SCIENCE AGAINST POVERTY

“Science against Poverty” Conference under the Spanish Presidency

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The “Science against Poverty” Conference represents the most visible action during the Presidency Term under the Inclusion heading. It aims to convey a clear message to society on the contribution of science and innovation to the fight against poverty and exclusion. In February 2010 the Ministers for Research provided ample support and compromise to advance towards a more responsive science under the Donostia Declaration. The Conference will gather scientific, political and societal stakeholders with the aim of creating a forum for a focused debate on the role science can play in the fight against poverty and exclusion and of suggesting policy recommendations for a more effective design of European and National research and innovation policies. Its conclusions will reach the agenda of the Competitiveness Council of Ministers of the EU on 26 May 2010. The topic of the conference covers multiple facets of knowledge and action: some as urgent as global access to innovative medical technologies and medicines and the fight against the digital gap, but also an understanding of the social dynamics that cause poverty and the mechanisms to create and maintain economically sustainable communities, without overlooking how to involve all the players in this challenge and the promotion of social entrepreneurship. Next to plenary sessions of a more political nature, the Conference will include both thematic sessions (food and nutrition; dynamics of poverty; technological gap; energy; environment and climate change; water and sanitation; health) and cross-disciplinary sessions (stakeholders involvement; education and training; innovative solutions; gender issues; social sciences and poverty; sustainable business). Witin this general objective, the “Science against Poverty” conference will aim to assure political continuation with the Trio Presidencies and beyond, as well as further communication of the conference results to the public.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

The EU's Spanish Presidency launched a conference to determine how science could help diminish poverty. The event's valuable outcomes have already been integrated in the EU's vision for the future.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

There are many high-tech ways that research and development can help alleviate poverty, particularly if policies are designed and fine-tuned to help science programmes combat poverty and exclusion. The EU-funded project 'Science against poverty conference under the Spanish Presidency' (Science Against Poverty) studied the role of socioeconomic sciences to clarify poverty dynamics and propose solutions.

In April 2010, the project team organised a conference on the role of research and innovation in fighting poverty, gathering 230 participants, 40 journalists and 200 live-streaming web visitors. The event tackled poverty-related topics such as food, nutrition, reducing the knowledge gap, water availability, sanitation, health, environment, sustainability, gender and others. Urgent topics discussed also included access to innovative medical technologies and medicines, inequalities in accessing the Internet, and the creation of economically sustainable communities.

The conference results strongly underlined how responsible research and innovation can alleviate poverty. They helped ensure that the European Research Area (ERA) can help meet social objectives, integrating the contributions of citizens and civil society organisations and citizens in research and innovation. Moreover, the conference conclusions were adopted by the Competitiveness Council to represent the social dimension of the ERA in research and innovation.

This was followed by a final project workshop in late 2010 which consolidated the results and disseminated them through the website among other channels. The project highlighted the importance of developing policy guidelines and joining forces to tackle poverty through the ERA. Once the EU's research and innovation agenda adopts this important concept, Europe could serve as a model of poverty alleviation across the globe.