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Welcome to this thirteenth episode of the BBMRI-ERIC Podcast. My name is Eleanor Shember, Head of Outreach, Education and Communications at BBMRI. 
 This episode shares the keynote address delivered by Professor Walter Ricciardi at the BBMRI-ERIC 10th anniversary workshop. 
 BBMRI-ERIC is the European research infrastructure for biobanking and biomolecular resources. It was granted ERIC status by the European Commission in 2013 and our mission is to facilitate access to samples, data and biomolecular resources to enable high-quality research.

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The event was held at the Permanent Representation of Austria to the European Union, Brussels on 29 February 2024 and brought together key members of the biobanking community to explore BBMRI-ERIC’s impact as a research infrastructure over the last ten years and look to the future. 
 
We were delighted, and privileged, that the 10th anniversary keynote was delivered by Professor Ricciardi who is the EU Cancer Mission Board Chair and Chair of the BBMRI-ERIC

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Scientific and Ethical Advisory Board. Walter has been a key advisor for BBMRI-ERIC over a number of years and shares our strong vision on the importance of health and life science research for societal wellbeing. He also understands the vital role that biobanks play in this. Prof. Ricciardi has an esteemed CV so I will just highlight his most recent work.

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Prof. Walter Ricciardi is full Professor of Hygiene and Director of the School of Hygiene and Public Health, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC) in Rome. He is Chair of Mission Board for Cancer (EC), Scientific Committee of Human Technopole Foundation and European Mission Board for vaccination. IIn this talk, Professor Ricciardi presents an urgent case for science in an age when we are facing multiple pressures on our health

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that is intrinsically linked to the health of our planet. You will hear him link to the EU Mission on Cancer and the vital role that policy makers play in supporting the work of research infrastructures, such as BBMRI-ERIC, to drive forward innovative approaches, standards and research into solving major health challenges. Enough from me, here’s Prof. Ricciardi.
 
I’m honoured to be here to share some reflection on research and the future from my perspective, which is a public health perspective.

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So I've structured my presentation in this title, “A change of epoch in a world in turmoil, The role of science in addressing formidable challenges, Mission oriented approach to innovation and research, the important endeavour of BBMRI and The future”. Maybe you have heard the Pope saying repeatedly that we are not living in an epoch of change, but a change of epoch, and to explain how he is right

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Also from the scientific point of view, I showed to my students these slides, asking them: who is the intruder? Is the 11,000 year old prehistoric man? Is 2000 years old Emperor Augustus? Is 60 years old, very famous Hollywood movie of “Roman holidays” with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn or is Damiano, which is a front runner of a very popular rock band in Italy,

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The Maneskin. They say, the prehistoric and, of course, they are wrong because Damiano is the intruder. Because essentially, after 11,000 years, we have entered a new geological age. We have gone from the Olocene to the Anthropocene. So imagine the screens have arrived to the Belmont, so much bigger than this. These are just the last 2000 years. For 2000 years, the temperature on our planet has been -02 +02 due to the Anthropocene.

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So to the action of man. Just in the last 50 years, the temperature has risen 1.2 degrees. And this is provoking a disaster. We are navigating dry the head into a perfect storm and the perfect storm where the sea waves are not present but are present the waves of pandemics, of economic recession, of climate change and biodiversity collapse.

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I would start with the pandemics with the COVID pandemic asking all of us - of course, the reply is yes, among our constituency - can science play a role in tackling this formidable challenges? The problem is, yes, of course. Look at the pandemics. In the past history we had one pandemic over 100 years and the death toll was immense. Look at the Black Death bubonic plague

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in the 14th century. The population was 400 millions, 200 millions of people died. Recently you've seen pandemics every five, ten years. But of course, we have something different. The world has changed. We are living in a different world, experiencing exactly the same epidemiological pattern than in the past. Because as in 1348, the plague came via sheep from far eastern to Greek and Italy.

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We have had two Chinese tourists coming with a fly to Rome and having the same kind of approach. So spreading the disease first in Italy and then around Europe. But rather than having 50% of mortality, of course, with the vaccines, with vaccines and the technology and the public health procedure, we had less than 1% of the mortality. But the problem is science and scientists are often ignored.

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And look at the results of the pandemic. Have we learned the lessons? All the reports, all the scientific reports about the five pillars of protection against the future pandemic. Against Disease X, which is coming in the next five/six years, are masking, air quality, social distancing surveillance and testing and vaccination. We are doing masking? No. Air quality? No. Social distancing? No. Surveillance and testing? No. Vaccination? A little bit, but the problem remain pretty much the same.

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This is the result of essentially the lesson forgotten during the last winter. Again, accident and emergency department feel like that. The problem is pretty much the same also for climate change and biodiversity collapse. Science is simply ignored. I will touch on the economic recession at the end of my talk. Look at this: the Anthropocene. This is from 1940 to 2023.

