Programme / Science Policy Advice to Tackle Societal Challenges

From the beginning of civilization, politics and science have shaped each other. But throughout history, scientific research has been impacted by policy decisions. If we look at past policy decision examples, a political win or loss dictated whether stem cell research would move forward or not. Certain topics of interest were never approved based on populism or suddenly stopped. On the other hand, Politics decided that there should be woman-friendly initiatives, anti-discrimination rules, bio-ethics for scienctific experiments, fundings to support differently-abled or rare diseases which are not economically profitable, but definitely relevant for those affected. Policy decisions like these move us forward to a politically fair & inclusive, economically equitable, and socially just democracies that we aspire to create. But to create a future as a collective, a collaboration of billions of brilliant minds, the dynamics between research and technology needs to achieve a finer balance. In addition, science had major impacts on policy via disruptive technological innovation.

In today‘s world, Science policy decisions has become a vital strategy in tackling the trans-boundary environmental issues, global health challenges and building bridges between countries. This session will focus on how evidence-based policy-making can play a crucial role tackling societal challenges. To be more inclusive in policymaking, researchers from several organizations will share their perspective on policy-making. While the representatives from research funding and performing organizations and policymakers will reflect on how the policy advice from the young researchers can be implemented into the actions.