This conference is dedicated to the complex relationships between science, policy and private interests in this age of global multicrisis.
What are the roles of scientific evidence and advice and of corporate and non-commercial societal interests in political decision-making? In what ways do unaccountable political-economic actors, interests and assumptions shape political and scientific assumptions about what is possible and what is needed? Under what conditions can existing public problem-definitions, as well as just decisions on them, be made scientifically and democratically legitimate? How should scientific advisors and policy-makers respond to scientific disagreements? And what can responsible scientists do when governments adopt measures intended to shut down or at least control scientific dissent, when it challenges dominant official narratives?
Questions like these will be at the heart of the three days of reflection at this conference. By promoting open debate and reflection, this conference aims to engage with the plurality of perspectives. In this conference we shall examine interactions between politics and science in three areas that clearly differ in the extent of disagreement among scientists, and we will scrutinise the roles of industry and other interests in these areas.