The Policy Lunchbox network was today joined by Sirini Withana, Policy Analyst at the Institute of European Environmental Policy. Sirini led a fascinating discussion to explain the structures and processes of policy-making in the European Union. The EU has grown from a loose organisation of six Member States in the 1950’s, established to deal with economic issues, to a coalition of 27 Member States which now generates over 80% of the UK’s environmental policies.

Sirini began by outlining the three main structures of the European Union: the European Commission; the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.

The European Commission
The European Commission is essentially the ‘civil service’ of the EU, politically independent and in charge of initiating European community policy. The Commission comprises the ‘College of Commissioners’ and ‘Commission’s Services’. Within the College each Member State is represented by one Commissioner, appointed for a five-year term. The UK Commissioner is Lady Catherine Ashton, also HIgh Representative of Foreign Affairs. The Commission’s Services is the permanent apolitical administration for the the Commission, charged with preparing policy proposals. The Commission’s Services is organised into Directorates, such as DG Environment and DG Research. Within DG Research, the Joint Research Centre provides scientific and technical advice to the Directorates.

The European Parliament
The European Parliament meanwhile is composed of 736 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), directly elected by the electorate in Member States. Of these, 72 MEPs are from the UK. Each MEP has a five-year term of office. MEPs organise themselves into political groups within the Parliament, of which there are currently seven, with the European People’s Party (EPP), a centre-right group, currently the largest and most powerful.

The European Parliament shares the power to make laws and control over the EU budget with the Council of the European Union.

Legislation proceeds through the work of specialist Parliamentary Committees, of which there are 20. Once a proposal has been put forward by the Commission, a lead Committee is identified to take this forward, with an MEP from this Committee appointed to act as a ‘rapporteur’, leading the work on this area of legislation by the Committee. Once the Committee has considered the proposal and collated information a report will be presented and voted on at a plenary session of all MEPs.

The Council of the European Union
As already mentioned above, the Council of the European Union passes legislation and has control of the EU budget, jointly with the European Parliament. The Council meets in nine different ‘formations’, one of which is the ‘European Council’, which represents Member States’ interests and comprises the Heads of State of each EU member country. The current (first) President of the European Council is Herman Van Rompuy. The Presidency (Chair) of the other eight ‘formations’ of the Council of the European Union rotates between Member States, once every six months.

Decision-Making: European Parliament and Council of the European Union
Decision-making usually occurs via a process of ‘Ordinary Legislative Procedure’. The European Commission tables a proposal which is then allocated to one of the nine ‘formations’ of the Council of the European Union. The Parliament and Council then take it in turns to consider the proposal and issue a formal opinion upon it. If both bodies disagree at this stage, a ’second reading’ of the proposal takes place. If there is still no agreement after this stage a ‘Concilliation Committee’ is formed. If after the process of Concilliation the two parties still do not agree the proposal is dropped.

The UK feeds into this process through the UK Permanent Representation to the EU (UKRep), which receives its negotiating mandate from the UK Government.

Following this very useful overview, Sirini offered a few tips for how best to influence policy-making in the EU:

- Keep track of upcoming developments: review the annual strategy and work programme for the EU, one launched in March and the other in the autumn each year;
- Influence the development of proposals: identify the desk officer working on a particular proposal and engage with them; respond to open consultations;
- Exercise influence during the legislative process: engage with the rapporteur (MEP) leading the development of legislation for a particular Parliamentary Committee and engage too with other MEPs on that Committee. Many will not be specialists in the area they are reviewing and will welcome input;
- Influence the UK Government, thereby influencing the negotiating position put forward by UKRep.

Overall, Sirini encouraged us to ’stay ahead of the game’, influencing policy at the earliest opportunity. Identifying and building relationships with key people in Brussels, including through receptions and events, is important, as is providing clear, concise and evidence-based input. Being clear about the steps in the EU decision-making process will help organisations to target their input in the most effective way.

