With the Académie des Sciences in 2013-2014

PeRFORminG the ROLe OF An eXPeRt AnD ADViSOR

experts committees: to reflect and propose

Thanks to its members, top-level scientists representing all disciplines and fields of research, the Académie des Sciences may

look into any modern issue in which science plays a part. Standing or Ad-Hoc Thematic Committees, indeed, allow members of the

Académie to analyse and review the most recent data and formulate recommendations for action.

Standing Committees most notably constitute the cornerstone of the Académie’s advisory mission. Out of presentations &

debates prepared by members of the Académie, and to which external experts are invited when useful, Reports, Advice Notes or

Recommendations are drafted, proposed to decision makers and made available for consultation to all citizens browsing the website

of the Académie des Sciences.

The missions of such Committees of the Académie des Sciences have been detailed in

One Year with the Académie des Sciences -2012

environmental sciences

The organization of the

Comité des Sciences de l’Environnement [Standing Committee

for Environmental Sciences]

has been revamped in 2013: its three-tier structure (Water-

Food, Climate, Population-Health) has been abandoned in favour of a plenary organization,

around keywords referring to diversified and more precise transversal themes.

The

Comité des Sciences de l’Environnement

has prepared the public session that the

Académie held on the observation of the climate on 16 December 2014 in the prospect of

the 2015 Paris Conference.

Moreover, the

Comité des Sciences de l’Environnement,

which is behind many reports of

the Académie, has reflected on the work achieved in the last two decades and its accuracy

through time. It has thus undertaken a short study on ozone, in order to update the 1993

and 1998 reports (respectively

Ozone troposphérique

[Tropospheric Ozone] and

Ozone

stratosphérique

[Stratospheric Ozone]), whose scientific contents remain solid but which

need an update with the most recent data. Similarly, the

Ozone

sheet of the Livret de

l’environnement [Booklet on the Environment], as all information sheets of this document

intended for teachers, has been revised.

It has also been decided to adopt a renewed and standing reflection on biodiversity, in line with the 1995 report and the recent

position of the Académie on the operating procedures of IPBES, the International Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

- recommending that the governance of such organisms be entrusted to scientists of international reputation. The study shall focus

on the adaptation mechanisms of biodiversity to climate change, and on the limits of these mechanisms. The written document shall

include explanatory sheets, each written by an expert in the relevant theme, and now follow an ecosystemic, rather than species-

oriented, approach.

space research

The

Comité de la recherche spatiale (Standing Committee for Space Research)

has joined up with the

Comité des sciences de

l’environnement

to address a recommendation to the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (French National Centre for Space Studies),

in preparation of its

Séminaire quadriennal de prospective scientifique spatiale

[Quadrennial Seminar of Prospective Studies on Space

Science]

(March 2014). Following a synthetic review of the most pressing problems to solve in the various scientific fields that are

linked to space - meteorology, climate, oceanography, Earth observation, stratosphere, etc. - this recommendation is based on the

observation that allocated resources decrease and, in this context, outlines five proposals on instrumental R&D, micro- and nano-

systems for the flotillas, the future of the sectors that give space research its structure, data-modelling coupling, and international

coordination.