl on citizen science for policymaking
Monday Apr 08, 2024
Monday Apr 08, 2024
Monday Mar 25, 2024
Lena Höglund-Isaksson, Behnam Zakeri and Zuelclady Araujo on modelling
Monday Mar 25, 2024
Monday Mar 25, 2024
How do scientific models inform policymakers? How can they keep countries honest in international climate negotiations? When is uncertainty not so much of a problem? And how much does it matter if policymakers don't instantly grasp the ins and outs of a model which takes six months for scientists to learn? Join the SAM's Toby Wardman on a deep dive into what happens when scientific models meet international politics.
Monday Mar 11, 2024
Daniel Ospina and Judit Ungvári on science advice for climate negotiators
Monday Mar 11, 2024
Monday Mar 11, 2024
Climate change negotiators preparing for UN summits must sift through a truly intimidating quantity of scientific material to familiarise themselves with the latest evidence. That's why Future Earth, along with the Earth League and the World Climate Research Programme, has delivered its pithy 'Ten New Insights on Climate Change' every year since 2017.
But what is the process behind these reports? How are the insights chosen, by whom, and why? And what is it about this model of science advice that also made it attractive to the European Commission when it wanted to figure out which climate and biodiversity research to fund in the future? Daniel Ospina and Judit Ungvári talk to Toby Wardman of the SAM about the ins and outs of science advice at the highest level of global decision-making.
Resources mentioned in this episode
10 new climate insights: https://10insightsclimate.science/
Monday Feb 26, 2024
Patricia Gruber on science advice in the US state department
Monday Feb 26, 2024
Monday Feb 26, 2024
Dr Patricia Gruber is the science and technology advisor to Antony Blinken, President Biden's secretary of state. In a wide-ranging conversation with Toby Wardman from the SAM, she discusses how she got her job, what it's like, and what she can and can't do. She also lays out the US's approach to international science diplomacy, including the wisdom (or folly) or withholding scientific collaboration as a diplomatic measure.
Monday Feb 12, 2024
Marie Gaarder and Thomas Kelly on evidence for development policy
Monday Feb 12, 2024
Monday Feb 12, 2024
Resources mentioned in this episode
- Report 'When will we ever learn?': https://www.cgdev.org/publication/when-will-we-ever-learn-improving-lives-through-impact-evaluation
Monday Jan 29, 2024
Maja Fjaestad on the role of science in Sweden's Covid response
Monday Jan 29, 2024
Monday Jan 29, 2024
Monday Jan 15, 2024
Panel discussion on science advice in a crisis
Monday Jan 15, 2024
Monday Jan 15, 2024
In this special episode of the podcast recorded at a live event in 2023, four experts discuss the role of science advice in emergency situations: what challenges do science advisors face, and what opportunities should they seize?
With Tina Comes, professor at Technical University Delft; Barbara Prainsack, professor at the University of Vienna and chair of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies; Maarja Kruusmaa, professor at Tallinn University and member of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission; and Daniela di Bucci, geologist and advisor to the Italian government.
Tuesday Jan 02, 2024
Bart van den Hurk and Jana Sillmann on storytelling
Tuesday Jan 02, 2024
Tuesday Jan 02, 2024
In a scientific field as complex and multifaceted as climate modelling, how do you communicate the realities of concrete impacts to stakeholders and policymakers? Two IPCC scientists, Bart van den Hurk and Jana Sillmann, are working on so-called 'storylines' techniques, which generate high-resolution, interdisciplinary stories to help decision-makers in all fields assess their own readiness for climate-related changes.
Resources mentioned in this episode
Monday Dec 11, 2023
Moniek Tromp on youth and diversity in science advice
Monday Dec 11, 2023
Monday Dec 11, 2023
How diverse are the people who work on scientific advice -- and why does this matter? Should we be involving more young people as experts, and are there any trade-offs in doing so? What impact might changes in academic culture more broadly have on the quality and availability of evidence for policy?
Professor Moniek Tromp, a founding member of the Young Academies Science Advice Structure and a member of the COARA coalition on improving research assessment, reflects on what's working well and why the rest is still so difficult.
Monday Nov 13, 2023
Tome Sandevski and Michèle Knodt on informal science-policy fellowships
Monday Nov 13, 2023
Monday Nov 13, 2023
Beyond the world of institutional design and formalised competences that tend to be the focus of science-for-policy scholarship, there are many less structured interfaces between the worlds of research and policymaking.
One such well-established interface is the Mercator science-policy fellowship, run by three German universities and headed by Tome Sandevski. In this episode, Toby Wardman of the SAM talks to Tome and his colleague Michèle Knodt, who is currently taking part in the scheme.
Monday Oct 30, 2023
Tim Marler & Sana Zakaria on gene editing and AI policy
Monday Oct 30, 2023
Monday Oct 30, 2023
Drawing on their broad portfolio of exciting, sci-fi-sounding research areas, Tim Marler and Sana Zakaria from RAND Corporation talk in depth about how the latest scientific evidence on AI and gene-editing can best be communicated to policymakers nationally and globally. What are the hot topics? What decisions do policymakers face right now? Where can different kinds of scientific evidence help to inform those decisions, and where are policymakers on their own?
