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Bridges vol. 42
December 2014
by Roger A. Pielke, Jr.
Last month, when the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission orbited comet 67P (Churyumov–Gerasimenko) and deployed its Philae landing module, it was a triumph for collaborative science and technology in the EU. But on the same day, the European Commission (EC) and its newly elected president, Jean-Claude Juncker, announced that it would be getting rid of the office of chief scientific advisor (CSA). That meant that Anne Glover was the first and, for now, the last chief scientific advisor to the president of the EC.
The stark contrast between the technological achievement in space exploration and the bureaucratic wrangling down below did not go unnoticed. James Wilsdon of the University of Sussex observed: “The European Commission chose the evening before the Rosetta landing to confirm quietly that its most senior scientific role, that of chief scientific adviser (CSA) to its president, is being scrapped.” Now that the dust has settled a bit, what does the termination of the Commission’s CSA signify for the future of science advice in Europe?
Epitaphs written in the aftermath of Juncker’s decision to eliminate the CSA often elevated the office to a status that it never had in its short existence under Juan Manuel Barroso. For instance, Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society commented: “This appears to be a very backward step by the new Commission, having only made the enlightened decision to raise the profile of scientific advice three years ago.” Professor Dermot Kelleher, president of the European Academies of Medicine, lamented that the Commission’s CSA office “was key in catalyzing scientific advice from across the spectrum, to inform the work of the European Commission in formulating sound policies for Europe.”
The reality of Anne Glover’s role in the Commission over the past three years was far more prosaic than these comments would suggest. Last August, at a conference in Auckland on global scientific advice organized by Sir Peter Gluckman, chief scientist to the New Zealand government, Glover gave a candid and revealing talk on her experiences as the Commission’s CSA. It was a remarkable talk, as I noted at the time. Slides from her talk, “1000 Days in the Life of a Science Advisor,” have been downloaded more than 6,000 times (available here).
In the talk, Glover explained that the CSA office had minimal resources (a staff of two when she began), and she occupied the role for 51 days before her first face-to-face meeting with President Barosso. Six months into the job, she started sharing briefings from her office with other EC departments, a favor that she says was not returned. Glover further noted that she asked Commission departments to nominate a “correspondent” to facilitate interaction with the CSA office, only to be ignored and, in at least one case, simply rejected. As Professor Albero Alemanno notes: “She quickly found herself in an institutional vacuum.” Glover’s story goes on, and it doesn’t get much better. Ultimately, President Barosso felt compelled to distance himself publicly from Glover and the CSA office over issues related to genetic technologies in agriculture.
In short, the CSA under President Barosso was largely powerless and disconnected. This state of affairs was not the fault of Glover, who took on the CSA role with energy and enthusiasm. The uncomfortable reality is that establishment of the CSA office was a symbolic gesture towards scientific advice, rather than representing any substantive commitment to improving science advice in Europe (see this paper for background).
From this perspective, President Juncker has actually done the scientific community a favor. For the past three years, most scientific organizations and their leaders seemed perfectly content with a symbolic, ineffectual CSA in the Commission. However, the termination of the office has forced a conversation that probably should have been occurring in far more prominent settings. Such a conversation is now underway (see, e.g., this special issue of the European Journal of Risk Regulation) and should continue. Read more …
