The quest for evidence: an insider’s view on science and policy in Europe

Jan-Marco Müller BE

European Commission – DG Research and Innovation, Scientific Advice Mechanism Unit

Sunday, 11 September, 13:15 - 14:15
Room: Gustav Mahler I (Saal 3.1)

The setting up of the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) in 2013 and of the European Commission's High-level Group of Scientific Advisors (SAM High-level Group) in 2015 – after having experimented with a single Chief Scientific Advisor function – has put the role of science in European policy-making into the spotlight. At the same time the increasing avalanche of scientific knowledge and interdependency of political challenges has triggered discussions about the future role of traditional scientific advisory bodies, including the Commission's in-house science service, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the European Union Agencies. Having worked as Assistant to the JRC Director-General as well as the former Chief Scientific Advisor Professor Dame Anne Glover, and being now with the Commission's new Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM), the lecturer will put the ongoing debate around the institutional structures of science advice into the wider context of the complexity of European policy-making and the importance of science for better regulation. The lecture will give recommendations on how scientists can enhance the impact of their research on public policies.

Biography
Jan Marco Müller works for the Secretariat of the European Commission's Scientific Advice Mechanism in DG Research and Innovation and is an expert for science advisory structures. Following his studies of Geography, Media Sciences and Spanish, he received a PhD in Geography from the University of Marburg (Germany). From 2000-2004 he served as Assistant to the Scientific Managing Director of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig (Germany). During this time he was instrumental in the foundation of the Partnership for European Environmental Research (PEER), the network of Europe's largest environmental research centres, to which he served as Secretary in the first three years. In 2004 he joined the European Commission as Research Programme and Communications Manager of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability in Ispra (Italy), which was one of the Institutes constituting the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission's in-house science service. In 2007 he left the Commission to work as Head of Business Development & Public Relations at the Headquarters of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) in the UK. In 2009 he returned to the European Commission, continuing his international career at the science-policy interface. He served as Assistant to the Director-General of the Joint Research Centre based at the JRC Headquarters in Brussels until 2012, when he was asked to join the Bureau of European Policy Advisors in order to support the recently appointed Chief Scientific Adviser in her tasks. He accompanied the Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission Professor Dame Anne Glover throughout her tenure, playing a key role in shaping the activities and initiatives of the office.

Jan Marco Müller has fulfilled many honorary assignments, including having served four years on the Scientific and Technical Advisory Board of the French national environmental research centre IRSTEA (formerly known as CEMAGREF) and on the international jury selecting the winners of Colombia's national science awards. 2012 he was selected as a Policy Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) of the University of Cambridge and spent in 2015 a 5-month fellowship with US science policy expert Roger Pielke jr. at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the frame of the EU Fellowship Programme.