The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has met with the 22 “scientific advisors” selected to join each of the ministries. His appointment is part of the plan announced after the creation of the National Scientific Advisory Office (ONAC) and its objective is that “the voice of science” is heard at the highest level in the Executive and becomes “another pillar in public decision-making.”
On the list of advisors, which was made public this Tuesday, there are 12 women and 10 men from the world of research, with an average age of 47 years and with previous experience in advising public administrations. Their profiles have been chosen from among the 1,601 applications received by ONAC and they have a solid academic career, skills for scientific advice and a profile appropriate to the specific needs of each ministry.
The candidatures have been evaluated by the Working Group for Scientific Advice to the Government (in which institutions such as COSCE, CRUE, FACME, the Institute of Spain and SOMMa participate) and by a hundred independent experts. The new advisors will have full dedication and will join as level 30 officials, included in group A1, the highest in the administration.
In professional terms, the majority are university professors (5) and professors or senior scientists in public research organizations or equivalent (8), although there are also scientific advisors in the European Commission and other national organizations. As an example, Isabelle Claude Hupont Torres, scientific officer of the Joint Research Center of the European Commission (JRC), joins the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities as an advisor and Andrés Cabrera León, professor at the Andalusian School of Public Health (EASP ), joins the Ministry of Health as a scientific advisor.
“Honest connectors”
According to ONAC sources, these are not “wise men who will whisper in the minister’s ear,” but rather “honest connectors” who know the scientific system and can help gather the available evidence on the matters discussed in the cabinet so that politicians take it into account. The process will be gradual to facilitate a “soft landing”, according to these sources, that will allow connecting two very different worlds such as politics and science.
The objective, ONAC insists, is to pave the way to establish a culture of public policy informed by scientific evidence and to help, in due course, identify the needs to update obsolete or scientifically not updated laws. Following the model established in other countries, an attempt will be made to generate a climate of trust in which those responsible for the administration “are not afraid to ask questions.” stupid” to the scientific advisor and that he “is not expelled by the administration’s antibodies, but is seen as a useful resource.”
The objective, ONAC insists, is to pave the way to establish a culture of public policy informed by scientific evidence.
The plan, which follows the path taken previously by countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand, has an annual budget of two million euros and also foresees, through a call from the FECYT, the creation of teams of visiting researchers in the ministries who will help find solutions to specific challenges in stays of between six and eight months. Likewise, work is being done on the creation of a scientific advisory unit based at the CSIC, with ten professionals who will be in charge of connecting the questions of public administrations with the answers of the academic community.
Anti-science attack
This decision comes in the midst of an offensive by the right and the extreme right towards science, a few hours after the former PP minister Jaime Mayor Oreja defended creationism against the theory of evolution in the Senate. But, above all, weeks after the PP questioned the information of the AEMET technicians and the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) during the DANA in Valencia that left 222 dead, an attack on the technicians that moves in the opposite direction to that of this plan.
Although ONAC was created with a view to continuity by Royal Decree, its managers recognize that the process only guarantees that the minister finds a report with scientific evidence on the table that his cabinet can follow or not, so in subsequent governments it could be a mere decorative figure or the existence of ONAC itself could be reversed by repealing the measure.
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