EASAC Council Meeting

IAP featured prominently at the EASAC Council meeting in Sofia on 23-24 November, with Volker ter Meulen, former EASAC President, and Richard Catlow, EASAC Vice-President, as current IAP-Research and IAP-Science Co-Chairs, respectively, and two IAP projects featuring on the agenda.

Tracey Elliott, IAP Project Director for the IAP project “Improving scientific input to global policymaking”, reported progress on this Carnegie-funded initiative, which is endeavouring to raise the profile of the SDGs amongst the academies and wider global science community.  A common misconception is that the SDGs only relate to countries in the developing world and so only apply to projects with an international development dimension: in fact, they are owned by all UN Member States.  Council members heard about the resources being developed under the project to help academies engage on the SDGs, building on the IAP member survey conducted earlier this year.  They undertook to consider the global dimension of EASAC’s future work and cross-reference it more directly to the SDGs in order to reach new audiences.

Robin Fears, Biosciences Programme Director, updated Council members on the IAP interregional project on Food and Nutrition Security and Agriculture (FNSA), highly relevant to SDGs 2 (zero hunger), 4 (good health and well-being) and 12 (responsible consumption and production).  The EASAC report (or European chapter) will be launched shortly; the global synthesis – drawing on AASSA, NASAC and IANAS contributions too - in mid-2018.