Sack the Science Advisor

So you don't like the advice that your expert advisor is giving? So then how about sacking the advisor? Even better yet, how about getting rid of the entire advisory mechanism?

That is the advice that Greenpeace and other NGOs are giving to European Commission president-elect Jean-Claude Junker. If it sounds a bit like something out of the Richard Nixon playbook, well, it is.

I defend the EU science advisor and the broader structure over at the Guardian. Read it here.

For a deeper dive into science advice in government, see this volume by James Wilsdon and Rob Doubleday. My chapter in that volume on the role of the science advisor can also be found here in PDF.