World Science Forum in Hungary explores relationship between science, politics

The 7th World Science Forum ended in Budapest on Saturday with a plenary session focused on the relationship between science and politics.

"We need to focus on the global challenges triggered by the changes in our world, and with sufficient cooperation we should be able to meet them," Hungarian President Janos Ader, in a keynote speech, told the gathering in Hungary's parliament building.

Regarding climate change, it is science's job to be vocal enough so that the world notices.

"If need be, science has to sound the alarm bells and tell us how to fix the problems. Our future depends on how we see, make others see, and interpret the challenges our planet is facing," he added.

"It is science's job to expose the problems, warn of the dangers and design ways of averting them," Ader said, "while politics is responsible for supporting science, paying attention to what the scientists are telling us, and promoting the resolution of the problems on society-wide level before it is too late."

The gathering was also addressed by UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova, who warned that "we were living in an era of limited resources. We need to do much more with renewable energy and human inventiveness and creativity, which means that science needs to design new solutions."

"Our ability to dialogue with one another and cooperate is greater than ever before, but so are the challenges. Science is the area able to link the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainability, which means we need stronger science that overlaps disciplines and borders alike," she said.

Professor Patrick Cunningham of Trinity College, Dublin, pointed out that governments tended to underfund science, and that politicians tended to see matters in the short term and to want quick fixes.

Abdul Hamid Zakri of Malaysia where he is the prime minister's scientific advisor said that the political world needed to realize that science was the engine of economic advance.

Vladimir Sucha, who heads the European Union's Joint Research Center noted that political decisions had to consider power relations and values as well as facts, while science was limited to facts, only. Science needs to play a role in political decisions from the very start, he said, which is when science has the greatest chance of influencing political decisions.

Gordon McBean, president of the International Council for Science, focused on the role of scientific advisors. Their job, he said, was not to tell the politicians what to do but to point out alternatives and what each entailed. Endit