Ethics advice in science-for-policy ecosystem: filling the gaps
Dr Marija Antanavičiūtė
Policy and Research Fellow at University of Birmingham
Published on March 9th, 2026
Effective science advice both requires and produces complex connections and interdependencies among policymakers, academics, and civil society groups. As noted in Prof. David Budtz Pedersen’s contribution to this blog series, this science-for-policy ecosystem “consists of an interlinked set of institutions, structures, and functions that interact at different levels of governance to provide scientific evidence”.[1] Yet within this ecosystem, certain science-to-policy pathways are deepened and get preference while others remain marginal, thus creating internal hierarchies of expertise.
In moments defined by urgency, uncertainty, and rapid change, perspectives from the social sciences and humanities can easily be de-prioritised. In particular, expertise on ethical issues is not always fully integrated, leaving gaps in understanding of broader implications for justice, liberties, and other foundational values of European liberal democratic societies. For instance, the strategy to ‘follow the science’ that was a basis of public messaging in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic, failed to acknowledge that any policy decision unavoidably entails making value judgements about what matters to society long-term.[2] This oversight may also have negatively impacted how the science underpinning government policies was communicated and, subsequently, public trust in the wider scientific community.
Ethics expertise and advice can make a distinct contribution to policy discussions and help policy and decision makers understand the possible impacts of different policy options. It can help make meaning of wider scientific advancements and make implicit normative assumptions explicit, thus clarifying justifications of policy choices. From pandemic response to climate adaptation, changing military technologies, advancements in neurotechnology, adoption of AI technologies in public services – these issues at their core require both scientific grounding but also good understanding of what is at stake for individuals and communities, what new harms are emerging, and how they will shape the future of our societies.
Ethics advice is particularly relevant in areas where scientific advancements are ongoing, and where the public use and benefits are still indetermined. For instance, in 2021, Ethics Councils from France, Germany and the United Kingdom, published a joint statement on ethical considerations at the centre of genome editing methods.[3] The statement highlighted the potential harms of premature use of these methods in humans and non-humans, such as impacts to human dignity, protection to life and integrity. The French Ethics Council’s report on the issue specifically noted their desire to not unnecessarily stall vital research and scientific innovation but rather find ways to proceed while avoiding new and long-term harms.[4] Ethics advice, thus, is not necessarily restrictive, but rather supports policymakers to navigate scientific developments in a more informed and transparent way.
Similarly, the recent European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies’ (EGE) Opinion on Solar Radiation Modification (SRM)[5], highlights the uncertainties around possible benefits and risks of new and emerging technologies. These uncertainties, states Opinion, call for more flexible regulation mechanisms that develop as the science progresses. The impact of deployment of SRM, while aiming to reduce impact of climate crisis, may cause harms to the global commons, and thus raises ethical issues around democratic control and public accountability. The ethics advice to policymakers can thus help understand the trade-offs between different types of risks. Making these trade-offs explicit can also supports efforts to communicate the inherent uncertainty of scientific practices and the implications of this to policy decisions and regulatory approaches.
Health emergencies, including the Covid-19 pandemic, exposed the lack of ethics advisory infrastructure and limited pathways available to meaningfully integrate ethics expertise into policy decision-making on national and multi-national governance levels.[6] Decisions on issues such as vaccine prioritisation and distribution, lockdown measures, and resource sharing with low-income countries, exposed serious societal and individual impacts that required clear value judgements. In cases where evidence is emerging and scientific research is responding to urgent public crises, where policy developments are in early stages and where many risks are unquantifiable, it becomes even more important to understand ethical challenges faced by individuals and societies.
In the Ethics and Expertise research project we have been looking at how ecosystems of ethics advice are organised and how they can be managed to improve the integration of ethics expertise into decision-making. European countries and institutions have historically played a pivotal role in establishing institutional bioethics infrastructure and ethics advisory bodies.[7] Yet advisory infrastructure vary greatly across European nations – from formalised systems in Germany, and France, to ad-hoc and less formal institutionalisation in the UK. Ethics and Expertise research project suggests that the operative capacities of ethics-policy ecosystem is highly dependent on national bureaucratic cultures, on how the ecosystem interact with the publics, and how advisors and policymakers deal with uncertainty, among other factors.[8]
While the role of ethics advisor has been professionalising over the last four decades, some advisors see direct policy advisory roles as somewhat impacting their neutrality and independence. Our research suggests that ambiguities around role of ethics in policymaking are sticky: ethics challenges in policymaking are still sometimes confused with questions of research ethics or professional ethics.
