Details

When: 25-26 November 2025
Where: IEA Paris - 17 quai d’Anjou, 75004 Paris
Theme: Policy engagement in sustainable transitions: cases, methods and tools 
Target audience: Researchers, science-for-policy advisors, policymakers – including Eastern European partners

DAY 1: Exploring current SPI processes and models to understand how the Ghent group can provide added value

9.00 – 09.30 : Arrival

9.30 – 10.00
    9.00 : Opening remarks (INRAE) and objectives (lead facilitator)
Icebreaker

10.00 – 11.00 : Keynote on SPI challenges 

• « Evidence-to-policy dilemmas: when science advice principles contradict 'insider' strategies in government », Paul Cairney, Professor of Politics and Public Policy, Division of History, Heritage, and Politics, University of Stirling.
• Keynote talk 20-25' followed by Q&A
• Small groups discussions/focused conversation

11.00 – 11.15 : Coffee break

11.15 – 11.30 : Freestyle brainstorming on challenges/ Energizer

What is preventing scientific evidence to being picked up/used by policy makers?

11.30 – 12.30 : Introduction to some of the current relevant processes at international level

13.30 – 15:30 : Panel
-    EC Community of practice: Overview of the EC’s current work on SPI and the Ghent Group’s potential contributions and engagement with the Community of Practice (Elias Kock, JRC)
-    Mutual Learning Exercises - Perspective of the EC and the Member States involved to present their experiences (Fara Lledo San Mauro, DG RTD)  
-    Montpellier process (Selim Louafi, CIRAD)

Small group discussions on the potential role of the Ghent Group.

Plenary reporting on the discussion results.

12.30 – 14.00 : Lunch

14.00 – 15.15 : Ghent Group as a SPI Actor

• Ghent Group: A vision for a joint initiative at the SPI: how do we continue the work based on survey, and output from this meeting?
• First step visioning exercise
• Second step: How to get there
• Post-it session

15.15-15.30 : Coffee break

15.30-16.30 : Facilitated plenary discussion
Posters displaying actions and obstacles to overcome are placed in the centre

____________________________________________

Day 2: Further developing a common SPI typology, principles, framework and building on our SPI experiences

09.30 – 09:40 : Introduction to Day 2

09.40 – 10.55
Session 1: Bridging Practice and Theory: a common understanding of current SPI models

• Recap from previous years and what was planned in terms of joint initiative of the Ghent group
• Presentation of the survey results: Overview and first analysis of survey results: institutional and case level. 
• Presentation of the highlights/preliminary findings of the Literature review on current SPI models/frameworks
• Small group discussion

10.55 – 11.10 : Coffee break

11.10 – 12.25
Session 2: Bridging Practice and Theory 2: Confronting case studies and SPI models 

Examples from different research institutions/ providers of science advice: Identified case studies from partner organisations 

• The Danish case : Contribution to green tripartite (Anja Skjoldborg Hansen, Lene Hegelund, AU)
• Examples of multi-stakeholder science-policy-society interface projects from Wageningen (Rens Koele, WUR) 
• Healthy and sustainable diets: Multi-stakeholders case which led to policy recommendations (Giampiero Mazzocchi, CREA)
• SecureFOOD : Contributing to evidence-based insights on risks and vulnerabilities in resilience and security of the supply in Finland (Pasi Rikkonen, LUKE)

Discussion with following questions:

• What are the commonalities & differences? 
• What are the lessons learned from these case studies in relation to existing SPI models?
• How could we adapt/improve our SPI guidelines/framework?

12.25 – 13.45 : Lunch

13.45 – 15.00
Session 3 : Bridging Practice and Theory: further elaborating our SPI framework, principles, typology

• Identify key suggestions to further elaborate our SPI framework/guidelines
• Presentation: Learning from surveys among policy makers and researcher focus groups in FoodPathS and FutureFoods (Niels Halberg): How do civil servants in ministries/agencies use research-based advice and how are the governance models used for the SPIs.
• Discussion in a fishbowl format: building on previous discussions, how can we improve our SPI  guidelines/framework/typology?

15.00  –  15.15 : Coffee break

15.15 – 16.45
Session 3 Continued: Co-producing typology of SPI with guidelines, principles and frameworks building on survey and previous Ghent group meetings

• Group work on further elaborating the SPI guidelines/framework
• Group work to explore a diversity of topics from previous session. The discussion topics are not predefined and will emerge from the previous session.

16.45-17.15 : Next steps and closing

• Program's pdf version