Dr. Heide Hackmann to be ICSU Executive Director and Dr. Lucilla Spini, Head of Science Programmes
Heide Hackmann, a social scientist with extensive experience running international research organizations, will be Executive Director of the Council’s Secretariat from March 2015. Lucilla Spini, a biological anthropologist with experience in international science coordination will take on the newly created role of Head of Science Programmes in early January.
Hackmann joins the Council from the International Social Science Council (ISSC), where she has been Executive Director since 2007. During her tenure, she strengthened ISSC’s activity profile, membership base and financial position, and forged strong links with the International Council for Science through key partnerships. These include the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk programme and the Science and Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability, the consortium of international organizations that founded Future Earth, the new global research initiative on global sustainability, and coordinating inputs from the international scientific community on key policy processes at the United Nations.
Hackmann also led the launch of the regular World Social Science Forums and spearheaded the development of a new series of World Social Science Reports. She initiated a new global social science research funding and coordination programme on Transformations to Sustainability, which was launched in March 2014 as a major contribution to Future Earth.
Announcing her appointment, Hackmann said that she felt “excited and grateful for the privilege to head the activities of ICSU, an organization with a long track record of strengthening international research collaboration, and now assuming a leadership role in securing effective collaborations between the sciences and with society in order to address global priority problems.”
Peter Liss will step down as Interim Executive Director of the International Council for Science, when Hackmann takes up her new role on 2 March, 2015.
President of the International Council for Science, Gordon McBean, said: “We are extremely pleased to announce Heide Hackmann’s appointment as Executive Director. During her tenure at ISSC, she has demonstrated her ability to rally scientists from both the natural and social sciences to work together to address some of the biggest challenges facing humanity. ICSU will benefit greatly from her leadership, vision, and ability to build bridges between different disciplines.” He added that the Executive Board was “confident that Hackmann will lead the Council to renewed strength and influence.”
Hackmann was born in South Africa and completed her PhD in Science and Technology studies at the University of Twente, Netherlands in 2003. From then until 2007 she was Head of the Department of International Relations and National Quality Assurance and Director: CO-REACH (an EU-funded multi-lateral initiative for the Coordination of Research between Europe and China) at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
The Council also announced that Dr. Lucilla Spini will take on the newly created post of Head of Science Programmes, starting from 12 January 2015. In this role, she will manage the development and implementation of ICSU’s scientific and science for policy initiatives, as defined in its Strategic Plan. Spini is an Italian national who holds a B.A. in anthropology from New York University, as well as an M.Sc. in human biology and D.Phil. in biological anthropology, both from the University of Oxford. Since 2001, she has worked on science/policy bridging, global environmental change, sustainable development and research coordination for a number of international organizations, including UNESCO, UNU, and the FAO. She is currently a Giorgio Ruffolo Research Fellow in the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Urban Health and Wellbeing office opens in Xiamen, China
Led by the International Council for Science (ICSU), and co-sponsored by the United Nations University and the InterAcademy Medical Panel, the new programme will inform city planning, policies and design with science-based strategies and tactics to improve the health of billions of people living in fast-growing urban areas. It will also identify and help manage the unintended health consequences of urban policy and the connections between cities and planetary change.
The new programme – which will be hosted by the Institute of Urban Environment at Chinese Academy of Sciences - will provide a hub for interdisciplinary scientific knowledge development, exchange and communication. It will support city leaders and managers to make informed policy decisions by providing scientifically based information on the costs and benefits of healthy urban system structures and better urban health. It will build capacity in scientific and other stakeholder communities to learn and apply systems methods and inform urban residents on healthy urban structures and ways to achieve and maintain better health.
The novelty of the programme lies in its systems approach, said Professor Anthony Capon of the United Nations University, calling it "a particularly effective way to understand and manage changing urban environments with profound implications for the way people live, work, learn, move and play, all of which have health implications."
President Gordon McBean, who was present at the opening ceremony on December 9 of the international programme office, noted that the Council is leading on science for policy initiatives in 2015 through several key United Nations processes. “There is an important role for the scientific information on the human health-urban environment connections – to the Sustainable Development Goals, to the post-2015 framework on Disaster Risk reduction. Future Earth is now underway with new efforts to co-design, co-produce and co-deliver knowledge on sustainability and there are scientific connections among IRDR, Future Earth and Urban Health and Well-Being.”
