Collective scientific expertise – science serving public action

The Mission for Scientific Expertise (MPES) was set up in 2022 by the CNRS. You took over as director in April 2023 – what have your main missions been since?

Valérie Lallemand-Breitenbach: My predecessor Adeline Nazarenko did the groundwork for this new CNRS Mission and chose to work within a 'collective scientific expertise' format to make critical assessments of scientific knowledge. Since I took up my post, the main challenge for the MPES has been to move on from the ambition conveyed through the four principles set out in the CNRS Institutional Scientific Expertise Charter – namely competence, transparency, independence and impartiality – to putt these principles into practice to guide the work of the experts involved.

With this in mind, we put together a group of experts with a wide range of skills and interests for each project and ensure no conflicts of interest are involved. Our continuous improvement approach means we always sought to identify the obstacles and limitations of each subject to help define a CNRS method that can be used for every area of expertise

We have also worked with the ten CNRS institutes to define future formats and the major upcoming themes. As a result, the MPES will be expanding its service offer to include shorter projects with a more limited timeframe (one year instead of two to three years currently) to align more effectively with the public decision-making process. 

What difference the MPES made to the CNRS's expert assessments compared to those the organisation previously carried out?

V. L-B.: I'd say it has strengthened scientific expertise on three levels. 

The MPES asks scientists from several CNRS institutes to take part so in this way, the Mission's creation helps apply the multidisciplinary strength of the CNRS to major social issues. In return, the MPES enables researchers who work on these expert assessments to showcase knowledge produced by their research and the social issues their work is related to.

There are also implied obligations involved in this institutional dimension. The aims of institutional expertise are to strive for the greatest objectivity through the plurality of the group, and to deliver a systemic and sustainable vision of the issues under study. These objectives are more difficult to achieve through an individual speaking out. 

Finally, the CNRS's arrival in the institutional field of scientific expertise has brought us closer to our counterparts from other research organisations. In fact, the MPES jointly runs an informal club for researchers to exchange best practices and feed into the concept of scientific expertise. 

How do expertise and basic research work together?

V. L-B.: They take opposite approaches. Basic research concentrates on unresolved questions while the aim of scientific expertise is to condense and reconcile existing knowledge. Expertise of this kind involves a shift in position as science becomes an instrument that serves public action. The aim of expertise is to spotlight major conclusions that have been made while identifying gaps and questions that could lead to new research projects. Taking part in a scientific assessment is therefore an opportunity for researchers to get an overview of the basic research subjects required to respond to tomorrow's major challenges. 

What are the next collective expert assessments the CNRS will be presenting?

V. L-B.: There will be three presentation events for expert assessments in 2025.

The first is a report on plastics used in agriculture and food to be presented at the start of spring with a broad scope ranging from properties and uses to impacts on health and the environment. This report features a partnership with the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (Inrae) and was commissioned by the French Ministries of Agriculture and Ecological Transition along with the French Agency for Ecological Transition (Ademe). 

In the final quarter of the year, the report on offshore wind farms commissioned by the French Ministries of Ecological Transition, Energy Transition and the Sea will be presented. This report was conducted in partnership with the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer). The group of scientists involved examined the scientific knowledge available on the effects of offshore wind projects on biodiversity, pressure by pressure. They also looked at the cumulative effects of these wind turbines and how they impact socio-ecosystems that have a feedback effect on biodiversity.

In the meantime, we will present the CNRS's first independent assessment which will deal with rare earths – key materials for the energy transition. We found out that certain analyses studied the issue of these strategic and critical metals from the angle of their stocks, availability and supply. However, no analyses focused on their usages which mainly range from the creation of permanent magnets, for example for marine wind turbines, digital technology (via our touch screens) or medical imaging (MRIs). The state of the art study we have launched aims to examine the responsible use of rare earths and to list publications on the ways of reducing their consumption. These include substitution or sobriety, recycling them and using secondary resources like mining waste – red mud for example – to partially compensate for the continent of Europe's total dependence on China. In fact, the importance of this geopolitical issue is one of the reasons why the CNRS chose to work on this subject.