Policy Lunchbox is a network for policy professionals maintained by the Biochemical Society and British Ecological Society. For details of forthcoming events please see the Policy Lunchbox webpage on the Biochemical Society website.

The BES Policy Team this afternoon attended a meeting of Education Policy Lunchbox, a new network for those working in education policy which has arisen from the successful Policy Lunchbox series of meetings. Policy Lunchbox and Education Policy Lunchbox are organised by the British Ecological Society and Biochemical Society.

Hannah Baker, Education Policy Team at the Wellcome Trust, delivered a presentation on ‘Science Education for the Future’, the topic of a new report being prepared by the Trust and due out in June. The report will take a holistic view across the science education sector, to age 19, examining the curriculum, qualifications, assessment, continuing professional development and teacher training, amongst other matters. Attendees, from a variety of organisations across the education sector, were invited to provide comments and feedback on initial plans; full consultation with stakeholders will take place after the report is launched.

Questions raised in discussion covered how the sector could define what a scientifically literate population would comprise; educating young people to understand not only scientific concepts but to see science as a cultural activity and to understand how science works; and a possible tension between engendering scientific literacy and teaching the scientists and engineers of the future. A main issue for the Wellcome Trust, Hannah suggested, was whether students pursuing current educational routes were emerging with the right skills, demanded by employers. Are the routes through a science education at present what society ideally needs or should there be amendments to these?

The Wellcome Trust is also interested in improving science education research: What are the priorities for science education research in the short and medium term? How can we gain a stronger evidence base than currently, building on this to improve science education? These and other questions around improving the interface between science education research, policy and practice will be explored in the final report.

One very interesting point to emerge from discussion concerned the Wellcome Monitor, the results of the third round of which were published last week. This longitudinal study aims to analyse changing public attitudes to science and is published every three years. The most recent results imply that the notion that students find school science ‘boring’ is outdated; in fact, young people are interested and engaged with school science. Attendees expressed suprise at the findings, but colleagues from the Wellcome Trust attested to the reliability of the data on which the findings are based, with the Trust checking and re-checking the robustness of the methods and analysis. This positive message concluded an interesting and wide-ranging session.

The next Education Policy Lunchbox will be held on 20th April. More information is available from the Biochemical Society’s website.

Science policy professionals met on Wednesday 3 March for a ‘Policy Lunchbox’ Seminar organised by the Biochemical Society and British Ecological Society. This seminar in the Policy Lunchbox series was led by Jane Butcher, Deputy Director, UK Resource Centre (UKRC) for Women in SET, on the topic of ‘Women in science: a policy perspective’. Jane’s presentation stressed the importance of maintaining the presence of the issues facing women in science on the agenda of the next Government, and how working collaboratively this might be achieved.

The vision of UKRC is that “by 2030 we will have an environment in UK Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) employment, research and policy making, in which women contribute to, participate in and share the benefit equally to their male counterparts”. The UKRC has recently published its Annual Review summarising its work and achievements over the past 18 months, including responding to consultations, providing briefings to parliamentarians and contributing to numerous policy initiatives.

This policy environment is highly complex: stereotyping and unconscious bias is brought about and reinforced by the employment life cycle. This includes inputs from society, education and employment policies and environments and life styles. Given this complexity, it is important to UKRC that encouragement of women in science is not just done from an early careers perspective, but looking towards the long term sustainability of increased numbers of women in SET – which includes the retention of those already employed in the sector.

The UKRC has six messages to the Government that would be crucial for building on the current momentum for change:
1. Leadership and top level support for change
2. Attracting and retaining women and girls to study STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths)
3. Making the most of the talents of UK’s trained and qualified people to build the workforce.
4. Make SET learning and employment free from gender stereotyping
5. Take measures to make equality in SET happen
6. Support and fund the UKRC in its work, and strengthen its role in leading, providing services, influencing and innovating.

