Letter from the President#

Released 1st August 2024

Dear Members of Academia Europaea,#

Academia Europaea serves as the scientific voice for the European Union in the 2024 Summit of the G20 - Stepping up our science advice activities to the global level. I would like to inform you about recent developments of one of our most important academy-level activities, science advice to support policy-makers’ decisions.

As you know, our Academy has been involved since 2016 in science advice at the European Union level, by virtue of our membership of the SAPEA consortium (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies). SAPEA is part of the Science Advice Mechanism (SAM) of the European Commission and is nearing completion of its second Horizon funded project period (see: https://scientificadvice.eu).

Triggered mostly by requests for science advice on specific topics by the College of Commissioners, SAPEA consortium member organizations convene independent expert groups that produce detailed Evidence Review Reports. These reports contain analyses of the scientific state of the art of the respective topics, identify and dissect emerging issues and provide evidence-based policy options. The Reports are published and used to inform the Scientific Opinions of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission. The scientific experts are nominated through the partner organisations of the SAPEA consortium. Systematic literature reviews and policy landscape mappings are provided for each SAPEA report by our team based in the AE Cardiff Hub and working with specialists at Cardiff University. The Evidence Review Reports published so far are to be found at https://scientificadvice.eu/advice.

According to impact analysis, the SAPEA Evidence Review Reports have been used and cited in hundreds of sources, including legislative and regulatory documents of the European Union, official publications of national governments and parliaments, reports of European agencies and international bodies such as the OECD and WHO, as well as in the academic literature. In her talk to the European Parliament, before her re-election to preside the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen highlighted the need to fund research in artificial intelligence, no doubt informed by the scientific knowledge provided in the recent SAPEA Evidence Review Report on AI and the Scientific Opinions of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors.

The third SAPEA project proposal for 2025-2029 has now been submitted to the European Commission. We hope to have a decision later in the year. There will be opportunities for you, our Members, to continue to engage in this important work in the coming years.

Last February, I received an invitation from the President of the Brazilian Academy of Science (BAS), Professor Helena Nader, for AE to become a member of the S20, the science advice body of the G20. The G20 includes the 19 strongest economies of the world, the African Union and the European Union. The G20 members account for 85% of the world’s GDP, 75% of global trade and two thirds of the world’s population. The mission of the G20 is to find solutions to the most pressing shared global challenges, while the mission of the S20 is to support with scientific evidence the G20 Heads’ of States’ decisions. The European Commission strongly supported AE to be the scientific voice of the European Union in the S20.

Brazil currently holds the annually rotating G20 presidency. In the context of the S20, the national academies of the G20 members, including AE taking the European Union’s seat at the table, has developed science advice Statements for the G20. The topics of the Statements are Artificial Intelligence, Bioeconomy, Energy Transition Process, Health Challenges and Social Justice. These topics were discussed by the S20 member academies in March in Rio de Janeiro, where our elected Vice-President Professor Donald Dingwell and I myself participated. Thereafter, one member of each academy per topic were invited to Task Forces that further elaborated the draft Statements. Our MAE experts, invited by the AE Board, were Professors Erol Gelenbe, Poland (AI), Phoebe Koundouri, Greece (Bioeconomy), Alexander J.B. Zehnder, Switzerland and Singapore (Energy Transition Process), Eva Kondorosi, Hungary (Health Challenges) and Gustaf Arrhenius, Sweden (Social Justice).

The amended versions of the Statements were then discussed by the academies’ leaderships in July in Rio de Janeiro. AE was represented by Professor Donald Dingwell and AE’s Board member and Treasurer, Professor Stephen Evans. The next version of the Statements was then submitted for endorsement to the academies.

The S20 Statements and the final communiqué have been published by BAS on 30 July. See: https://s20brasil.org/en/s20-brasil-english .

We, along with other National Academies engaged in this process have signed this release. The BAS will submit them to the G20 Secretariat to advise the Heads of States of the individual G20 countries, the African Union and the European Union in their Summit next November.

Our well appreciated and professional work, together with the other members of the SAPEA consortium, have been a direct contributor to these new developments. S20 membership marks a major increase in the recognition of the excellence that we hold, through you the Members, and will significantly raise the profile of our Academy.

Science advice, both at the European and global levels, is a very powerful form of translation of scientific and scholarly knowledge into benefits for society. I wish to thank all of our Members who have been involved in expert work in science advice in the context of SAPEA, and our five experts and AE’s Board for their invaluable contribution to the S20 Statements.

Marja Makarow
Helsinki
August 2024