In late February, GAP2 held a workshop in Brussels, examining how the appropriate scientific knowledge base for regionalization of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) could be refined and mobilized across the EU. Fishers, scientists and policy-makers contributed to the interactive session. Read about the workshop in more detail here.
Read on for our interview with policy maker Philippe Galiay.
Introduction
My name is Philippe Galiay and I work at the European Commission in the unit in charge of the relationship between science and scientists in DG Research and Innovation. We manage a small but significant part of the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation named ‘Science with and for Society’ with a budget of 462.2 million Euros from 2014 to 2020.
As a ‘policy-maker’, what do you feel are the major challenges in developing a ‘co-produced and shared’ knowledge base for regionalized fisheries management?
As you say I am a ‘policy maker’ indeed, but a policy maker dealing with Research and Innovation, not with ‘Fisheries’. I am therefore interested in the way scientific knowledge is generated, how it is used and what its impacts on society are.
‘Fisheries’ have been for us one of several governance case studies. Our aim was to better understand the role of scientific advice in such a complex situation. We started in 2005 with a project named SAFMAMS (Scientific Advice for Fisheries Management at Multiple Scale) under FP6. Doug Wilson from ICES, who unfortunately passed away recently, was a fantastic coordinator for this project. We have built on the results of this project to advance the knowledge in the field of research and innovation governance. We have then opened other calls under FP7 to progress further and funded GAP1 (now over) and GAP2 (still running). The projects that we have been funding are all pointing in the direction of a deficit of links between different types of stakeholders in complex situations. The real challenge is to reconnect these stakeholders and make them work together.
Why do you think its important to overcome these challenges?
This reconnection between stakeholders is important because it enables an appropriation of the issues and of the knowledge produced by all the stakeholders. This is mainly the reason why we went from supporting a project like SAFMAMS, i.e. shaping scientific advice on scientific basis and feeding this advice into a multilevel governance setting, to projects like GAP1 and GAP2 that insist much more on the co-creation process leading to solutions fit for hyper-complex environments. Projects such as GAP1 and GAP2 enable different people with different values and interests to work together. This is the most important thing.
What do you think is the single most effective development which could progress this agenda?
The most effective development which can progress this agenda is the introduction into Horizon 2020 of the notion of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’. This is a cross-cutting issue in Horizon 2020, meaning that it should apply in every part of Horizon 2020 and notably in the resolution of the societal challenges, i.e. Part III of Horizon 2020. ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ means that societal actors work together in order to deliver the most effective and efficient solutions from a societal point of view.
Being responsible here means that everybody takes care of the results of their own actions and of their impacts on society and the environment. This implies the possibility for all stakeholders involved in an issue (including citizens and civil society organisations) to take part in research and innovation, without distinction of age or gender. Notably, it means to ensure the respect of fundamental ethical values, and the possibility to easily access the results of previous research. It means therefore that the governance setting is conducive to this co-creation process.
Our line ‘Science with and for Society’ will go on supporting projects enabling us to better understand the interface between science and society and to further promote what is considered good practices. But it will be up to other parts of Horizon 2020 to go deeper into the specificities of given situations. What we have started with GAP1 and GAP2 can be pursued by mobilising stakeholders on a broader level. What we have started with this case study on fisheries can be taken up by other parts of Horizon 2020 dealing with transportation systems, or food, or health, etc. ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ is simply a new way of doing research and innovation! Just more responsibly…
