The second ESF Science Policy Conference & Assembly was held in Stockholm, Sweden, on 26-28 November 2008, at the kind invitation of the Swedish ESF Member Organisations. The Science Policy Conference had focused on Global challenges and the need for cooperation: Lessons learnt from Global Change.

Generalised lessons learnt from global change research for actions and policy of Member Organisations as main target group
Complemented with lessons from a comparison with, for example, Food, Astronomy and Medicine
Why Global Change? Because it provides an excellent example of a research frontier which can only be advanced through global cooperation and which requires broad collaboration of a wide range of disciplines.

The programme and presentations can be found below (last update: 13 January 2009).

If you wish to obtain further information, please contact:

Mrs.IsabelleVoneschE-Mail: Personal Assistant to the Director of Science and Strategy

Norra Latin, City Conference Centre, Stockholm

PROGRAMME

Wednesday 26 November, 13.00 – 19.00 hrs.

Global challenges and the need for cooperation: Lessons learnt from Global Change

13.00-14.20 Session 1 - Setting the stage - opening of the conference. Chair: Marja Makarow, ESF Chief Executive

	Ian Halliday, ESF President: Opening and welcome on behalf of ESF
	Pär Omling, General Director, Swedish Research Council: Welcome on behalf of the Swedish Member Organisations
PDF	Katarina Bjelke, Director General, Swedish Ministry of Research and Education
PDF & TEXT	Anneli Pauli, Deputy Director General, DG Research, European Commission: The European Research Area and global cooperation

14.20-15.50 Session 2 - Global research cooperation: what are the lessons from global change research? Chair: Kevin Noone Department of Applied Environmental Sciences, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden, Former Executive Director International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme

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Johan Rockström, Executive Director, Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden: Internal requirements of science - integrating results from interdisciplinary science

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Jill Jäger, Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI), Vienna, Austria: Interdisciplinary research on global change: challenges and opportunities

Ian Halliday, (Moderator), ESF President: Discussion Panel: Attracting young researchers - educating the next generation of scientists

Ilona Riipinen, Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Finland
Ulrike Seibt, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France
Luke C. Skinner, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Appy Sluijs, Institute of Environmental Biology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Olga Zolina, Meteorological Institute, Universität Bonn, Germany

15.50-16.20 Coffee Break

16.20-17.20 Session 3 - How to best promote global cooperation? Chair: Lisa Sennerby Forsse, Vice-Chancellor, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala

Bob Corell, Vice President of Programs, The H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment, Washington D.C., United States: (via video link) Organisation, funding and policy context

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Rik Leemans, Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands: Strategy - developing a common strategic vision as a basis for joint action

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Joyeeta Gupta, Professor, Institute for Environmental Studies,Free University Amsterdam and UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, The Netherlands: Global cooperation - addressing the challenges to the developing countries

17.30-18.30 First Series of Parallel Sessions: examples of large scale cooperation

European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA): Harnessing European capacity for a climate grand challenge. Chair: Carlo Alberto Ricci, Chair, European Polar Board (EPB)

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Jean Jouzel, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA-CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, France: European ice core science: the history of EPICA

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Hubertus Fischer, Physikalisches Institut - Klima- und Umweltphysik, University of Bern, Switzerland: The European Project for Ice Coring in Antartica (EPICA): Recent highlights and the value of long-term international collaboration

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Eric Wolff, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom: European ice core science: from EPICA to IPICS and EuroPICS

Challenges for Sustainable Energy. Chair: Reinhart Ceulemans, Chair, ESF Standing Committee for the Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences (LESC)

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John Christensen, UNEP Risoe Centre on Energy, Climate and Systainable Development (URC), Technical University of Denmark, Roskilde, Denmark: Energy and climage change in developing countries - options for European cooperation

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Stenbjörn Styring, Department of Photochemistry and Molecular Science, Uppsala University, Sweden: Making a fuel from solar energy and water - from natural to artificial photosynthesis

Jef Poortmans, IMEC, Louvain, Belgium: An example of large-scale European R&D cooperation in the field of crystalline Si solar cell research: the project Crystal Clear

Humanities/Social Sciences. Chair: Gretty Mirdal, Chair, ESF Standing Committee for the Humanities (SCH)

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Mats Widgren:Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, Sweden: Landscapes, global historical political ecology and the global change debate

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André Costopoulos, Computational Laboratory for Experimental and Agent-Based Research, McGill University, Montreal, Canada: Cross-cultural studies in human responses to rapid climate change in Arctic prehistory

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Miranda Schreurs, Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU), Freie Universität Berlin, Germany: The history and politics of climate change

18.30-19.00 Light Snack & Drinks

Thursday 27 November, 08.30 – 17.15 hrs.

