ESEB Policy Committee

Current committee members

Remit and Motivation

Motiv­a­tion
Human health and well-being in the 21^st cen­tury look likely to be defined by soci­et­al chal­lenges that are essen­tially bio­lo­gic­al in nature. Appro­pri­ate polit­ic­al and eco­nom­ic responses to these issues depend on under­stand­ing the effects of cli­mate change and biod­iversity loss on pop­u­la­tions and eco­sys­tems; the emer­gence and spread of nov­el patho­gens; how to encour­age sus­tain­able beha­viour in human soci­et­ies; and the value of genet­ic inform­a­tion in pre­dict­ing mor­bid­it­ies and health­care needs. As well as con­nect­ing evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy and bio­lo­gists with polit­ic­al decision mak­ing, a key role of learned soci­et­ies is also to counter dis­in­form­a­tion, and to pro­mote policy based on evidence.

Many sci­entif­ic organ­isa­tions such as the Roy­al Soci­ety, BES, RSB, SSE, and Biod­ivERsA aspire to inform polit­ic­al dis­course through the gen­er­a­tion of brief­ing notes on key issues. How­ever, they vary in how much they aim to lobby, or influ­ence this debate. Some journ­als also have import­ant roles in link­ing evol­u­tion with soci­et­al issues and decol­on­isa­tion – for example, the “Plants People Plan­et” journ­al, as do organ­isa­tions con­nect­ing research with the pub­lic e.g. Kew Gar­dens, The Nat­ur­al His­tory Museum, the Zoolo­gic­al Soci­ety of Lon­don, and iDiv (Leipzig).

Pro­posed remit of the com­mit­tee
The pro­posed remit of the ESEB Policy Com­mit­tee (PC) will be to:

A. Cre­ate dis­cus­sion and aware­ness of poten­tial policy impact of our research with­in ESEB (this is poten­tially very impact­ful, giv­en many ESEB mem­bers – espe­cially Early Career Research­ers – who may go on to policy dir­ectly)
B. Provide expert opin­ion on key issues such as those out­lined above
C. Dis­sem­in­ate such inform­a­tion to key poli­cy­makers and influ­en­cers through dir­ect engage­ments and media interest.
D. Dir­ect pub­lic fund­ing to key areas and know­ledge gaps iden­ti­fied by these brief­ing notes.

Mem­ber­ship of the com­mit­tee
Com­mit­tee mem­ber­ship will aim for an equal gender mix, inter­na­tion­al rep­res­ent­a­tion, and a diversity of eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al back­grounds. It should con­sist of 4–5 mem­bers (and the chair, as well as anoth­er ESEB coun­cil mem­ber). Pos­i­tions will be on a 3 year basis ini­tially. Mem­bers of the PC will be sug­ges­ted by the PC com­mit­tee as well as by the ESEB coun­cil, and nom­in­a­tion by membership.

Actions of the com­mit­tee
The extent to which the PC will advocate/lobby policy, bey­ond provid­ing expert testi­mony, will depend on ESEB mem­ber­ship and the com­mit­tee. Ini­tially how­ever, the PC will lim­it its remit to the pro­duc­tion and dis­sem­in­a­tion of short “brief­ing notes”, the sub­ject of which will be decided by soli­cit­ing ideas from the ESEB mem­ber­ship (these can be anonym­ous if desired) and choos­ing 1–3 of these ideas each year (with addi­tion­al ideas from the com­mit­tee and the ESEB Exec­ut­ive Com­mit­tee), from which we will pro­duce brief­ing doc­u­ments. These will be cur­rent areas of policy where evol­u­tion­ary bio­logy is key, and which could be poten­tial brief­ing documents.

Examples could include:

1. The scale and rate of cli­mate change and biod­iversity loss and its consequences
2. Sus­tain­able use of biod­iversity and har­vest­ing of wild populations
3. Crop improve­ment (trade-offs and gen­om­ic prediction)
4. Medi­cine (e.g. emer­ging dis­eases, can­cer treat­ment, gen­om­ic medi­cine, stem cell research)
5. Beha­viour change and ration­al­ity, and co-oper­a­tion and con­flict in human soci­et­ies and implic­a­tions for inter­na­tion­al governance
6. The genet­ics of human traits (and the ances­try and ori­gin of alleles cur­rently segreg­at­ing in human genomes)
7. G x E inter­ac­tions and social justice, social mobil­ity and pub­lic and indi­vidu­al health
8. The bio­logy of vac­cin­a­tions and the evol­u­tion of dis­ease resistance.

The pro­duc­tion of brief­ing notes (of the order of one or two per two year cycle) will be over­seen by e.g. postdoc­tor­al research­ers (PDRAs) seek­ing to gain exper­i­ence in cur­at­ing best avail­able inform­a­tion, and in e.g. inter­view­ing key experts with­in the ESEB com­munit­ies, includ­ing those from research groups they are embed­ded in, but also by seek­ing oth­er per­spect­ives, and expert testimonies.

Some fund­ing will be avail­able for this. The notes will be approx­im­ately two pages long, to include a short exec­ut­ive sum­mary, and a box of key know­ledge gaps, giv­en ongo­ing pro­gress, and will include ref­er­ences. Those provid­ing sug­ges­tions will be giv­en first refus­al to write them

Rela­tion­ship to EVOKE and to Pub­lic Engage­ment
Pro­mot­ing the teach­ing of Evol­u­tion on the cur­riculum is not a cent­ral part of the committee’s remit, being bet­ter served by pub­lic engage­ment and out­reach, as well as by EVOKE. The activ­it­ies of the PC should be com­ple­ment­ary to those of EVOKE, in that both com­mit­tees should provide added value. The com­mit­tee will include a rep­res­ent­at­ive of Evoke on the com­mit­tee, to ensure com­ple­ment­ar­ity with their work to pro­mote under­stand­ing of evol­u­tion­ary biology.

Fin­an­cial and admin­is­trat­ive sup­port needed
For PDRAs to over­see the pro­duc­tion of brief­ing notes and for devel­op­ing con­tacts with politi­cians, which is where most of the heavy lift­ing will be needed (in terms of max­im­ising the impact of the brief­ing notes). The com­mit­tee estim­ates that its activ­it­ies each year will cost approx­im­ately 10 K euros per year, to include the cost of pay­ing for ESEB research­er research when writ­ing the brief­ing doc­u­ments, as well as costs of engage­ment with policymakers.

Short term plans
We will aim to have one brief­ing doc­u­ment gen­er­ated before the next ESEB meet­ing (in Bar­celona 2025) – on a sub­ject to be approved by Coun­cil. We hope that sub­sequent top­ics can be sug­ges­ted by mem­bers of ESEB, who will also make import­ant con­tri­bu­tions to the writ­ing of these documents.