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A country that is scientifically well armed is necessarily also better off against a pandemic. The Swiss Science Council (CSS) is committed to learning the lessons and sharing them with the authorities.
This content was published on January 15, 2021 – 07:00
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Learn more about the author.e | Writing in French
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“We have nothing to do with the Covid task force of the Federal Council,” said the new president of the CSSExternal link Sabine Süsstrunk this Thursday, January 14. She was speaking at an online press briefing to present the institution’s new program until 2023. Since the mid-1960s, the CSS has been the main body responsible for advising the government on matters of training, research and innovation. It is made up of 15 scientists, appointed for 4 years.
Its mission is therefore very different from that of the Covid task force, of which some seventy members were appointed at the start of the pandemic, to advise the authorities in their day-to-day health policy. “On the one hand, we are much smaller. And on the other hand, we are working on the future, on the long term. This pandemic allows us to prepare for the next crisis, to make recommendations to develop scientific skills that will be used in the future ”, explained Sabine Süsstrunk.
Science, economy, society, media … and conflicts
Recommendations… but will they be heard? As we know, the members of the Covid task force often want the authorities to go further in terms of health measures. Does CSS experience similar frustrations? Its new president (she took office on 1is January) has not yet been able to experience it, but she considers it “correct” that not everything the experts recommend is systematically taken into account. “We have a scientific perspective, but there is also an economic perspective, a societal perspective, and politicians must take all these factors into account when deciding”.
Sabine Süsstrunk, computer scientist, is a professor at the Laboratory of Images and Visual Representation at the Federal Polytechnic of Lausanne (EPFL), where she also directs the Institute of Digital Humanities. 2020 EPFL / Alain Herzog
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In an interview at the The New Zurich Times appeared the morning of the press briefing, Sabine Süsstrunk also felt that the coronavirus crisis showed the poor communication skills of some of her peers. “We scientists often communicate with each other, and these debates are absolutely necessary. But our mistake was to hold these debates in public. Citizens are used to the government speaking with one voice, and the Covid task force should have done the same, ”the CSS president told the Zurich daily.
Sabine Süsstrunk also pointed to the responsibility of the media, too quick to jump on any announcement, hypothesis or study available, even if it has not yet been peer reviewed. “We have to realize that we cannot have the same discussion with a journalist as with a colleague. All scientists should take media training, to be aware of what their statements can trigger ”.
Europe: the “super risk”
But it’s not just the Covid. One of the other priorities of the CSS for the years to come is the place of Swiss science, research and innovation on the international scene. In this regard, EU programs such as Horizon Europe have for Sabine Süsstrunk “enormous influence”. Here, Switzerland’s participation is not the responsibility of scientists, but of politicians. We will remember that in 2014, after the acceptance by the people of the SVP’s initiative against so-called “mass” immigration, Brussels briefly excluded Switzerland from these programs.
Even if she is not worried in the short term, the president of the CSS does not deny that our relationship with the EU, not really in good shape lately, carries with it the germ of a “super risk”. Because the excellence of the Swiss scientific center owes a great deal to its international character. If, for example, European students and teachers no longer came, what should our cooperation with Asia and the United States look like? “These are important questions that we must ask ourselves urgently,” warns Sabine Süsstrunk. And the CSS, which “observes current developments with concern” will not fail to ask them.
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