INGSA Global Week of Dialogue

Science Advice & COVID-19: What are we learning?

KEYNOTE: Dr Soumya Swaminathan - WATCH NOW

HIGH LEVEL PANEL: Experts from around the world - WATCH NOW

UN SPECIAL ROUNDTABLE: Science Advice and the UN - WATCH NOW 

REGIONAL PANELS: Asia, Europe, Africa, The Americas - WATCH NOW

“What was done right and what has gone wrong in pandemic responses to date?”

The INGSA Global Week of Dialogue was held in mid-September 2020, and comprised a suite of 8 events catering for every region and across disciplines. The week brought together over 35 science advice experts to begin to identify some of the key early lessons for governments, scientists and policymakers at the critical interfaces between science and policy. 

It was an energising and exciting conversation. Given the complexity of the many issues raised by the pandemic, the Week of Dialogue was unique in providing both High-Level, globally-focused discussion, as well as drilling down to specific regional dialogues that could provide contextual analysis of the challenges faced. 

Below you'll find links to all the sessions and we encourage you to check them out and share them. See each of the links for more information on the panel.

Global High Level Panel

Highly Recommended!

European Satellite Webinar

Science Advice: What Works in a Crisis?

Asia/Oceania Regional Panel

Discussion Panel for Asia/Oceania

European Regional Panel

Discussion Panel for Europe

Background

In February 2020, as the astonishingly global repercussions of COVID-19 were beginning to be understood, INGSA acted decisively to set up a platform to collect, commission and curate material related to science advice on the pandemic, www.ingsa.org/covid. A key part of this platform has been the development of the INGSA Policy-Making Tracker, a unique tool that is helping us to understand the role and pathways of evidence in the various pandemic responses.

Never before have the interfaces between evidence, policy, and society - at which INGSA works - been more visible and more critical. We have seen dramatic, unprecedented shifts in the relationship between societies and science, between politics and evidence, and between society and their governments.

We have seen where pre-existing systems have failed, and where there have been unexpected excelled. COVID-19 has been a whole of humanity stress-test on a scale unlike anything within our global living memory. And lessons of COVID-19 need to be learned as the world faces a wide range of economic, technological and environmental challenges far beyond the coronavirus.

That is why INGSA ran the Global Week of Dialogue across time zones around the world, to start to pick apart some of the strands of what has happened - to shed light on real-time lessons that jurisdictions and the multi-lateral system can draw on to improve their potential for better outcomes in the immediate, medium and long term.

INGSA was proud to be able to convene such a diversity of voices from across the natural and social sciences and policymaking, including Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation, as Keynote for week.

A High-Level Panel will brought together global experts for a discussion that framed the week's debate. Meanwhile, the LIVE Regional panels, had the task of contextualising and deepening the discussion for their regions. INGSA was also excited to be able to convene a special roundtable discussion on Science Advice and the United Nations, as well as providing space for a European Satellite event!