Resources mentioned in this episode
- RAND Corporation report on machine learning and gene editing: https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/ai-at-the-helm-of-a-species-evolution.html
Monday Oct 16, 2023
Glenn Fernandez on municipal science advice in the Philippines
Monday Oct 16, 2023
Monday Oct 16, 2023
The Philippines is remarkably exposed to natural disasters, from earthquakes to typhoons to volcanic eruptions.
Dr Glenn Fernandez, a disaster risk management expert, started his science advice career as a masters student and has continued ever since, helping cities and rural municipalities to prepare for and respond to emergencies. In this episode, he shares his experiences and insights with Toby Wardman from the SAM.
Monday Oct 02, 2023
Veera Mitzner on events as science-for-policy activities
Monday Oct 02, 2023
Monday Oct 02, 2023
Veera Mitzner is the organiser of the Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress, a major annual event which brings together thousands of researchers, stakeholders and, yes, policymakers. But how do events like this fit into the broader evidence-for-policy landscape?
Monday Sep 18, 2023
Stella Ladi on science advice in Greece
Monday Sep 18, 2023
Monday Sep 18, 2023
Monday Sep 04, 2023
Ottmar Edenhofer on giving climate advice in Europe
Monday Sep 04, 2023
Monday Sep 04, 2023
The EU climate law created a new institution, the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, which started work just this year and targets the European Commission, Parliament and Council. Its chair, Professor Ottmar Edenhofer, took time out of his busy schedule to share with us what it's like setting up a new science advice body and how happy he is with their first significant report.
Resources mentioned in this episode
Monday Aug 21, 2023
Hugh Pope on experts in sortition-based democracies
Monday Aug 21, 2023
Monday Aug 21, 2023
Elections are not the only way to power democratic decision-making. A system of government by random selection of citizens, or 'sortition', has been around since at least ancient Athens and, as Hugh Pope explains, has never quite disappeared.
But if we adopt such a radically different way of making policy, what are the implications of science for policy? Do experts take on different roles, and how can citizen-politicians acquire the skills they need to make judgement calls on scientifically complex issues?
Resources mentioned in this episode
- Maurice Pope, 'The Keys to Democracy: Sortition as a new model for citizen power'. http://books.imprint.co.uk/book/?gcoi=71157100410200
Monday Aug 07, 2023
Marc Sanjaume i Calvet on scientific expertise in conflict resolution
Monday Aug 07, 2023
Monday Aug 07, 2023
Monday Jul 17, 2023
Ole Øvretveit & Eystein Jansen on Ukraine, the Arctic and the climate crisis
Monday Jul 17, 2023
Monday Jul 17, 2023
Welcome to the Arctic, where science-for-policy and policy-for-science collide in increasingly complicated ways. You can't make climate-change policy anywhere in the world without scientific evidence we get from the Arctic — but at the same time, being able to get that evidence depends on a delicate balance of policies and geopolitical interests that have made collaborative research between Europe, North America and Russia possible since before the Cold War.
But then you might have heard that Russia has invaded Ukraine, and suddenly the whole institution is under threat. Norwegian experts Ole Øvretveit and Eystein Jansen explain what's going on, and what we might be able to do about it.
Monday Jul 03, 2023
Eleni Zika on curiosity-driven research and its contribution to policy
Monday Jul 03, 2023
Monday Jul 03, 2023
Monday Jun 19, 2023
Barbara Vis on heuristics
Monday Jun 19, 2023
Monday Jun 19, 2023
Politicians are humans, and humans do not always reason syllogistically from premises to conclusions. The problem is amplified when political decisions have to be made fast, under conditions of uncertainty, with either not enough information or far too much.
That's where heuristics come in -- and Professor Barbara Vis is here to help us understand when they are used, what their impacts can be, and how we should take that into account when delivering science advice.
Monday Jun 05, 2023
Heather Rogers & Jelka Zaletel on implementation science
Monday Jun 05, 2023
Monday Jun 05, 2023
Podcast community
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Monday May 22, 2023
Salvatore Aricò on science advice at the United Nations
Monday May 22, 2023
Monday May 22, 2023
How might the future of science advice look at the global level? Will the establishment of a UN Group of Friends on Science for Action be the catalyst that elevates science advice to the highest levels of multilateral decision-making, and how will this complement the Secretary-General's renewed scientific advisory board? And what should the role of the international science community be?
In this episode, Dr Salvatore Aricò, chief executive of the International Science Council, shares his experience and his vision with Toby Wardman, drawing on practical examples to illustrate how such science advice mechanisms work in practice. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities for scientists and the ISC that can help translate science into action, policy-relevant advice.
Resources mentioned in this episode
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International Science Council: https://council.science/
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Join our listener community, meet other listeners and discuss science-for-policy topics! https://join.slack.com/t/scienceforpol-iju8175/shared_invite/zt-1q94fmb6r-oG3q8QKf8cxXnKMNCkR77A
Monday May 08, 2023
Frans Brom on strategic science advice in the Netherlands
Monday May 08, 2023
Monday May 08, 2023
Listener community
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Resources mentioned in this episode
Monday Apr 24, 2023
Monday Apr 24, 2023
In this episode, Bárbara Willaarts and Thomas Schinko from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis explain why transdisciplinarity means more than just collaborating with other areas of science, and why co-creation means more than just working with policymakers to understand their needs... and why both are needed to give really good quality policy advice.