The ultimate goal of scientific advice for policy is to contribute to policy decisions. In this respect, scientific advice should be relevant, trustworthy and timely.
Relevance can be achieved by shared understanding between policymakers and scientists of the policy issue and precise scientific key questions that need to be answered. The relevance, the policy context and the scientific questions are presented in a scoping paper which forms the basis for SAPEA Evidence Review Reports.
To be trustworthy, advice is provided by authoritative scientific experts. Collectively, they cover the range of pertinent disciplines and scientific opinions and take an objective view on the issue at stake.
To be useful for policymakers, science advice for policy has to be generated in a timely fashion using foresight processes such as horizon scanning, visioning and scenario planning consistent with future-oriented policymaking.
Our quality assurance guidelines apply to SAPEA Board members and staff, members of SAPEA working groups, Fellows of academies, other experts and further contributors who are involved in SAPEA working groups. They are also published here online to inform the scientific community, stakeholders, policymakers and society.
Yves Bamberger (Chair), Euro-CASE
Ole Petersen, Academia Europaea
Göran Hermeren, ALLEA
Jos van der Meer, EASAC
André Aurengo and George Griffin, FEAM
Nicole Grobert, Young Academy of Europe