Global challenges and the need for cooperation: Lessons learnt from Global Change

08.30-09.30 Session 4 - What is expected from the research community in meeting the global challenges? Chair: Per Eriksson, Director General, Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA)

	Anders Wijkman, Swedish MEP, Member of the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety: Global perspective
PDF	Frederic Sgard: Staff Member, Global Science Forum of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): Governments and global science cooperation: the OECD Global Science Forum
PDF	Horst Soboll, Former Director, Daimler-Chrysler AG, Germany: What is expected from science by industry in view of global challenges?

09.30-10.00 Session 5 - Science Policy - relation science and society. Chair: Uno Swedin, Director of International Affairs, Swedish Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS) - Department of Applied Environmental Sciences, Stockholm Resilience Centre

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Vice-Chair Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium:(via video link) Facing the Climate Change Challenge: the role of science in further shaping UNFCCC

10.00-11.00 Session 6 - Global Challenges in other fields: Medicine, Food and Astronomy. Chair: Gunnar Öquist, Secretary General. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

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Johan Giesecke, Head, Scientific Advice Unit, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDP), Stockholm, Sweden: Public Health and Medicine

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Catherine Cesarsky, President, International Astronomical Union (IAU) & CEA, France: European and global cooperation in astronomy

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Marion Guillou, President, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), France: Food security

11.00-11.20 Coffee Break

11.20-12.40 Session 7 - The response of research institutions to global research challenges of an interdisciplinary nature. Chair: Helga Nowotny, Vice President, European Research Council

PDF	Geoffrey Boulton, League of European Research Universities (LERU) & University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom: University perspective
PDF	Sten Nilsson, Acting Director, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria: IIASA perspective
PDF	Josef Syka, President, Czech Science Foundation, Prague, Czech Republic: The response in Central and Eastern Europe
PDF	Thomas Lippert, Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Germany: PRACE: Towards a European High-End Supercomputing Infrastructure

12.40-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.00 Second Series of Parallel Sessions

Examples of large scale collaboration in Medicine. Chair: Liselotte Højgaard, Chair, European Medical Research Councils (EMRC)

PDF	Gérard Bréart, Director, Inserm Public Health Institute, Paris, France: Views and experience of Inserm (France)
PDF	Trish Groves, Deputy Editor, British Medical Journal, United Kingdom: Examples of large scale collaboration in Medicine

Food and Food Security and Systems. Chair: Peter Raspor, Vice Chair, COST Food and Agriculture Domain Committee

PDF	Christian Patermann, Former Director, Biotechnology, Agricultural and Food Research Progamme & Former Director, Environment and Sustainable Development Programme, European Commission: Food - past and present challenges - introduction to the topic
PDF	Prem Bindraban, Plant Research International, Wageningen, The Netherlands: Food availability
	Jana Hajslova, Department of Food Chemistry and Analysis, Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague, Czech Republic: Global challenges in food safety

Large scale computing. Chair: Michel Mareschal, Chair, ESF Standing Committee for Physical and Engineering Sciences (PESC)

PDF	Vassilis Pontikis, CEA, Gif-sur-Yvette, France: Report on conclusions and recommendations from the ESF PESC-LESC Forward Look "The Lincei Initiative: from computing to scientific excellence"
	Risto Nieminen, COMP/Laboratory of Physics, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland: Crossing scales and barriers: Europea leads the world in computational nanoscience
PDF	Jean-Christophe Desplat, Irish High Power Computing Centre, Dublin, Ireland: National Initiatives on climate change and weather forecasting

15.15-15.45 Session 8, Part 1: Global challenges & research: Lessons to take home. Chair: Pär Omling, General Director, Swedish Research Council

Panel Discussion moderated by Pär Omling with Heads of ESF Member Organisations and other scientific leaders: Rolf Annerberg, Director General, FORMAS, Sweden; Michal Kleiber, President, Polish Academy of Sciences; Jacqueline Lecourtier, Director General, Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), France; Peter Nijkamp, Presdent, NWO, The Netherlands; Christian Patermann, Former Director, Biotechnology, Agricultural and Food Research Programme and Former Director, Environment and Sustainable Development Programme, European Commission; Nüket Yetis, President, TÜBITAK, Turkey

15.45-16.15 Coffee Break

16.15-16.45 Session 8, Part 2: Global challenges & research: Lessons to take home. Chair: Pär Omling, General Director, Swedish Research Council

16.45-17.15 Closing session. Chair: Marja Makarow, ESF Chief Executive

PDF	John Marks, ESF Director of Science and Strategy: Lessons for the European Science Foundation
	Ian Halliday, ESF President: Closing remarks

18.15-19.45 European Latsis Prize Ceremony: Astrophysics; International Year of Astronomy - Vasa Museum

19.45-20.30 Drinks and Guided Tour – Vasa Museum

20.30 Dinner – Vasa Museum

Friday 28 November, 09.00 – 13.00 hrs.

'Formal' ESF Assembly

Participation at the formal ESF Assembly on Friday 28 November is limited to one representative per ESF Member Organisation, ESF Committee Chairs and statutory observers.

Supported by the Swedish ESF Community: