AAAS, 10h00 – 11h30, Friday 17th February 2017, Hynes Convention Center,Boston, USA.

Session Summary:

This talk unveils the Brussels Declaration, a 20-point blueprint for a new set of ethics & principles to inform work at the boundary between science, society and policy. It makes the case for a multi-disciplinary approach encouraging greater integrity and accountability among stakeholders. It brings together the findings from a series of 5 consultation events and symposia at global conferences from 2012-16, in which more than 300 individuals from 35 countries examined the science of science-policy-making.

Taking a bottom-up approach involving the grass-roots with politicians, science advisers, chief scientific officers from industry, civil society leaders, medical doctors, social scientists, academia and science editors, it will boost understanding of how power operates in science & society and explain why evidence plus dialogue rarely equals good decisions & laws. Most policy decisions are informed by evidence provided by experts. All too often, who those experts are, how they are chosen and how reliable their advice really is, is open to question. The key to promoting public dialogue and better understanding is not only greater transparency and scrutiny, but genuine inclusivity. We offer this Declaration for public comment as an attempt to provide guidelines for incorporating scientific progress into the policy-making that affects all our lives. It is in all our interests that we benefit from ‘evidence-based policy-making’ rather than suffer ‘policy-biased evidence’.

Categories:

Public Policy; Global Perspectives & Issues; Communications and Public Programs.

Relevance to Theme or Special Relevance to the Audience:

This timely session is tailor-made to address the serving society through science policy theme. The architects behind establishing the international ethics and principles of science-policy making greatly value the platform AAAS offers to openly engage all delegates. Furthermore, several of the high-level groups involved in this process are regular attendees.

Diversity Statement:

The session strives for the maximum nationality and profile diversity balance allowed with 5 panelists from 5 countries and 4 continents. They bring to the discussion the expertise of an IP lawyer and pan-European ethics group; a psychiatrist and Deputy Director of a U.S. National Health Institute; an immunologist and UN Special Health Envoy; a broadcast journalist and educator; a leading Science Minister and a Chief Science Advisor.

Keywords:

Universal ethics & principles; scientific integrity; stakeholder engagement; policy; international S&T.

	Organiser: Professor Michel Kazatchkine M.D. (FR): UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia; Former Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis & Malaria.
	Co-organizer & Moderator Aidan Gilligan (IRL): CEO, SciCom – Making Sense of Science
	Discussant: Naledi Pandor (SA): South African Minister for Science & Technology, South Africa
	Discussant: Sir Peter Gluckman (NZ): Chief Science Adviser to the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Presentation Title: Why science into policy has never been about ‘truth’ only: the back story of our initiative

Speaker 1: PProfessor Julian Kinderlerer (SA/UK), 2015 Consultation Event Chair: Past President, European Group on Ethics in Science & New Technologies (EGE); Emeritus Professor of Intellectual Property Law, Cape Town University.

Talk Description:

On behalf of the collective, I will briefly introduce the Brussels Declaration’s twenty main arguments stemming from the five pivotal questions we asked working groups to address. From the standpoint of ethics and human dignity, I will focus on principles 1 – 4 to explain our key findings on the relationship between science, society and policy and make the case for why our prevailing scientific social order must change.

Presentation Title: What should we expect from the scientific community?

Speaker 2: Dr. Wilson M. Compton MD, MPE (US), 2013 Consultation Event Chair: Deputy Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Talk Description:

Science speaks to politics, policy and power precisely because it has evidence. But it must do so using ever-more complex, contingent and contested knowledge. Claim and counter-claim of ‘evidence-based policy versus policy-biased evidence’ can become enmeshed and sometimes indistinguishable. I will explain the rationale behind principles 5 – 8, namely why the integrity and practice of science needs to be more positively asserted. I will argue that the full range of scientific disciplines should be included, while scientists must listen more and respond to criticism.

Presentation Title: What we expect from the policy-making community?

Speaker 3: Professor Michel Kazatchkine MD (FR), 2014 & 2016 Consultation Events Chair: UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia; Former Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis & Malaria.

Talk Description:

Several groups claim to be policy-makers and whether a policy-making cycle even exists is open to debate. My talk will spotlight the many accessory roles around our elected representatives, including the staff of national and international parliaments, civil services and the legal profession etc. I will address principles 9 – 13, namely the fine balancing act whereby policy-makers must challenge science to deliver on their public investment, while equally being held to account by society, particularly when they deviate from independent scientific advice.

Presentation Title: What we expect from the public, industry, media and interest groups?

Speaker 4: Professor Kathryn O’Hara (CD), 2016 Consultation Event Discussion Lead : Professor of science broadcast journalism at Carleton University; President of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association; Board Member, World Federation of Science Journalists.

Talk Description:

The public plays a critical role in determining what positions policy-makers will take and are influenced by media. Industry, as the greatest investor in advancing knowledge and science has every right to have its voice heard, but is seen by some as a ‘necessary evil’. Similarly, interest groups vary from guardians of the common good to robust defenders of legitimate sectoral interests. My brief commentary will pose these and other searching questions around principles 14 – 17.

Presentation Title: What needs to change?

	Discussant: Naledi Pandor (SA): South African Minister for Science & Technology, South Africa
	Discussant: Sir Peter Gluckman (NZ): Chief Science Adviser to the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Talk Description:

Scientific advice must be more involved in all stages of the policy-making process with scientists willing to embed themselves into the policy-making system. Science-based issues are also increasingly central to the conduct of foreign policy. Equally, policy-making must learn to cope with the speed of scientific developments and include greater foresight and policy anticipation. Our brief commentary will flag some of the steps forward proposed by working group members around principles 18 – 20. Above all, we will make the case for an urgent need to build trust between scientists, policy-makers and other societal actors through a long-term, sustained and participatory dialogue. Our roadmap will include personal insights into the ethics and necessity of including a broader range of voices, including developing countries, in the global science and society enterprise.