Science Policy Interface – Improving data for DRR

 15:00h – 16:15h CET
 25 November 2021
 EFDRR Virtual Platform
 Virtual

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented societies and governments with unprecedented  challenges, where well-worn patterns of action have proven to be insufficient. At the same  time the collective experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has provided an unprecedented  opportunity to examine the relationship between science, policy and the wider society,  in what is often called the science-policy-society interface, regarding awareness of the  systemic nature of disaster risks.

The pandemic has shown that the Science–Policy-Interface (SPI) can be different from just  a linear transfer of knowledge from experts to policymakers. The role of science had to be  reformulated from a behind-the-scenes advisory role to being an active social discourse  participant. The scientific community had to use their authority to support imposed  preventative measures and address new challenges such as disinformation. National, sub 
national and supra-national responses have diverged widely, based on different scientific  interpretations and how to address these leading to a more sophisticated view of SPI.

Well-functioning SPI should be dynamic ecosystems of organizational arrangements,  institutionalized processes with access to modern methods of collecting and analyzing  data (such as use of remote sensing, satellites, drones, geographical information systems,  AI big data for DRR), which serve to structure the relationships of diverse actors around  complex policies to address systemic risks.

Informed by the lessons learned from management of the COVID-19 crisis and the  increasing effects of the climate emergency, this session aims to investigate three key  priorities focusing on the science policy interface for disaster risk reduction:

1. How is the SPI efficiently taking shape in formal governmental settings such as panels, advisory committees, national platforms or other institutional structures? Analysis might be done through the presentation of experiences from the European Commission, DG ECHO knowledge network, and Member States.

2. How is the SPI evolving and what are the new tools available to generate evidence based solutions  that are easier to incorporate into  national policies, decisions or investments, with a dedicated focus on climate change? Conversely, what are the new challenges induced by the significant increase of information sources and supports, disinformation, fake news?

3. How can the scientific community support global efforts to reach a new and reliable evidence-based understanding of the dynamic nature of systemic risks, establishing new structures to govern risk in complex, adaptive systems, often in a context of uncertainty?

Speakers

Moderator

Ms. Claire Doole
Moderator and Master of Ceremonies

Panelists

Dr. Tom De Groeve
Deputy Head of the Disaster Risk Management Unit at the European Commission Joint Research Centre

Ms. Beata Janowczyk
Head of Risk Assessment and Emergency Planning Unit, Government Centre for Security, Poland

Dr. Marco Massabo
Programme Director for Capacity Development in Disaster Risk Reduction and Civil Protection of CIMA Research Foundation, Italy

Ms. Virginia Murray
Head of Global Disaster Risk Reduction at UK Health Security Agency, United Kingdom

Mr. Julien Pain
Editor in chief and presenter of the weekly Fact Checking program "Vrai ou Fake", France

Prof. Jorgen Spärf
Associate professor of Sociology at Mid Sweden University, Sweden