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During the Covid-19 pandemic, many governments have resorted to scientific advisory bodies to aid in public health decision-making. What then has been the public's perception of those new structures of scientific advice? In this article, we draw on a survey conducted in November 2020 among a representative sample of the French adult population (n  = 1,004) designed specifically to explore public perceptions of the dedicated Covid-19 Scientific Council created in March 2020 and of scientific advice in general. After only 8 months, three-quarters of French people said they had heard of it, but only a quarter had a positive opinion about its usefulness. Despite the diversity of perceptions of what scientific advice is and should be, it appeared that scientific advice bodies are perceived as useful mainly by a public already largely supportive of the delegation of the management of public life to the government and public institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific advisory boards are frequently established to provide scientific insights and advice to policymakers. Advisory board appointing bodies often state that research excellence and scientific seniority are the main grounds on which advisory board members are selected. Many authors have pointed out that there is more to giving good scientific advice than just being an expert for a specific research field. The aim of this study is to analyse if and how research excellence correlates with the probability of being appointed as a scientific advisory board member. We collected data for scientific advisory boards from both the USA and Germany. We use logit regression models to analyse how research excellence correlates with the probability of appointment to a scientific advisory board. Our results suggest that research excellence is insignificant or even correlates negatively with the probability of being appointed to a scientific advisory board. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific policy advice, and research for such advice, involves making a broad set of choices, for instance on research strategy and on the presentation of results. The issue context approach offers guidelines for individual advisors and advisory bodies (and their designers) to deal with these decisions. It distinguishes types of problems and connects particular strategies to each type. The issue context approach is critically assessed in this paper. Can this approach be of help for responsible scientific advisors and for designers of advisory bodies? We conclude that, for empirical and logical reasons, the issue context approach cannot live up to its promise. This assessment helps to determine the limits of the ambitions of the public administration to make policy-making more scientific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current fish stock assessment process in Europe can be very resource- and time-intensive. The scientists involved require a very particular set of skills, acquired over their career, drawing from biology, ecology, statistics, mathematical modelling, oceanography, fishery policy, and computing. There is a particular focus on producing a single “best” stock assessment model, but as fishery science advances, there are clear needs to address a range of hypotheses and uncertainties, from large-scale issues such as climate change to specific ones, such as high observation error on young hake. Key to our discussion is the use of the assessment for all frameworks to translate hypotheses into models. We propose a change to the current stock assessment procedure, driven by the use of model averaging to address a range of plausible hypotheses, where increased collaboration between the varied disciplines within fishery science will result in more robust advice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Gullestad, P., Aglen, A., Bjordal, Å., Blom, G., Johansen, S., Krog, J., Misund, O. A., and Røttingen, I. 2014. Changing attitudes 1970–2012: evolution of the Norwegian management framework to prevent overfishing and to secure long-term sustainability. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 71: 173–182.Fisheries have been important for livelihood in Norwegian coastal communities for centuries. The development of new fishing technology and increasing fishing capacity posed challenges for the sustainability of the fisheries. The Norwegian spring spawning herring was depleted in the1960s—with dire consequences. This event, and the subsequent efforts to rebuild the stock, was paramount to the gradual development of a coherent Norwegian policy to prevent overfishing and secure long-term sustainability. Nevertheless, overfishing continued during the ensuing transitional decades when a range of new management tools were developed and made effective. Internationally, the extension of the economic zones to 200 nautical miles, and agreement on sharing and management of joint stocks were important elements. At the national level, the development of measures to curb overcapacity, improvement of exploitation patterns through technical regulations, ban on discard and the evolution of procedures for rational decision-making for setting total allowable catches (TACs) on the basis of harvest control rules, were all decisive elements. Another crucial factor was the creation of a whole new profession of fishery inspection. We describe a system of close collaboration between specialists—scientists, fishery managers, and stakeholders—each with a distinct role in building a solid framework to prevent overfishing and secure long-term sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper documents the foundation and work of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO), on the island of Montserrat in the Eastern Caribbean. It describes the co-production of the MVO as the result of a crisis-driven dialogue between scientists and officials. This involved contested understandings of the role of volcano observatories, and the balancing of limited resources within and beyond the observatory. Challenges also arose early on in the MVO’s history within the social context of the science itself as a result of different institutional and cultural framings. Montserrat’s government desperately needed scientific advice, but the high level of uncertainty involved in volcano forecasting combined with conflicts in the different scientific communities involved appeared to threaten the island’s future. In the following years, the institutionalising of volcanological science on Montserrat sought to overcome those early challenges and produce a dialogue that benefited both science and Montserrat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trenkel, V. M., Rochet, M-J., and Mesnil, B. 2007. From model-based prescriptive advice to indicator-based interactive advice. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 64: 768–774. Traditional advice for fisheries management, especially in the ICES world, focuses on short-term stock projections relative to reference points. Primarily, two numbers, spawning-stock biomass and fishing mortality rate, are considered in the advice, although a range of biological processes are included in the stock assessment models. We propose an alternative form of final advice that would not rely on stock predictions and only two numbers, but on a suite of indicators that are combined to provide stock assessment and management advice. For a single stock, the approach consists of monitoring a set of indicators of population state and fishing pressure. Stock reference status at some time in the past is assessed, based on these indicators and/or other available information. Changes in indicator values after this reference time are then estimated, interpreted, and finally combined into a diagnostic that highlights possible causes of the changes observed. After considering management objectives, appropriate management actions can then be proposed. The proposed approach is illustrated for anglerfish stocks in the Celtic Sea and the Bay of Biscay. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reeves, S. A. and Pastoors, M. A. 2007. Evaluating the science behind the management advice for North Sea cod. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 64: 671–678. Since 1974, annual assessments have constituted the core of the scientific advice underpinning management of the North Sea cod stock. Here, we base our evaluation of the assessments' performance on the quality of the advice and on the wider issue of how science is used to produce management advice. At the same time, we consider catch-at-age analyses and catch forecasts in the context of the amount of person-time and expertise available at the relevant working group meetings. The results indicate that, generally, the catch forecasts have been positively biased and that the bias has been driven by three main factors: (i) substantial overestimates of terminal stock size since the late 1990s, (ii) overestimates of incoming recruitment, and (iii) overestimates of growth. Information for other North Sea stocks (haddock, plaice, and sole) suggests that bias is a problem generally, not one unique to cod. Our results include a discussion of ways to use science more effectively in supplying management advice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Penas, E. 2007. The fishery conservation policy of the European Union after 2002: towards long-term sustainability. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 64: 588–595.In December 2002, changes were introduced in the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) as part of a longer-term reform process. Although implementation of these changes is gradual, experience over the past 3 years has already provided some lessons. This paper summarizes the main elements of the reform, describes the progress in their implementation, draws some provisional conclusions, and highlights the main scientific challenges in relation to implementation of the revised CFP. The adaptation of the scientific advice to changing needs, the difficulty of changing the tradition of managing stocks through annual decisions, and the development of a fruitful dialogue among fishers, scientists, and managers are the main challenges still to be resolved to ensure effective implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]