Jane led the discussion on how these goals might be achieved, sharing the ways in which the UKRC is working towards them. The advantages of targets for the numbers of women in SET versus quotas were considered: although rigid quotas have been seen to work in Norway, for the moment they are seen to be unpalatable and supported targets may be more pragmatic.

The role that professional bodies and learned societies might play in supporting the adult careers strategy was discussed: UKRC view professional bodies as key stakeholders, who act as influencers, leaders and champions for the equality agenda. Yet at the same time, Jane mentioned that it was tricky to get these organisations to look reflexively at their own working environment and to what extent they implement equality policies. Jane discussed the idea that some organisations don’t know how to implement these policies and shared some of the initiatives that UKRC are engaged with. This includes the SPIDER (STEM Professional Institutions Diversity and Equality Resources project) network and incentives such as the SET Fair Standard, which recognises good practice. The group discussed how their own organisations had engaged with these policies, discussing the values of initiatives such as job shares and the value of encouraging a wider working environment that valued flexibility to both men and women.

Integrating science, education, employment and gender policies is at times difficult to reconcile coherently. It was agreed that it is sometimes difficult or felt as inappropriate to raise gender concerns in wider policy areas. Jane gave the example of the Research Excellence Framework as an example of why it was important to push the gender issue: the proposed system pushes more emphasis to impact and mobility, which could inadvertently disadvantage women. At the same time, the UKRC felt that more emphasis on the work environment in the funding assessment criteria would provide an incentive for higher education institutions in incorporate equality policy into their employment practices. It was argued that with key policy papers such as higher ambitions and innovation nation largely ignoring gender equality issues, it was all the more important to proactively introduce these issues to the agenda, rather than waiting to respond.

Collaboration could be one way to achieve sustainable change. This would also solve the issue of reconciling gender policy in science with the wider agenda. Furthermore, the Government needs to encourage coherence between the legislation and stakeholders, as well as the disparate Government departments responsible for science and gender policies. The group agreed that a figurehead within Government might be useful to champion change, bringing together other interested individuals within Parliament e.g. All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in Science.

Policy Lunchbox is an informal network of individuals working in science policy. The next meeting, ‘Science Policy in Europe‘ is on Wednesday 27th April.

Join the Policy Lunchbox mailing list.

The BES believes that better retention of women in ecology will lead to the creation of a more diverse, stimulating and talented research community, in an inclusive and positive working environment. Find out more about the Society’s mentoring scheme for women in ecology.

The Policy Lunchbox network was this afternoon joined by Matt James, Associate Director of BioCentre, a British think-tank focusing on emerging technologies and their ethical, social and political implications. Matt delivered a fascinating presentation, introducing the work of BioCentre before focusing on ‘NBIC’; Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science, and what these emerging technologies might mean for human existence in the future.

The Centre was originally established in 1984 in response to public concern over fresh challenges to ethics and policy resulting from emerging technologies. BioCentre is a cross disciplinary network of scientists, physicians, ethicists, lawyers, researchers and others, who share a common concern that, in welcoming new developments in technology, the dignity of the individual and the uniqueness of human nature is asserted from a UK, European and global perspective. The philosophy of BioCentre was summed up by Matt as wanting to see technologies contribute to a ‘hyper human’ future. He distinguished this from another school of thought in bioethics, that the exponential growth in technologies will lead to a ‘trans-human’ future by 2045: that man and machine will become one. Instead, BioCentre promote the idea that technologies can help to maximise human life, bringing tremendous advantages and benefits.

Of the discussion points raised during the presentation, two had probably the most relevance to ecology: the development of nanotechnology and synthetic biology. The consequences of the release of nanoparticles into the environment are poorly known. A growing number of laundry products and items of clothing now incorporate nano-silver as a microbicide to enhance cleaning but the implications of the introduction of this material into water courses are poorly understood, for example. Synthetic biology – at its most extreme the creation of new organisms in the laboratory – could have tremendous implications for ecosystems. Matt characterised these as creating new life for “bio terror and bio error”; what happens if these life forms are released into the environment maliciously or otherwise?

