Call for expressions of Interest for experts to be appointed as members of the EEA Scientific Committee

The European Environment Agency (EEA) and European Environment Information and Observation Network (Eionet) have been providing data and information on Europe’s environment and climate to European citizens and policy makers since 1994. Today our extensive network connects hundreds of institutions from 38 member and cooperating countries. The knowledge base we have created together is broad, ranging from sharing near-real time air quality measurements from across Europe, to documenting greenhouse gas emissions trends and projections, providing satellite data on land cover, and delivering integrated assessments on the state of Europe’s environment and climate and progress towards sustainability.

The EEA/Eionet strategy 2021-2030 outlines the Agency’s work areas and objectives in what is a pivotal decade for action to meet the EU’s long-term policy ambitions.

The EU science-policy landscape

The EEA, Eionet and the Scientific Committee seek to support EU policy ambitions in environment, climate and sustainability through data and knowledge provision and advice. Integrated policy ambitions demand more integrated data and knowledge from the EEA and Eionet and more transdisciplinary experience and competences within the Scientific Committee. Successful candidates will have the opportunity to work collegially with fellow Committee members to address systemic problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and access to critical material resources – that EU policies are designed to address, including knowledge on the solutions needed to resolve such problems.

The role of the EEA Scientific Committee

The Scientific Committee assists the EEA Management Board and the Executive Director in providing scientific advice and opinions on any scientific matter in the areas of work undertaken by the Agency.

The Scientific Committee has three major tasks:

To deliver an opinion on the EEA multiannual and annual work programme;
To give an opinion to the Executive Director for the purposes of recruitment of the Agency's scientific staff;
To provide advice and/or opinion on any scientific matter concerning the Agency's activity, which the Management Board or the Executive Director may submit to it.

To deliver on the above, and to discuss topics of mutual interest to support the work of the EEA, the Scientific Committee meets three times per year (online or in person), for two days at a time.

Composition of the EEA Scientific Committee

The EEA Scientific Committee is composed of members of high scientific standing in one or more key areas of expertise relevant to the work of the EEA. Each member serves in an independent scientific capacity and does not represent countries or similar interests.

This call for expression of interest seeks to fill expertise gaps so that the members of the Scientific Committee cover, as far as feasible, all key areas of expertise relevant to the work of the EEA.

The choice of experts through this call will also reflect regional and gender balances to the extent possible. The Committee has a chairperson and two vice-chairpersons elected from its members.

Scope of the call

The role of the Scientific Committee is to assist the EEA in addressing systemic issues and in synthesizing evidence from different disciplines in relation to such issues. In line with this, the EEA is organising this call to appoint Scientific Committee members with expertise in one of the following areas as identified by the EEA Management Board, in line with the EEA Eionet Strategy 2021-2030.

Preference will be given to candidates who have multi-disciplinary qualifications and experience, as well as proven track-record of trans-disciplinary working in recognised international scientific networks. To ensure diversity in people, ideas, thoughts, cultures and perspectives, we will strive for diversity related to gender, age and geographical dimensions.

There are up to eleven spaces in the Scientific Committee against the nine areas of this call. Priority will be given to strengthening capacities under 1: Biodiversity and natural systems, where more than one expert may be selected.

Across the nine areas, EEA is seeking:

1. Biodiversity and natural systems

Generalist scientific expertise with experience across a range of nature and biodiversity domains, preferably connected to perspectives on the impact and dependency of different economic sectors on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people. The expert should have expertise related to e.g.:

Freshwater Environment and climate change, including aquatic biodiversity, water quality, water resources and impacts on human health, management (measures, trade-offs etc), and interlinks with climate change (including forecasts, climate risk management approaches, draught etc).
Oceans and climate change, including experience of innovative data analysis and assessment of marine ecosystem status, habitat protection.
European ecosystems (extent and condition), including soil and forest monitoring.
Restoration and protection of Europe's nature/ biodiversity and the implications of this on future land and maritime area use.

2. Agrifood systems

Scientific expertise on agrifood systems with understanding of the role of these systems in climate change, ecological degradation, as well as health and food security. Understanding the future make-up and production of Europe’s food systems is crucial to understand pressures on biodiversity and ecosystem requirements as well as responses and management options (land, marine). As well as being a major driver of biodiversity and climate change, the agrifood system is affected by extreme weather events associated with climate change, land degradation and biodiversity loss.

3. Economics

Economic expertise to support understanding of the role of the economic system in climate, biodiversity and sustainability challenges, with a focus on the new economic paradigms emerging, i.e. beyond growth, post-growth, new economic models and rethinking economic narratives for sustainability transitions. The expert should have foundational expertise in macro-economics, environmental and/or ecological economics, alongside research experience and interest in how new economics can work for sustainability and help deliver sustainability transitions policies, preferably with broad networks in the field.

4. Just transitions

Expertise with a broad social science profile, e.g. human geography, economy, sociology, or anthropology with understanding and expertise in ‘justice’ issues in the transition, including distributional, procedural, regenerative/restorative ‘justice’. EEA’s focus is on enablers of sustainability transitions where benefits are shared widely, and economic and social strategies and policies to counterbalance negative impacts on different social groups. The expert should have key expertise in the dimensions of fairness and inclusion as well as key points related to inter-generational justice and fairness. Connections to practitioners in the field is regarded as an asset.

