Anne Glover – Scottish scientist

Profile of the EU’s first-ever chief scientific officer.

As Anne Glover sits down at her desk in the European Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels, she is offered a vision of the future European Union.

From her office can be seen the slowly emerging egg of the new headquarters of the European Council, a building meant to symbolise enhanced prestige and transparency. In a less monumental way, Glover herself is a harbinger of a new era: the EU’s first-ever chief scientific advisor (CSA), appointed at the personal behest of José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission. It is her job to bring a new scientific rigour to all parts of policy-making. Appointed as a personal adviser to the president, she was tasked with providing objective input and bridging the divide between policymakers and scientists. It was never going to be easy.

CSAs are a relatively recent phenomenon. The United States led the way in creating the role, and in Europe the UK and Ireland have followed suit. Glover herself served as the first-ever chief scientific officer for the devolved Scottish government, under successive Labour and Scottish National Party administrations.

In fact, before her arrival in Brussels, Glover’s career was almost entirely Scotland-oriented. Born in 1956 in the east-coast harbour town of Arbroath, 26km from Dundee, she studied at Edinburgh and Cambridge universities before embarking upon an extended stint at Aberdeen University, where she has been a researcher and lecturer since 1983.

However, it was not just her academic renown and her Scottish government experience that brought her to the attention of the Commission president: what made her stand out was her foray into an area often taboo for European academics – business. In 1999 she commercialised a technology that she had developed that diagnoses environmental pollution. With the help of her husband, businessman Ian George, along with three colleagues, she launched Remedios, which uses bioluminescent bacteria technology to clean up contaminated land. Glover left the board after becoming Scotland’s CSO, but the company continues to thrive.

Many academics have trouble spanning the worlds of business and politics. The creation of the CSA post was a stab at fixing that. “I like to think I have a well-developed sense of the ‘so what?’” Glover says. She recalls a professor at Cambridge during her doctoral studies regularly asking her: “Why should the public pay for you to do that?” “Initially I had no idea how to answer,” she says. But over time she learned how to make her point beyond the groves of academe. “In 1983, if I had interacted with industry, people would have been really suspicious,” she recalls. “But now, a new academic gets lectures on how to establish connections [with the business and political worlds]”.

Glover says pioneering the new role in the EU has been a challenge. In the early stages, she was not helped by having only three full-time staff – since boosted by secondments from the European Space Agency and the Joint Research Centre.

Though Glover has sometimes felt daunted, she has been impressed by the enthusiasm for the new role both within the Commission and outside it. “It surprised me how willing and interested everyone is to speak to an EU CSA,” she says. “Some people know I have the ear of Barroso, and they want to influence policy.”

Curriculum Vitae

1956: Born, Arbroath

1978: Graduated with a bachelor of science in biochemistry from Edinburgh University

1981: PhD in molecular microbiology from Cambridge University

1983: Becomes a lecturer at Aberdeen University

1999: Launched spinoff company Remedios

2006: Becomes the first chief scientific officer for Scotland

2012: Appointed the first chief scientific officer for the EU

2013-: Appointed to chair the Science and Technology Advisory Council to the president of the European Commission

However, Brussels is not Edinburgh. There are many layers of government in EU policy-making and the voice of science does not always get through to the depths. Glover’s power may be more limited than the people seeking to influence her think. “In Scotland, if I convinced the First Minister, then it happened,” she says. “In the EU, Barroso says OK, and then asks ‘now what do we do?’ There are 28 member states all looking out for their own interests. That’s an enormous challenge, and completely different [from the position in Scotland].”

In some ways the CSA can operate outside the normal EU structures for getting scientific advice. If the president needs an immediate opinion, he can turn to the CSA for an initial assessment of the state of the science while waiting for a more thorough study from the Commission’s research arms.

But not everyone is enthused by this idea of faster, simpler scientific advice. “The idea that a single person can actually provide scientifically based evidence to politicians goes against the very basics of science, which is complexity and lack of certainty,” says Marco Contiero of Greenpeace. “It’s an Anglo-Saxon approach, and we’ve seen in the past that it’s very easy for these people to represent the stance of the politicians who select them.”

Glover has attracted the ire of environmental campaigners with recent statements that have criticised the amount of misinformation being used in the sensitive debate over genetically modified crops (GM). Contiero has taken to calling Glover the EU’s “chief lobbyist” who is making the same statements as the GM industry.

Click Here: All Blacks Rugby Jersey

“I’m not advocating for the use of GM, that’s for citizens to decide,” Glover says. “What’s concerning is that they are peddling information that is not accurate. There is zero evidence that GM is more of a risk than conventionally bred plants.”

Glover says that she has been frustrated by the use by NGOs of an “emotive lens rather than evidence”. She says that she tried unsuccessfully to schedule a meeting with Greenpeace for many months before having a meeting in April. Greenpeace initially requested the meeting.

For their part, industry has welcomed the role but expressed some scepticism over whether the CSA will really be listened to. “Too frequently EU policy decisions seem to ignore basic science, so we would love to see her role strengthened,” says Hubert Mandery, director-general of the chemical industry association Cefic.

So what’s next for this CSA? It was Barroso’s initiative, and there is no obligation for his successor to continue the role. Glover says she expects the post to be retained in the next college – but whether she will occupy it depends on the decision of the new president.

If she does not stay on, Glover says she would like to return to research. In practice, she never left. During her terms as CSA in Edinburgh and Brussels, she has been allowed to keep her research lab at Aberdeen, provided she did not apply for any EU funding.

But Glover says she would miss the world of politics if she went back full-time to Aberdeen, and she would even miss Brussels. “It’s been eight years since I’ve been a full-time scientist,” she says. “I would miss feeling like I’m influencing and making a difference, and having a voice that people listen to.”

Glover moved to Brussels with her husband and she says both of them would miss the international working environment. “When you’re living on an island, there’s an island mentality,” she says. “I enjoy working in continental Europe with people from different member states.”

If she does return to the UK, Glover hopes to spread some of what she learned about the world of politics to her peers there. “You can’t just do your science, wash your hands and walk away,” she says. “The hardest thing is to make it relevant.”