"One of the questions we need to address in this programme is "how many health risks are people willing to take for the benefits that come with urban lives?" Citizens and policymakers need to be able to make that decision and become active agents of urban change. This programme will support them in making these decisions," said Franz Gatzweiler, Executive Director of the programme.
"Human health in urban areas represents a growing concern worldwide but nowhere more so than in China, with recent WHO reports of millions of deaths worldwide each year from urban air pollution. Urgent action is needed to protect and promote health through improved urban planning and design,” said Yong-Guan Zhu, Director-General, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
A two-day expert workshop bringing together around 60 experts was also held in Xiamen this week, hosted by the Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The launch was covered by both the BBC and the Daily Mail (UK).
Note from the editors: Every issue of ICSU Insight highlights a project from the ICSU family. If you think a particular project should be considered for this, please write to .
New video: 2014 Young Scientists' Networking Conference
From 25-31 May, 30 young scientists from across the disciplines met at Villa Vigoni, the German Italian Centre for European Excellence in Menaggio, Italy, to work on their vision for a sustainable economy. In this video, they give an insight into the broad range of their research interests and their ideas for the future. Watch the video on our website.
The call for applications for the 2015 conference, on the topic of 'Future Sustainability - the role of Science in the Sustainable Development Goals' is still open until December 22nd.
Global conference on science advice to governments: final report available
The synthesis report of the first international conference of practitioners and scholars on Science Advice to Governments which took place in Auckland earlier this year is now available from the ICSU website. The conference, which took place in August ahead of ICSU’s General Assembly, was convened by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and hosted by New Zealand’s Chief Science Advisor Sir Peter Gluckman. It brought together some 200 participants including science advisors, senior officials, representatives of national academies, experts and scholars from more than 40 countries across Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, the United States, Canada and Latin America.
Read more.
CFRS supports scientists whose human rights are under threat as a result of scientific activity
The Chair of ICSU's Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science, Leiv K. Sydnes, recently attended a court hearing in Turkey against the scientist Büşra Ersanlı. CFRS had monitored her situation since she was first imprisoned. Ersanlı, a faculty member in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Marmara University in Istanbul, was arrested in October 2011 as part of a crackdown on Kurdish political parties. She was charged with suspected links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Ersanlı was in fact a member of the Assembly of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), and she never advocated violence.
Read more abouther case and CFRS' action.
Junior Science Officer at the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk programme
Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) is a decade-long research programme co-sponsored by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISSC), and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). It is a global, multi-disciplinary approach to dealing with the challenges brought by natural disasters, mitigating their impacts, and improving related policy-making mechanisms.
The International Programme Office of IRDR in Beijing, China, is now recruiting a Junior Science Officer.
Read more about the opening.
Call for contributions to the UN Global Sustainable Development Report 2015
The Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) is a United Nations publication aiming to strengthen the science-policy interface at the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development, which replaced the Commission on Sustainable Development after Rio+20 as the main United Nations platform providing political leadership and guidance on sustainable development issues at the international level.
The call for contributions invites scientists to bring their science issues and solutions to the attention of policymakers and participate in a conversation with them.
The contributions should address an issue, finding, or research with a bearing on sustainable development in its three dimensions – economic, social, and environmental – or the inter-linkages between them. Thus the focus could be on the review of up-to-date findings relating to a particular issue, address the single issue of importance, or present solutions to a problem or challenge. It could also present the 'story' of a research finding that has great policy relevance but is not typically considered in the policy debate. The briefs are to be factual and based on peer-reviewed literature. Contributions from both the natural and social science communities from all disciplines are highly valued and welcomed.
Find more information about the call on the UN Sustainable Development website. The deadline for contributionsisJanuary 20th, 2015.
