INGSA Horizon Podcast - In-depth conversations with the leading global experts at the science/society/policy interface.

In the final months of his tenure as the UK Government's Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir Patrick Vallance sat down with Dr Mona Nemer, Canada's Chief Science Advisor, to discuss the challenges they've faced, the opportunities they see, and the future for science advice.

Both were in the middle of their tenures when COVID erupted and they found themselves at the very centre of the national and international response. What was it like to be a country's highest ranking science adviser, when unprecedented interest, scrutiny, and animosity was directed at scientists trying to do their jobs?

This is a candid and engaging discussion from two of the world's most experience science advice practitioners.

For more, follow @INGSciAdvice on Twitter or check out #INGSAHorizon​​​

Join the INGSA network for free at: https://www.ingsa.org/join/

INGSA Horizon Series - In-depth conversations with the leading global experts at the science/society/policy interface.

Prof John Lavis is the Co-Lead of the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges.

Dr Soledad Quiroz-Valenzuela is an INGSA Vice-President and one of the Commissions that was charged with investigating opportunities to arm the world's policy-makers with the world's best evidence.

The Global Commission on Evidence has now updated its 2023 report that was available in seven languages (https://www.mcmasterforum.org/networks/evidence-commission) encompassing 24 recommendations for how the world can improve its culture and practice of evidence-informed policymaking.

Convened by Laura dos Santos Boeira from Instituto Veredas, the INGSA Horizon Series sits down with Prof Lavis and Dr Quiroz to discuss the future of science advice for the great societal challenges we face.

For more, follow @INGSciAdvice on Twitter or check out #INGSAHorizon​​​

Join the INGSA network for free at: https://www.ingsa.org/join/

In a special, bonus episode we bring you the latest discussion from the Science for Policy Podcast. If you are interested in the science/policy/society interfaces then we recommend you check out their extensive back-catalogue of episodes! 

Find out more at www.sapea.info and thanks to the Science for Policy podcast for sharing their chat with INGSA President, Prof Remi Quirion on the languages of global science advice. 

For more from the INGSA Horizons Podcast visit: https://ingsa.org/podcast

Featuring:

• Prof Anna Davies Trinity, Centre for Smart and Sustainable Cities
• Prof Edgar Pieterse, African Centre for Cities
• Ms Alice Charles, World Economic Forum Geneva
• Mr John Mauro, City of Port Townsend, Washington
• Prof Marie-Christine Therrien, Cité-ID Liv­ing Lab

Cities are increasingly the key implementer of international, national, and local policy. They are where policy and theory intersect directly with people’s lives. This panel will explore the challenges encountered, and the practical solutions deployed, at the ‘pointy end’ of the Sustainable Development Goals, for example to fight against climate change. 

Is science advice sufficiently vertically integrated to truly “think globally and act locally”?

How can knowledge from the social sciences and humanities be better utilised by policymakers to address our sustainability challenges and complement traditional technological and physical scientific advice? What happens when different types of advice challenge one another? And how can different types of social science contribute to solutions from different perspectives.

Featuring:

• Dr Jean Lebel, International Development Research Centre
• Prof Steven Hoffman, Director of the Global Strategy Lab
• Prof Elizabeth Jelin, Senior Researcher at CONICET
• Dr Montira Pongsiri, Save the Children, Member of the SEA SAN
• Prof Ilona Otto, Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change

Featuring:

• A/Prof Manuela Fernández Pinto, Universidad de los Andes
• A/Prof Heather Douglas, Michigan State University
• Mr David Mair, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission
• Prof Dr Asma Ismail, Academy of Sciences Malaysia

Making space for public values in science advice to government is heralded as a protection against technocracy, and yet the legitimacy of scientific knowledge derives from endorsement by peers, not the public. Is there a need for a new approach within science advice to better prepare for the tensions of pluralistic policy-making?

The concept of ‘foresight’ has been in and out of fashion with governments for decades, and the science community has been calling attention to long-term issues for even longer. Yet, the world was still unprepared for Covid-19 in the same way that we will be surprised when the impact of climate change and other SDG challenges begin to accelerate through cumulative impact cycles.

Why do successive governments fail to act? Does science advice have a role in accelerating a meaningful anticipatory response to long-term systemic issues?

Featuring:

• Dr Jeff Kinder, Institute on Governance
• President Francisco Sagasti, Academic and Former President of Peru
• Ms Jeanette Kwek, Centre for Strategic Futures, Singapore
• Dr Claire A. Nelson, The Future Forum
• Dr Martin Müller, Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator

Featuring:

• Prof Salim Abdool Karim, CAPRISA Professor of Global Health at Columbia University

• Inès Hassan, Senior Projects Manager at the International Science Council

When dealing with a crisis, everybody wants certainty – citizens want reassurance, scientists want facts, policymakers want solutions. How can scientists and policymakers navigate a situation where there is no certainty, where scientific consensus can shift suddenly, and where the very foundations of understanding are in constant flux?

Salim S. Abdool Karim is a South African clinical infectious diseases epidemiologist widely recognised for his research contributions in HIV prevention and treatment. For a year, Prof Abdool Karim was the Chair of the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19.

Leading the discussion is Dr Inès Hassan, coordinator of the International Science Council COVID-19  Scenarios Project (https://council.science/covid-19-scenarios/) which is looking at the mid- and long-term impacts of COVID-19 for which policymakers need to plan.

Science advice is built on a foundation of established models of knowledge production, policy-making and the science-policy-society relationship. But all of these are currently in flux. How do we provide advice in a context when foundational assumptions are changing? This panel explores key examples of changing discourses and how they intersect and interact to form new social, economic, technological and intellectual paradigms.

Featuring:

• Prof Ian Goldin - Oxford Martin School
• Ms Armine Yalnizyan - Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers
• Mr Achim Steiner - Administrator of the UN Development Programme
• Elder Nii Gaani Aki Inini, Dr. Dave Courchene - Knowledge Keeper of the Anishnaabe Nation

Featuring:

• Prof Daniel Sarewitz, Emeritus Professor, Arizona State University
• Prof Sabina Leonelli, Philosophy and History of Science, University of Exeter

Even before the pandemic, the role that robust knowledge and experts played in our democracies was a complicated one. Technology, globalisation, demographic change, and other major shifts in all of our lives feel like they have been moving faster than the collective processes we put in place to understand and deal with them as societies. The solutions to these issues are likely to be as complicated as the problems.

Prof Daniel Sarewitz has been the Editor-in-Chief on Issues in Science and Technology and has written for some of the most prestigious journals and magazines in the world. Recently retired from Arizona State University, Prof Sarewitz joins the INGSA Horizon Stage to discuss the challenges, opportunities and risks for evidence in democracy.

Prof Sabina Leonelli is Professor of Philosophy and History of Science at the University of Exeter, UK. She is a leading scholar in the study of the impact of Big and Open Data on research and wider society, and the philosophy of Open Science during 2022 she is based in Berlin as a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, working on  her project "Excellence and Diversity in Global Scientific Practice".