Scientific Advice Mechanism

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The Scientific Advice Mechanism is a service created by the European Commission which provides independent science advice directly to European Commissioners to inform their decision-making.^[1] The Mechanism consists of two parts: the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors, an expert group consisting of up to seven leading scientists,^[2] and SAPEA, a consortium of five European Academy Networks collectively representing around 100 academies and learned societies across Europe.^[3]

History[]

Until 2016, science advice in the European Commission was provided by a single Chief Scientific Advisor who reported directly to the President of the European Commission. The last Chief Scientific Advisor, serving from 2012 to 2014, was Dame Anne Glover.

On 1 November 2014, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker asked Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science in his mission letter to "make sure that Commission proposals and activities are based on sound scientific evidence and contribute best to our jobs and growth agenda".^[4] Following this, on 13 May 2015, Juncker announced the establishment of the Scientific Advice Mechanism. The first seven members of the Advisors were identified, following a European call for nominations, in January 2016.

In December 2016, SAPEA was officially launched to support the Advisors by providing scientific evidence review reports.

Structure[]

Group of Chief Scientific Advisors[]

The core of the Scientific Advice Mechanism is the European Commission's Group of Chief Scientific Advisors, an expert group consisting of up to seven leading scientists, selected by the European Commission assisted by an independent identification committee. The Advisors are supported by a dedicated secretariat, known as the SAM Unit, staffed by the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation and Joint Research Centre.

The Group of Chief Scientific Advisors currently consists of the following seven members:

Name	Portrait	Role in the Group	Academic position	University or institution
Nicole Grobert[5]		Chair	Professor of Nanomaterials	University of Oxford
Éva Kondorosi[6]			Research Director	Institute of Plant Biology, Biological Research Centre (Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
[7]			Vice-rector for research and Professor of biorobotics	Tallinn University of Technology
Eric Lambin[8]			Professor of Geography and Sustainability Science	Université catholique de Louvain and Stanford University
Alberto Melloni[9]			Professor of the history of Christianity; holder of the UNESCO Chair on Religious Pluralism and Peace	University of Modena/Reggio Emilia; University of Bologna
Nebojsa Nakicenovic[10]		deputy chair	Director
Eva Zažímalová[11]			Professor of Plant Anatomy and Physiology	at the Czech Academy of Sciences

Previous members of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors include:

• Julia Slingo (2015–2016)
• (2015–2017)
• Cédric Villani (2015–2017)
• Janusz Bujnicki (2015–2020)
• Pearl Dykstra (2015-2020)
• Rolf-Dieter Heuer (2015-2020)
• (2016-2021)
• Paul Nurse (2016-2021)

Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA)[]

SAPEA brings together more than 100 academies, young academies and learned societies. Its role as part of the Scientific Advice Mechanism is to provide high-quality, independent evidence to underpin the Scientific Opinions produced by the Chief Scientific Advisors. SAPEA has the ability to convene Fellows from some 40 countries across Europe, spanning the disciplines of engineering, humanities, medicine, natural sciences and social sciences.

The SAPEA consortium brings together five umbrella networks jointly representing Europe's academies:

• Academia Europaea^[12]
• All European Academies^[13]
• European Academies' Science Advisory Council^[14]
• European Council of Applied Sciences and Engineering^[15]
• ^[16]

At present, SAPEA is funded by a grant from the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme through to the end of 2021.^[17]

Scientific advice[]

The Scientific Advice Mechanism has issued advice in the form of Scientific Opinions, explanatory notes or statements, supported by evidence review reports, on the following topics:

References[]

External links[]

• Scientific Advice Mechanism
• SAPEA

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