Peter Liss is the new interim Executive Director of ICSU
Prof. Peter Liss has joined ICSU at the start of October as the Interim Executive Director of ICSU for the next months, until a permanent Executive Director is appointed. Liss is an environmental chemist with research interests in the interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere and their role in global change. He is a Professor in the School of Environmental at the University of East Anglia. Prof. Liss has been Chair of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) of ICSU, Chair of IGBP's SOLAS (Surface Ocean – Lower Atmosphere) project and a member of the Future Earth Transition Team. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of Academia Europaea.
More than 1,000 delegates gather in Geneva for talks on global disaster risk reduction agreement
ICSU took part in the second preparatory session for the Third World Disaster Risk Reduction Conference at the UN in Geneva from Nov 17-18. As the organizing partner of the Science and Technology Major Group, ICSU convened a delegation of more than 20 representatives from Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa drawn from research organizations, ICSU's IRDR programme and ICSU's Regional Offices and partner organizations such as the IAP.
The Science and Technology Major Group made a series of inputs via statements in the technical workshops and co-chairs dialogue on issues ranging from the contribution that science can make in the implementation of the Framework, the links between the post-2015 agenda and DRR and the integration of DRR with financing.
Read more on the activties of ICSU at the Geneva meeting.
Future Earth Engagement Committee announced
Jairam Ramesh will chair the Committee, which will provide leadership and strategic guidance on engaging societal partners with Future Earth, ensuring that Future Earth provides the knowledge society needs.
Read more on the Committee and its members on our website.
ICSU publishes report of External Review Panel
The External Review Panel (ERP) was set up in mid-2013 to review the activities of ICSU which had not been reviewed since 1996. Terms of Reference and a timetable were agreed upon and a series of meetings set in order to deliver this report in good time for the General Assembly in Auckland from 31 August to 3 September, 2014. The full report with the Panel's findings is now available for download.
Landmark scientifc data conference ends with strong support of data sharing for sustainability
SciDataCon2014, the International Conference on Data Sharing and Integration for Global Sustainability, took place on 2–5 November in New Delhi, India. It was motivated by the conviction that the most significant research challenges—and in particular the pressing issues relating to global sustainability in the face of ongoing natural and human-induced changes to the planetary system—cannot be properly addressed without paying attention to issues relating to equitable access to quality-assured and interoperable datasets and their long-term management and preservation.
Read more on the outcomes of the conference.
Call for nominations: ICSU Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science
As a key policy committee, the CFRS safeguards and promotes the Principle of Universality of Science, one of the strategic priority areas of the International Council for Science. Nominations for individuals to serve on this Committee are now invited. With the replacement of about a third of the current membership, 6-8 new members are being sought.
Nominations should be summited using the form available from our website as soon as possible, but no later than Friday, 19 December 2014.
Invitation to ICSU Members to host the CFRS secretariat
The International Council for Science has launched a call to its Members to host the secretariat of the ICSU Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science (CFRS).
As a key ICSU policy committee, CFRS safeguards and promotes the Principle of Universality of Science, one of the strategic priority areas of the International Council for Science. For its core activities, the Committee needs to rely on additional support. Since October 2010, the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) has very generously hosted the CFRS Secretariat.
The International Council for Science has now issued a call to its members to consider hosting the CFRS Secretariat from October 2015 to ensure continuity of CFRS’s work.
Expressions of interest should be submitted no later than Friday, 23 January 2015.
More information on the call and on the activities of CFRS is on our website
Asia Pacific
Urban Health and Wellbeing Systems Thinking Workshop, Xiamen, China
ICSU ROAP and its partners, the Institute of Urban Environment (IUE), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the newly established International Programme Office on Urban Health and Wellbeing is conducting a systems thinking workshop for a team of Chinese researchers on 11 and 12 December 2014, in Xiamen, China where the IUE is located. This will be the last activity organised by ICSU ROAP for 2014. A group at IUE, led by Professor Heqing Shen, is developing an urban air quality and public health pilot project that will adopt the systems approach. The workshop will build on an earlier systems thinking workshop that ICSU ROAP held in Kuala Lumpur in January 2013. The workshop will also introduce the new ICSU-UNU-IAMP International Programme on urban health and wellbeing, with its systems thinking and system dynamics approach, to a wider group of scientists.
Read more about the workshop.
More news from ICSU's Asia-Pacific Regional Office