5. Sustainability transitions and systems innovation

Expertise with key understanding of transitions research and the governance of transitions to more sustainable modes of production and consumption including the role of technological and social innovation in fostering systemic change. The expert should have 1) understanding of current EU and international strategies and policies and how they contribute to transitions, 2) experience in implementation and/or networks/experience of transitions towards sustainability in the field, and 3) expertise in technology transfer, adoption and scaling, and/or innovation pathways and innovation policy.

6. Industrial systems

Integrated systems-based expertise on industry to support anticipated policy and knowledge needs related to the EU’s industrial transition. Of specific interest to the EEA are connections to circular economy (e.g. assessment methods of material and energy flows in industrial systems, i.e. modelling the global industrial economy as a network of industrial processes that extract resources and transform them into products, by-products, waste, emissions that can be optimised with LCA approaches.) and novel technologies related to climate change mitigation, e.g. CCS and CCU, and corporate reporting on industrial developments. Links to sustainable finance and the carbon border adjustment mechanism are also relevant to the EEA in connection with expertise on industrial systems.

7. Sustainable finance

Expertise in finance including economics and sustainable finance and their roles as enabler of systemic change. EEA’s focus is on relationships between financial sector actors and the real economy, society, and the natural world. The expert should have understanding of and preferably experience with: 1) current policy initiatives in sustainable finance with engagement in new approaches to investment and financing, e.g. systemic investing, and 2) the role of finance in innovation and accelerating the sustainability transition.

8. Monitoring and Earth observation

Expertise specifically within the use of Earth Observation data for monitoring and solving environmental and climate issues. The expertise should include 1) understanding of remote sensing, optical and radar data processing, standards, state of the art algorithms and best practices, 2) environmental monitoring strategies, existing and planned observation data collections, including land cover and land use mapping products, key user communities, and end user requirements, and/or 3) knowledge of EU Space programme and the Copernicus services.

9. Science Communication

Expertise on how best to use storytelling and available tools and information technologies to support clearer communication of aspects of EEA’s work to decision makers and the public. This includes on how to use social sciences and other approaches to better understand societal debate and their impact on behavioural patterns. Experience from cognitive science on how moral beliefs and cognitive frames may impact decisions is also relevant for the agency.

Meetings and honoraria

The Scientific Committee members are expected to attend all its meetings. Meetings are normally held at the EEA premises in Copenhagen or online.

Members of the Scientific Committee receive an honorarium for attending meetings in line with the Scientific Committee Rules of Procedure. Members will also receive travel and subsistence allowance in accordance with the Agency’s policy for the reimbursement of travel and accommodation expenses.

The Chairperson and rapporteurs are entitled to honorarium to defray costs related to the coordination of draft opinions on work programme and recruitment, and any other opinion on topics requested by the Executive Director and/or the Management Board.

In addition, Scientific Committee members shall be entitled to an honorarium for each full day of participation in EEA meetings and seminars when designated by the Management Board, or their contribution is specifically requested by the Chair of the board or the Executive Director.

Eligibility

Candidates must have:

a university degree in a relevant scientific area, preferably at postgraduate level,
at least 7 years’ professional experience in one or more areas of expertise listed in the present call at a level to which the qualifications give admission,
be a national of one of the member countries of the EEA (Member States of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Türkiye).

Selection criteria

Eligible expressions of interest will be subject to a comparative evaluation against the following criteria:

Scientific excellence;
Experience in carrying out scientific assessments and/or providing scientific advice in the listed areas of expertise;
Broader expertise in the field of environment sciences;
Experience in peer reviewing scientific work;
Ability to analyse complex information;
Professional experience in cross-disciplinary projects in an international context.

In case of equal scientific excellence, the need to ensure gender and geographical balance shall represent a further criterion. Furthermore, excellent knowledge of English is important since this is the working language of the Scientific Committee.

In order to foster gender balance in the Scientific Committee, applications from qualified women are strongly encouraged.

Application procedure

Candidates are kindly requested to submit their expression of interest by sending an email with an Europass CV (see template) and a letter of motivation to the following email address before the deadline: SC-2024@eea.europa.eu

Please indicate in the subject field of your email which of the nine areas above you are interested in covering.

Closing date

Expressions of interest should be submitted to the email address no later than 17 June at 12:00 CET.

The CV should contain a list of the applicant’s scientific publications, preferably in English, and other professional experience. Supporting documents may be requested at a later stage.

All expressions of interest will be treated as confidential.

Candidates are kindly requested to direct any questions on the current call to the following e-mail address: SC-2024@eea.europa.eu

Selection process

Scientific Committee members are identified through an open process, leading to designation of chosen candidates by the EEA Management Board based on a recommendation from the Executive Director.

The Chair of the Management Board will call on a panel to assess the professional experience of candidates.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview held in English.

Appointment and term

The experts who meet best the above criteria will be appointed for a term of four years which may be renewed once for a maximum of another four-year period.

Independence and declarations of interest

Selected experts will be appointed on a personal basis. They are required to sign a declaration of commitment and make a declaration of absence of conflict of interest on an annual basis, which may be deemed prejudicial to their independence. Declarations of commitment and absence of conflict of interest are published on the EEA website.

See the Applicable rules of procedure of the Scientific Committee of the EEA

Equal opportunity

The EEA is an equal opportunities institution committed to avoid any form of discrimination, both when it comes to recruitment and when dealing with involvement in networks and governance bodies such as the Scientific Committee.

Personal data protection

Any processing of personal data in the context of the present selection procedure is compliant with the provisions of Regulation (EU) No 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC.

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