Dear EGU Expert,

This month’s EGU Science for Policy Newsletter focuses on some exciting and interactive new science for policy initiatives, EGU’s policy-relevant publications page, and insights into what life is like inside the European Parliament!

If you have any further questions or comments about the policy opportunities that exist for scientists in Europe, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via policy@egu.eu or on Twitter using @Chl0e_Hill.

Best wishes,
Chloe Hill, EGU Policy Manager

Scientific evidence plays an important role in the policymaking process and is used by parliaments around the world to help them evaluate and debate legislation. While some of these scientific advisory mechanisms are institutionalised, others are less formal or not as well known. This interactive map hosted by the International Parliament Engagement Network shows how parliaments across the world access and use scientific evidence. The initiative aims to build global connections between parliamentary research engagement mechanisms and those who are involved in them, supporting the identification of new connections and learning opportunities and boosting global collaboration. Each of the 73 research engagement mechanisms on the map has provided, synthesised, or produced academic research for parliamentary purposes within the last 5 years.

Science is a key component of the policymaking process as it allows policymakers to more effectively consider their potential options and the consequences of any action or inaction. To help policymakers find information that may be relevant to their decision-making, EGU features articles published in EGU journals on the policy section of the EGU website that could be related or useful to their work. This list is updated on a semi-regular basis and includes research published on a wide variety of topics. If you would like to suggest an article that has been published in an EGU Journal that you think may be of interest to policymakers, please email Chloe via policy@egu.eu.

This month, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre launched their Smart4Policy online self-reflection tool to help policymakers and researchers working in science-for-policy reflect on their level of competence in various fields that relate to policy engagement. The Smart4Policy self-reflection tool will help you understand where your strengths are and what areas you can improve on to increase your policy impact. Completing a self-reflection in one session takes around 30 – 60 minutes, but you can save your self-reflection and return later. Once completed, you will automatically receive a report on your competence level in each cluster with suggestions on next steps and resources helping you improve. This tool is free of charge and, based on the results, can help you make an informed decision about your personal learning and development plan. Reflect on your skills now!

In this month’s GeoPolicy blog post, EGU Member and Associate Professor in Earth Observation and GIS at the Manchester Metropolitan University Elias Symeonakis highlights his experience with the EGU’s Science-Policy Pairing Scheme. In November 2022, Symeonakis was paired with Member of the European Parliament, Norbert Lins, an MEP representing Germany and the Group of the European People’s Party. In the blog post, he outlines his biggest take aways from his week inside the Parliament, including the importance of informal networking opportunities, the value of understanding what policymakers require, and the need for more scientists to be “in the room”. You can read more about Symeonakis’ experiences inside the European Parliament here.

Ongoing societal and political crises (such as the COVID19 pandemic and armed conflicts) are impacting our ability to manage acute natural disasters as well as ongoing crises such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Decisions made during these crises are not only urgent but have long-lasting consequences.

In response to this challenge, SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies) published a report with policy recommendations to improve crisis management frameworks in Europe, As part of the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism, SAPEA provides independent scientific advice to Commissioners to support their decision-making. The ‘Strategic crisis management in the European Union’ report outlines the need to increase the EU’s resilience by collaborating closely with citizens, strengthening critical infrastructures against cascading effects, increasing the accessibility of high-quality data, and making existing European financial instruments and resources more scalable and rapidly deployable. You can read the full report here.