Although many of the developments highlighted by Matt seem to belong to the realms of science fiction he assured us that these were, or were likely to become, science fact, raising key questions for ethicists to answer. As robots are developed and become increasingly more sophisticated will society need a robot ethic, governing how robots are treated and how humans interact with them? Debates will rage over whether we want to have an ‘off switch’ for our robot companions or whether we wish to see them interact with us as other humans would, without these controls. The development of ‘e-carers’ in Japan, substituting for absent family members, may raise such issues, for example.

A key area of controversy, featuring heavily in the media last year, is the development of cognitive-enhancing drugs. Ritalin is one such drug, being used to treat the 4 – 10% of the world’s children who suffer with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Ritalin is also the most stolen drug from those prescribed it amongst students however, used to boost the performance of scholars at universities. Interesting questions are raised for both children and adults: when does the use of this and other cognitive enhancing drugs in children move from being a helpful medication to a form of social control? What are the implications for society if students, shift-workers, soldiers and others who might use these drugs to stay alert and active for longer increasingly depend on them; will we move to a ‘24/7 society’ and what might this mean?

Overall, this was a fascinating and wide-ranging presentation and discussion session which gave many of those present the opportunity to consider issues outside of our usual realm of experience. BioCentre works closely with the Horizon Scanning Centre within the Government’s Foresight programme, alerting policy-makers to these emerging issues. Engaging the wider policy community and society at large with these developments will take time but is an essential step in ensuring debate and proper consideration of their ethical implications, and steps which may need to be taken to regulate their use.

Policy Lunchbox is a joint initiative between the Biochemical Society and the British Ecological Society. Throughout the year, a series of lunchtime events are held which bring together guest speakers with those who work in science policy. Our next event will be on Wednesday 3rd March, where we will be joined by Annette Williams, Director of the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology.

From the success of the British Ecological Society and Biochemical Society-run Policy Lunchbox network comes ‘Education Policy Lunchbox’, a new initiative for 2010 run jointly by the BES, Biochemical Society and Society for Experimental Biology. As with Policy Lunchbox, there will be a series of lunchtime events through the course of next year, bringing together speakers and those with an interest in education policy to discuss issues of common interest and concern. The events are free, with lunch provided, but registration is necessary as places are limited.

The first speaker of 2010 will be Ros Mist, Manager of SCORE (Science Community Representing Education), on 16 February, discussing the role of SCORE and how people can get involved. For more information see the Policy Lunchbox page on the BES website.

The Policy Lunchbox network was today joined by Phil Willis MP, Chair of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, for a wide-ranging discussion on ‘Putting science and engineering at the heart of government policy’. In welcoming Mr Willis to the event, Chris Kirk, Chief Executive of the Biochemical Society, hailed him as a friend to science and for his role as chair of the Committee, and its earlier iterations which have all played a fundamentally important role in scrutinising the use of science across government.

Mr Willis led those attending through the former Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Select Committee (of which Mr Willis was also Chair) report, ‘Putting Science and Engineering at the Heart of Government Policy-Making‘. That government should have good evidence to support its policies had been the central theme of the reports of the previous House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, the IUSS Committee which followed it and would continue to be the guiding principle of the reconstituted Science and Technology Committee.

The IUSS Select Committee had stressed the importance of independent scientific advice to government, with which government had agreed. Yet, within months, the Home Secretary dismissed Professor David Nutt as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs because he had criticised government policy as not being evidence -based. Mr Willis said that the Committee had decided not to dwell on past events but had instead decided to focus on the lessons which could be learned for the future. The Science and Technology Committee has asked for comments on the Principles on the Treatment of Independent Scientific Advice, developed by Lord Rees, Sense about Science and others in the scientific community, by today, and will make recommendations to Lord Drayson, Science Minister, based on these.

