Launch of the new Policy Leaders Fellowship, which extends CSaP's network to Directors General in Whitehall and their peers in other administrations and in industry.

CSaP attended the EU BON Kick-off Meeting in Berlin earlier this year. As one of the 30 partners involved, CSaP will lead the work package on engaging with policy makers and end users. The first stakeholder meeting will take place in June 2013.

Tristram Riley-Smith, who spent 2012 as CSaP Visiting Fellow, starts work at 10 Trumpington Street in a new capacity – as the External Champion to the Research Councils’ Global Uncertainties (GU) Programme. We share him with Cambridge’s Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), where he has been appointed to a new, senior, post to support this Champion’s role.

This year’s Annual AAAS meeting in Boston saw much joint activity between AAAS and the EU. The highlight was a packed session organized by the EU Joint Research Centre on how science advisers deal with uncertainty in policy advice.

Academics in the field of Behavioural Economics have long argued that human decisions are strongly pulled towards whatever option is set as the default.

Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, Professor David MacKay, has been appointed Regius Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. Such Professorships are Royal academic titles, created by the monarch. The Engineering role, announced in 2011 was created to celebrate the Duke of Edinburgh’s 34 years as Chancellor of the University.