ALLEA 2018 General Assembly Was Held in Sofia

ALLEA 2018 General Assembly Was Held in Sofia

TÜBA President Prof. Ahmet Cevat Acar and TÜBA Vice-President Prof. Ahmet Nuri Yurdusev attended the General Assembly Meeting of the All European Academies (ALLEA) held in Sofia on 16-17 May 2018 hosted by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) and the scientific symposium on Science in Times of Challenged Trust and Expertise under the SAPEA project Shaping European Science Advice: Insights and Experiences.

The General Assembly convenes Academies of Sciences and Humanities from 40 countries across the Council of Europe region. The event program consisted of various parts: scientific symposia, the award ceremony of the All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, as well as the annual business meeting.

At the ALLEA Scientific Symposium entitled “Science in Times of Challenged Trust and Expertise” Keynote speakers addressed questions as “Is there a loss of trust(worthiness) in science and expertise? Are “fake news” and/or the digital transformation of social interactions and information really moving us towards a post-fact era? What can science do about it?”  and other questions at the symposium “Science in Times of Challenged Trust and Expertise” As proponents of evidence-based reasoning, but also as institutions highly affected by this change, the symposium provided academies a platform to debate the challenges they face. This interdisciplinary and pan-European symposium aims at exploring notions of the alleged loss of trust in research and evidence, its underlying causes, questions on how valid knowledge can and should be acquired and communicated, and how different academic disciplines are dealing with it.

At a ceremony on May 16th, Bulgarian commissioner Mariya Gabriel confered the prestigious Madame de Staël Prize 2018 which is annually awarded by ALLEA for contributions to Europe’s cultural values ​​and to the idea of ​​European integration. Laureate of the 2018 award is Professor Andrea Pető of the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.

On May 17th, How has science advice been re-imagined at the European level? The experiences and insights of SAPEA and the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism was discussed with practical examples and lessons learned from the most recent experiences. A wide range of different national perspectives on science advice systems was examined. This was followed by discussions of recent examples of scientific advice that have been produced by the European Commission’s High Level Group of Scientific Advisors, in collaboration with SAPEA. The event provided the opportunity to engage with recent developments in scientific advice in general, as well as developments resulting from specific recent examples.

Prof. Acar and Prof. Yurdusev visited Hasan Ulusoy, the Ambassador of Sofia, after the program which ended with a tour to Plovdiv, the 2019 European Capital of Culture.

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