ALLEA president takes part in the Euro-CASE Annual Conference

ALLEA President Günter Stock

ALLEA President Günter Stock

The Annual Conference on “Evidence-based Policy Advice and Innovation Policy beyond Horizon 2020” of the European Council of Academies of Applied Sciences, Technologies and Engineering (Euro-CASE) took place on 3 December 2014 in Brussels and was attended by over 200 invited guests.

At the conference, the Presidents of ALLEA, EASAC and Euro-CASE, declared their commitment to a stronger partnership at the European level while noting the importance of an interdisciplinary approach towards offering science policy advice. ALLEA President Professor Günter Stock took part in a panel discussion on the subject “Evidence-based policy advice to the EU – novel approaches of dialogue formats”. Further panelists included, among others, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission Anne Glover, Deputy Director General Wolfgang Burtscher of the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, and Joint Research Centre Director-General Vladimir Šucha.

Günter Stock, Anne Glover, Reinhard F. Hüttl, Jos van der Meer (EASAC)

Günter Stock, Anne Glover, Reinhard F. Hüttl, Jos van der Meer (EASAC)

Innovation policy after Horizon 2020 and future challenges for Europe were also central to this year’s conference. High-ranking international guest speakers presented European and international perspectives on innovation policy and Euro-CASE revealed a new policy paper on this topic. Concrete questions about the role of industry, internationalisation, simplifying the application process and the systematic implementation of the whole innovation chain in future EU framework programmes were central to these discussions. 

Throughout the presentations, it became clear that for Europe to be a successful innovation centre, it needs innovation that takes more risks and embraces an “entrepreneurial spirit”. Successfully bringing research results to the market was also deemed a major factor for Europe’s economic growth.  It was emphasised that Academies are in the position to promote independent and transdisciplinary science-based policy advice and thereby significantly contribute to strengthening the evidence-based nature of political decisions at the European level. Reinhard F. Hüttl, President of Euro-CASE, concluded: “We can only meet today’s global challenges together with an interdisciplinary approach. Together we can offer a comprehensive and holistic science-based policy advice at the European level”.

Euro‐CASE is an independent non‐profit organisation of national Academies of engineering, applied sciences and technologies from 21 European countries. Euro‐CASE acts as a permanent forum for exchange and consultation between European institutions, industry and research.

Photos ©FKPH