To strengthen the overall European science-for-policy ecosystem, stakeholders should also consider developing ethics-policy infrastructures. There are various strategies that can be taken up to do so:
Professionalise the role of ethics advisors and advisory committees. Policymakers still rely on pre-existing and sometimes informal relationships and already established communication pathways in times of crisis[9]. Practitioners should therefore aim to go outside the pool of ‘usual suspects’, engage diverse group of ethics experts, develop terms of reference and role descriptions for advisory roles.
Ethics across the policy-cycle. Integration of ethics knowledge into policymaking sometimes comes as an afterthought and damage-control strategy when existing policies or their implementation results in harm. Creating multiple points where ethics impacts can be considered across the policy cycle can support better integration of knowledge.
Training and skills development. The need for ethics literacy training for policymakers to address ethics in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic is well evidenced.[10] Develop ethics capabilities, including on new vocabulary to discuss ethical challenges posed by new technology development and adoption, can further strengthen ethics-policy ecosystem.
Anticipatory activities. Ethics expertise can be further drawn on within anticipatory governance activities. A good example here is the Nuffield Council of Bioethics horizon scanning exercise that allows us to anticipate potential future impacts of scientific advancements.[11]
Prof Ruth Morgan in another contribution to the blog series asks how to address “the messiness of human and physical environments” in a way that upholds urgent policy needs and scientific integrity.[12] Engaging experts who understand how values operate in society, can help manage that messiness. A truly diverse and collective scientific community must also include scientists across multiple disciplines and establish pathways for different types of knowledge — including ethics expertise — to add to the collective intelligence brought to bear for evidence informed policymaking.
In times defined by uncertainty, ethics advice can help articulate what is at stake for democratic societies. This uncertainty can be reframed as an opportunity to deepen democracy and collectively decide on the direction of our collective future and scientific developments. It can open up honest discussions about what trade-offs the publics may need to face and accept.
References
Parker, M (2022). “The challenges of ‘real-time public ethics’: incorporating ethics expertise in public decision-making”, Pandemic Ethics Accelerator, Available at: https://ukpandemicethics.org/blog/michael-parker-the-challenges-of-real-time-public-ethics-incorporating-ethics-expertise-in-public-decision-making/
https://www.ccne-ethique.fr/sites/default/files/2024-03/Avis%20133%20-%20%20def%201702.pdf
European Commission: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Opinion on solar radiation modification – Ethical perspectives, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/951016
Pykett, J., Ball, S., Dingwall, R., Lepenies, R., Sommer, T., Strassheim, H., & Wenzel, L. (2023). Ethical moments and institutional expertise in UK Government COVID-19 pandemic policy responses: where, when and how is ethical advice sought?. Evidence & Policy, 19(2), 236-255.
https://blog.bham.ac.uk/ethics-expertise/2025/08/28/ethics-policy-advisory-ecosystems-part-1-a-potted-history/
Pykett, J., Antanaviciute, M., Ball, S., (2026) “Ethics-policy advisory ecosystems: enhancing operative, discursive and adaptive capacities, Contemporary Social Science (forthcoming). https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2026.2631477
Wilson, J., Hume, J., O'Donovan, C., & Smallman, M. (2024). Providing ethics advice in a pandemic, in theory and in practice: A taxonomy of ethics advice. Bioethics, 38(3), 213-222.
Yeh, Ming-Jui and Lee, Po-Han. Ethical preparedness for health policymaking and implementation during public health emergencies: the role of rapid ethical assessment. Health security, 2023, vol. 21, no 5, p. 371-378.; Brall, C., Gille, F., Schlaufer, C., Porz, R., & Jox, R. J. (2024). “I think all of us should have […] much better training in ethics.” Ethical challenges in policy making during the COVID-19 pandemic: Results from an interview study with Swiss policy makers and scientists. BMC Medical Ethics, 25(1), 129. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-024-01132-x
https://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/the-future/horizon-scan-2024/
https://policylabs.frontiersin.org/content/science-and-science-advice
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