Over the past ten years, Mr Willis said, the government has made tremendous steps to use evidence as the basis of policy, driven largely by the excellent work of Professor Lord Robert May, Professor Sir David King and now, Professor John Beddington, as Government Chief Scientific Advisor. Yet, more can still be done. How do we ensure that the incoming government of spring 2010 continues to use scientific methodology and engineering in both policy-making and evaluation? Many of those currently championing science in parliament are to step down at the next election, including Mr Willis. Stressing the importance of engaging with new parliamentarians, Mr Willis highlighted the role that learned societies, industry and academia could play in this process; organising visits to scientific facilities, organising one-to-one meetings with MPs and offering briefings. You don’t have to be a scientist to support science and promote research, Mr Willis said; if you demonstrate an interest in politicians they will show an interest in your area.

Much more could also be done within the civil-service to promote science and to use the qualifications of those scientists working in government. It is encouraging that Professor John Beddington is taking the lead here, bringing scientifically qualified civil-servants together at a conference in January to consider how their training could be better utilised.

Mr Willis stressed the difficulty for policy-makers posed by the lack of a single unifed voice for the biological sciences. Although the formation of the Society of Biology goes some way towards rectifying this, Mr Willis urged learned societies and organisations represented at Policy Lunchbox to work together more closely to ensure that policy based on sound scientific evidence remains a priority following the next election.

Policy Lunchbox is a network for policy officers and others engaged in science policy. It is maintained and run by the Biochemical Society and the British Ecological Society, with meetings on the first Wednesday of each month. For details of forthcoming events see the Biochemical Society’s website.

At today’s Policy Lunchbox meeting we were fortunate to be joined by Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, inaugural President of the Society of Biology. Over the course of the hour Professor Rothwell provided brief background information on the formation of the Society of Biology, officially incorporated on 1 October this year, and a vision for how the organisation might develop.

Over the course of the following year the Society will consult with members, both individual and organisational, to seek their views on its strategy and business plan. The Society will also seeks ways to engage more closely with member organisations, strengthen its regional base and explore new categories of membership. Professor Rothwell stated that science policy would be a major priority for the new organisation, which would aim to take a proactive stance, rather than the reactivity which had somewhat characterised the Biosciences Federation and Institute of Biology in the past. The Society would draw upon the expertise of member organisations in order to develop a strong policy voice for the biosciences. Public engagement and engagement in Europe and internationally would also be a focus.

The Society of Biology’s strategic aims are:

- to represent the biological sciences in public affairs
- to provide educational and outreach activities
- to develop effective communications
- to engage with the membership
- to ensure financial viability

The Society will be governed by a Council, made up of members from two ‘colleges’: the organisational college and the individual college. Each will elect and Chair and a number of representatives, who will sit on Council. For the organisation to reach a decision and move forward on a point, both colleges must agree.

Two main Committees will drive the work of the organisation; the Education, Training and Policy Committee and the Membership, Marketing and Communications Committee. The Society will co-opt members from amongst its 80,000 (made up of individual members or constituents of member organisations) to working groups, which will report to the Committees.

The new Chief Executive of the Society of Biology, Dr Mark Downs, will take up his post on 1 November, coming from a diverse background in academia, government and private sectors.

Professor Rothwell’s presentation was extremely useful in allowing the SOB’s member organisations, such as the BES, to see how they might work with the Society to help it in delivering its aims. At least initially the work of the SOB will depend on member organisations coming together, through working groups and other means, to assist it. Over time it is hoped that the Society of Biology can become the strong force and voice needed by the biosciences.

Policy Lunchbox is a network of policy officers from across the sciences which meets on the first Wednesday of each month. The next meeting, ‘The role of science in humanitarian aims’ will take place at the Biochemical Society, London, on 4 November. For more information please contact Policy@BritishEcologicalSociety.org or Rebecca.Smith@biochemistry.org