EC’s independent science advisory group launched

The European Commission’s new Scientific Advice Mechanism, or SAM, was officially launched last week, with the announcement of the seven leading scientists who will form the first High Level Group of scientific advisors.

The seven members of the High Level Group were selected following an open call for nominations and the recommendations of an independent identification committee.

They are Janusz M Bujnicki, professor and head of the laboratory of bioinformatics and protein engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Warsaw, Poland; Pearl Dykstra, professor of sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Elvira Fortunato, professor in the materials science department of the faculty of science and technology, NOVA University, Lisbon, Portugal; Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director-general, European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN; Julia Slingo, chief scientist, Met Office, Exeter, UK; Cédric Villani, director of the Henri Poincaré Institute, Paris, France; Henrik C Wegener, executive vice-president, chief academic officer and provost, Technical University of Denmark.

The objective of the Scientific Advice Mechanism is to ensure that the Commission has access to the best possible scientific advice, independent of institutional or political interests.

According to the European Commission, the launch of SAM, together with a €6 million (US$6.5 million) grant to European academies and learned societies, marks a “new approach to the use of independent science advice in Commission policy-making”.

It will bring together evidence and insight from different disciplines and approaches, take into consideration the specificities of EU policy-making, and ensure transparency.

It will complement the in-house scientific services of the Joint Research Centre and existing specialist committees. The first meeting of the Group will take place in January 2016.

SAM is being launched six months after it was first announced by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Carlos Moedas, the Commissioner for research, science and innovation in May 2015. It draws on experience in member states and worldwide and is based on a High Level Group of independent science advisors and a stronger relationship with national academies and other bodies.

Moedas said: "I am delighted that the Scientific Advice Mechanism is now up and running. The support from the scientific community has been tremendous with many eminent scientists coming forward to help.

“The seven exceptional scientists I have appointed to the group will take the use of independent science advice in Commission policy-making to a new level. The European Commission will rely on their independent advice on a range of complex policy issues where high-level scientific input is needed."

More than 150 names were originally put forward for membership of the High Level Group.

Moedas stressed in a speech in September that the creation of the mechanism would help ensure that decisions on the safety of new medicines, novel foods, new technologies and so on, are based on facts and not fiction.

“We want to ensure we take the right decisions in a crisis. We want to ensure that the evidence on which we base our decisions is robust and unbiased,” he said.