WRR-Newsletter June 2021

The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) and the international publisher Springer have published: Money and Debt: The Public Role of Banks. This book explains how money creation works and offers a thorough yet very accessible analysis of the functioning of our current financial-monetary system. While we focus on the situation in the Netherlands, it contains insights that should be of interest to policy-makers and researchers in other (EU) countries and at the EU level.

New release: Money and Debt: The Public Role of Banks

Preparing for the next crisis mainly means being aware that it will inevitably come. This is the conclusion drawn by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), the Health Council of the Netherlands (GR) and the Council for Public Administration (ROB) in their essay ‘Acquiring, assessing and weighing. The use of knowledge in policy advice in times of crisis’. The essay is the result of a conference convened by the three councils to examine the role of knowledge in dealing with an acute, chronic or predicted crisis.

Essay: being prepared when you know the next crisis will come

On Thursday 27 May the WRR spoke during the international ‘European Conference on Scientific Foresight Councils for Government Policy’. Here, the most prominent European best practices presented themselves and entered into debate with a select group of experts.

WRR part of Flemish Binoculars Symposium

The coronavirus crisis has hit Dutch society hard. Having lived with this virus for over a year, it is now time to consider where we go from here. The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) are therefore launching a joint scenario study on the broad impact of the coronavirus crisis to provide strategic support for the Dutch government. This joint approach will consider the medical-virological aspects of the pandemic, but will focus primarily on the broader issues affecting society as a whole.

WRR and KNAW launch scenario study on broad impact of coronavirus crisis

Without our even noticing it, digital infrastructure has become closely intertwined with processes that are essential to our society, economy, democracy and the rule of law. Incidents involving our digital infrastructure are to be expected in our rapidly digitizing society, and in recent years we have witnessed incidents ranging from posing minor inconvenience, to events with much more serious consequences.

Podcast Digital Disruption

In response to the report Why knowing what to do is not enough, the government has decided to place more emphasis on citizens’ capacity to act when preparing policy and legislation. This means that, alongside the perspective of the implementing organizations, implementation tests will also take the perspective of citizens into account. A worthy aspiration, but how do you put it into practice? The WRR has prepared a follow-up to the capacity to act test to provide guidance to policymakers and legislative lawyers: Capacity to act: from test to tools.

Capacity to act: from test to tools