Integrity in Science Advice – Why Values Matter as Much as Evidence

In this workshop, led by Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA) and co-organised with All European Academies (ALLEA) and MTA, she argued that integrity is not just a professional virtue, but a condition of possibility for science to play a constructive role in society.

“At its core, integrity means wholeness, consistency and trustworthiness,” she began. In research, integrity has long been tied to honesty, transparency, objectivity and accountability – principles championed by initiatives such as the ALLEA European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, which has become a touchstone for good scientific practice in Europe and beyond. Yet when these ideas are applied to policy advice, their meaning becomes more intricate and, arguably, more essential.

Barbara Prainsack Photo: mta.hu

For Professor Prainsack, integrity in science advice depends on several factors – transparency about uncertainties and assumptions, independence from vested interests, and inclusiveness across disciplines and perspectives. She pointed to a 2019 SAPEA report which highlights that good policy should be “evidence-based and evidence-informed” and not narrowly confined to data alone.

It is increasingly acknowledged, she noted, that values play a role in science. The key challenge lies not in the facts themselves but in the values that policies prioritise.

“Many policy conflicts, if not most, are conflicts not over facts, but disagreements on values.”

She illustrated this with motorway speed limits: while science can measure emissions or injury reductions, opponents often see limits as infringements on freedom. Such debates, she said, show that “the challenge for evidence-informed policymaking is often not a lack of evidence but a disagreement on what the main goal of the policy should be,” adding that policymakers need to be open and transparent about the values the different policies support rather than present policies as value-neutral.

Over the past decade, European science advice has become more structured and transparent through the Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM), the work of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, currently chaired by Prainsack herself, and networks such as SAPEA. These frameworks have strengthened the way evidence informs decision-making. Yet, she warned, “integrity in science is under pressure” from technological change, politicisation and the erosion of democratic norms.

One of the most pressing challenges, she said, is artificial intelligence. AI tools are transforming how research data are generated, analysed and communicated. “On the one hand, AI tools can enhance science by helping us to identify patterns across large data sets, simulate scenarios, and so on. At the same time, AI also raises questions of integrity, most importantly, who controls the algorithms, questions about equity and bias.”

Beyond these concerns, Prainsack warned of a quieter danger: deskilling.

“The more policy and, also, science are relying on privately owned technologies, the more we are all giving up control: we are deskilling ourselves.”

This loss of capacity, she argued, happens not only at individual or institutional levels but “at some point, also democracy as a whole. When core capabilities of evaluation, modelling and interpretation are outsourced to machines, we lose the ability to interrogate underlying assumptions or to detect hidden biases and problems. We are then, if this happens, turned into consumers of technological outputs, rather than critical mediators between evidence and policy.” Integrity in this context requires transparency and accountability, but also deliberate efforts to sustain human judgement, methodological pluralism and independent expertise.

Integrity in science advice, Professor Prainsack continued, is inseparable from democratic values such as transparency, equity, diversity and the protection of rights and freedoms. These values are not only ethical imperatives – they improve the quality and legitimacy of science advice itself. Equity ensures that policies serve all affected groups rather than reinforcing disparities. Diversity of expertise helps prevent blind spots. And freedoms of thought and expression safeguard the independence of advisors.

“Being a democracy means more than running regular elections,” she told the audience. “Strong democracies enshrine deeper principles, checks and balances, independent courts, the rule of law, protection of individual rights, freedom of expression and association, and the vibrant public sphere.” Yet, she warned, assaults on democracy “rarely begin with a dramatic coup: they typically start quietly, with the erosion of trust in the legitimacy of expertise, institutions and pluralism.”

In the realm of science advice, this can appear as selective discrediting of experts, the framing of uncertainty as incompetence, or the promotion of “alternative facts”. In such circumstances, “integrity requires that we listen as much as we speak: that we explain reasonable uncertainty clearly, and that we engage with democratic institutions and citizens and not only with governments.”

Listening, she said, is not a trivial skill. “Listening is a democratic practice in so far as it expresses respect for others as members of a shared political community.” Within science advice, it means engaging with the lived experiences and values of those affected by policy decisions, recognising that “experiential knowledge can reveal the dimensions of a problem that technical analyses overlook.”

The professor emphasised that listening does not mean treating all claims as equally valid.

“A democracy must offer everyone a voice, but not every voice carries the same weight when it comes to questions of evidence, credibility or moral reasoning.”

The task for advisors is to create spaces where people feel heard while maintaining shared standards of truth and justification – a balance that allows democracies to learn without compromising the integrity of evidence-based policymaking.

In closing, Professor Prainsack cautioned against what she termed strategic ignorance – situations “where policymakers or politicians deliberately avoid gathering or evaluating evidence because that evidence might contradict their agendas.” This, she said, undermines not only the quality of policy but the very foundation of democratic accountability.

“Integrity in science is not an ornament – it’s not a “nice to have”. Integrity in science advice is not either. It’s the condition of possibility for science advice to play a constructive role in our society.”