Publications

The risk of wildfires is increasing at an alarming rate in Europe, prompting experts to call for urgent action. The European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) is urging the EU to fundamentally change its wildfire policy: from reactive fire suppression to proactive, risk-based land management. Already today, wildfires burn an average of half a million hectares annually in the EU – nearly twice the size of Luxembourg.

EASAC’s report Changing Wildfires in Europe highlights the complex factors driving the surge in wildfire risk. These include climate change, rural depopulation, and land-use changes. Droughts and declining summer precipitation are predicted to double fire risk by 2100. Meanwhile, the abandonment of farmland and unchecked vegetation growth have created vast areas of highly flammable biomass across Europe.

Growing geopolitical tensions combined with high dependencies on imported fuels, raw materials and technologies, are an increasing threat to European energy security. The weaponising of energy by autocratic regimes through trade disruptions, physical attacks on infrastructure, and growing numbers of cyber-attacks are increasing not only the risk of interruptions to Europe’s energy supplies but also energy prices. High and volatile energy prices are reducing investor confidence, jeopardising the competitiveness of European industries, and driving millions of vulnerable European households into energy poverty. The report emphasises the urgent need to address the growing threats to energy security and explains how this can be done by accelerating the transition to sustainable energy.

Executive Committee of the International Human Rights
Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies (IHRN), are concerned about the
serious challenges facing scientists and researchers in the United States. The
IHRN is an alliance of national honorary scientific societies that defends the
fundamental rights and academic freedom of scientists and scholars worldwide.
We also speak out because scientific research is a common good that transcends
borders and political boundaries.

Recent restrictions on science and scholarship by the new U.S. Administration’s executive orders freezing billions in federal research funding and censoring research on topics such as climate change and gender has prompted ALLEA to respond with this statement calling for our members, partners, and like-minded organisations, and urging national governments and international institutions in the U.S., Europe and beyond to remain vigilant and strengthen ongoing efforts to safeguard academic freedom and the autonomy of scientific institutions.

ALLEA acknowledges the challenges that European and global research collaborations face in an increasingly complex geopolitical environment. Within this shifting landscape, it is crucial to reaffirm the principles of openness, integrity, and freedom of scientific research for a responsible internationalisation. These principles, which form the core of both ALLEA’s mission and scientific progress in general, must be safeguarded even as legitimate concerns on research security are addressed.  

This statement is directed to policymakers, research funders, and academic institutions across Europe and beyond, and serves to inform the ongoing dialogue on research collaboration and security. It aims at contributing to a “European way”, projecting a distinctly European perspective into national and global debates for sustainable and secure partnerships.

A group of leading scientists nominated by academies has provided advice to the
European Commission about solar radiation modification technologies through the
Scientific Advice Mechanism. This advice underscores that solar radiation
modification technologies are not yet mature and deploying them could have
many effects, both intended and unintended.

Human health, animal health, plant health and the health of our environment are deeply connected, forming a single common system. Policymakers need to recognise these connections, and do more to seek optimal outcomes for people, animals, the environment, and the ecosystems that we are all part of, rather than taking a narrow anthropocentric view.

This integrated approach is known as ‘One Health’. There is strong scientific evidence for the connections themselves, and for the benefits of applying a One Health approach to policymaking in all the areas affected, from health systems and food production and safety, to zoonotic diseases, antimicrobial resistance, neglected infectious tropical diseases and the environment.

In a statement published in the context of International Open Access Week 2024, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA) expresses its strong support for Secondary Publication Rights (SPRs), a legal mechanism that allows researchers to freely share publicly funded scholarly articles via institutional or other non-profit repositories. ALLEA, a longtime advocate for equitable Open Access (OA) publishing, welcomes the introduction of SPRs in several European countries and calls for EU-wide harmonisation to standardise these rights and improve their effectiveness.

The Council of Finnish Academies (CoFA) and the Finnish Academy of Technical Sciences (TTA) successfully hosted the annual CAETS conference from July 1 to July 4, 2024. The conference, themed Carbon Neutral Technologies and Society, brought together the world’s leading engineering and technological science academies to discuss the prerequisites and technical solutions for achieving a carbon-neutral society. The conference emphasized the need for systemic thinking and innovative solutions to address new challenges and achieve a just transition to net-zero emissions.