The Scientific Council ensures the quality and consistency of the agency’s scientific strategy. As a multidisciplinary body, it assesses, in particular, how scientific foundations—both in terms of knowledge sources and methodologies—are incorporated into the agency’s work to support the implementation of national and European public health policies, particularly in the current context of a health crisis.

Its members are selected based on the excellence of their academic and scientific backgrounds as well as their independence, and they currently work or have worked in France, abroad, or within European or international organizations.

The renewal of the Scientific Council coincides with the implementation of the agency’s new scientific program, which is structured around six key issues, including the impact of climate change on health, social inequalities in health, and the development of digital technologies in public health.

Evaluating the agency’s scientific strategy and providing a forward-looking, multidisciplinary, and international perspective on its work

The Scientific Council’s various mandates give it a crucial role in the agency’s governance by informing its scientific policy. A balance among the agency’s major areas of expertise is ensured, with significant representation from foreign scientists. It is also responsible for overseeing the evaluation process of the agency’s scientific activities. The Scientific Council provides advice on research, expertise, and study directions, as well as on the Agency’s scientific partnership and programming policies; it assists the Agency’s management in developing procedures for calls for proposals; it validates and oversees the evaluation process of the Agency’s scientific activities, and issues recommendations to management based on the results obtained; it assists the Agency in its mission to contribute to the development and implementation of national and European public health policies. It may, on its own initiative, formulate observations and recommendations on any scientific or technical issue falling within the Agency’s scope of competence.

A Scientific Council with diverse expertise and an international focus

The appointment of Scientific Council members follows specific criteria to ensure a broad range of expertise and experience, enabling the Council to best inform the agency on current and future challenges. In addition to the ability to grasp the agency’s scientific strategy, its members must possess excellent knowledge and understanding of the challenges and key players at the national, regional, and international levels in the fields of protecting and improving the health of populations, prevention, and strengthening surveillance systems and public health services.

Its members possess high-level and complementary experience in public health:

• generating knowledge and evidence regarding public health interventions and applying them to prevention and health promotion to improve the health status of populations;

• the generation, analysis, and use of public health indicators, particularly regarding the assessment of the public health burden of diseases and health determinants;

• generating knowledge to document the impacts of climate change on population health and to implement public policies and interventions aimed at reducing these impacts;

• Generation of knowledge to document the impact of social and territorial inequalities on health and to evaluate public policies and interventions aimed at reducing this impact;

• experience in the application of digital technologies in public health.

The selected individuals cover a broader and more multidisciplinary range of expertise: public health, epidemiology, public policy, international relations, preparedness and response, addictions, infectious diseases, social medicine, ecology, occupational health, psychology, psychiatry, prevention, health promotion, social marketing, health literacy, practice evaluation, biostatistics/modeling, sociology, philosophy of science, epistemology, and big data.

• Visit the page dedicated to the Scientific Advisory Board