Independent science advisory group to the European Commission commence

The new mechanism for scientific advice from the European Commission, or SAM, officially launched this week with the announcement of seven leading scientists who will form the first group of high-level scientific advisors.

Seven members of the High Level Group were selected following an open call for nominations and recommendations of the independent commission for identification.

They are Janus 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 Fortunate, a professor in the materials science department of the Faculty of Science and Technology, NOVA University, Lisbon, Portugal; Rolf-Dieter Heber, Director General, CERN or; Julia Slings, Chief Scientist, Met Office, Exeter, UK; Cedric Villain, director of the Henri Poincare Institute in Paris, France; Henry C Wegener, executive vice president, chief academic officer and provost, Technical University of Denmark.

The aim of the Scientific Council of the mechanism is to ensure that the Commission has access to the best possible scientific advice, regardless of institutional or political interests.

The European Commission, the launch of SAM, together with 6 million € (US $ 6,500,000) grant of European academies and scientific societies, marked a "new approach to the use of independent scientific advice to the Commission on policies."

It will gather evidence and look from different disciplines and approaches, taking into account the peculiarities of the political decision-making, and to ensure transparency.

It will complement the in-house scientific service of the Joint Research Centre and existing specialized committees. The first group meeting will be held in January 2016.

SAM starts six months after it was first announced by European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker and Carlos Meads, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation May 2015 It is based on experience in the Member States and in worldwide and is based on a high Level Group of independent scientific advisors and a stronger link with national academies and other organs.

Meads said: "I am delighted that the Scientific Council of the mechanism is now up and running to support the scientific community is immense with many prominent scientists come forward to help ..

"Seven outstanding scientists I have appointed to the group will be the use of independent scientific advice to the Commission policy to a new level. The European Commission will rely on their independent advice on a range of complex policy issues, which require a high level scientific contribution."

More than 150 names were originally proposed for membership in the High Level Group.

Meads stressed in his speech in September that the establishment of the mechanism will help to ensure that decisions about the safety of new drugs, new foods, new technologies, etc., based on facts, not fiction.

"We want to ensure that the right decisions in a crisis. We want to ensure that the evidence on which we base our solutions is strong and impartial," he said.