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This is the global monthly temperature. I mean, you don't need to be a scientist to understand that the world is boiling. And the secretary general of the United Nations say “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator”, because after the Paris Agreement tried to stop the process of heating the planet, the 2023 will be remembered, as scientists saying, the world will look back at this year as the year humanity exposed its inability to tackle climate crisis,

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Scientists say. In fact, we have reached the target that we should have been avoiding in 2050 this year. This year has been the hottest year, 27 years earlier and 2024 has become very, very hot. Essentially the hottest year again, it will be 2024. So the problem is how science is ignored and how science can avoid this disaster, which is already happening.

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This is our people that have died of climate change. For the first time, there's been an epidemiological study published in Nature. And of course, you can see that the oldest countries are the one but no part of Europe is immune. And this essentially means that we are going to live all our lives in a boiling time. And this essentially is going to affect our health because as the IPCC says adverse impacts from EU and of course, climate change will continue to intensify.

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Science is there, planetary health alliance, we have found it. A lot of organisations are providing guidelines. And as Claudia Milena Adler says, “Much like a vessel, we may think because we are seated in different compartments, we are navigating alone; the actuality is we share each other, and this planet; thus, the vessel is all our homes collectively”. But unfortunately we are not doing anything to correct this.

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And as we increase our pressures on Earth, we are crossing irreversible tipping points. Is largely under known and underestimating what we have done to insects. We have killed 80% of insects and 60% of the vertebrates as Johan Rockström, one of the best scientists in this field, says: this is not a climate crisis, we are now facing something deeper.

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Mass extinction- for the moment of insects and vertebrates- air pollution, undermining ecosystems, functions, really putting humanity future at risk. This is a planetary crisis. Why science is not perceived both in the health sector and in the climate sector as an added value for decision making? Because if you look at the stakeholders that participate in the process: politicians, managers, professionals, patients, citizens, industry and media, they have totally different point of view that are totally polarised because essentially what happens is that politicians want to be elected, loved and stay in power.

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Managers want to keep a proper budget. Professionals want to do a good job. Patients want to go back to health, but citizens want to pay less taxes and enjoy life. Industry want to return on investment and make profit, and media want to increase their share and clicks. How it is possible to reconcile all these different, sometimes conflicting and polarising, points of view? Of course is difficult, and some parties, some populistic parties, of course, are not doing that are not offering their voters the complex and right answer, but simple and wrong.

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And this is a problem because decision making in a complex and dangerous world is not exactly like that. So that's why I really was conquered by the concept of mission. How you can achieve impossible task as JFK in his very famous speech in Dallas made when he launched the mission to the moon: we are going to the moon. And they reached the moon in six years, something which looked impossible.

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But then with a mission oriented approach, they did it. And what is a mission concept adapted to Europe and adapted to the research and innovation? Is a concept which was elaborated by Professor Mazzucato, from University College London with a mission oriented research and innovation approaching the European Union. And in their definition, the missions provide a solution and opportunity and an approach to address the numerous challenges that people face in their daily lives.

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This concept was endorsed and supported by the then Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Carlos Midas, the current mayor of Lisbon, and then Professor Maazucato produced a second report which shows an operational handbook for governing missions in the European Union. Then, after a process of external and internal consultation, the five missions were launched. And as you can see, these looked impossible.

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But this is the challenge that we face. Adaptation to climate change, including societal transformation, soil health and food, climate-neutral and smart cities, healthy oceans, seas, coastal waters and cancer are challenges that we have and we must win. Essentially, this happened that we are working hard in the first three years. Andres is here he was part of the great job that we did with the first board, and we produced our report on September 2020.

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The reports were endorsed by the Commission and we created the idea of a temple, something which is immediately understandable by any illiterate citizens, something which is not banalising the concept of tackling the challenge of improving the life of 3 millions people, but essentially making this understandable to everybody. With 13 patients, citizens sent a recommendation for both actions.

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The green light for the five missions was given in September 2021 and a substantial budget was given to the mission and also to the mission of cancer. In the domain of cancer, we have allocated more than €2 billion in the past and you have seen you can see where and how it is allocated. But essentially what is very important, which I am advocating and selling all over the world, is the method that we have developed for the mission.

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So aligning to realise complex change, the vision, the skills, the incentives, the resources and the action plan. Because if you don't do that, you are going to generate confusion, anxiety, resistance, frustration and false starts. And this is something that we essentially also related to the policy because it's agreement between Commissioner Gabriel and Commissioner Kyriakides. Our board acted as a scientific board also for the European Beating Cancer Plan.

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So essentially creating a common narrative for the entire Europe to tackle the cancer challenge. And as I said, I am advocating this. I'm honoured to be appointed President of the mission to perform four mission boards for vaccination in Europe and in the Lancet Commission on neonatology. You can see that neonatology is using the idea of the temple in order to make how the challenge for neonatology are important to win in the future.

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But moreover, we created something not reinventing the wheel, but essentially making and improving connection between beneficiaries and increasing the collaboration and supporting the organisations that already existing. And we're already making a very good job. And this when it comes BBMRI. As we have seen, BBMRI has been a pioneer from different angles: has been the first Eric to be set up and one of the largest, has been the first one to onboard a country from outside EU and the first to produce a federated platform, has been driving standards and quality and engagement that cannot be done on a national basis.

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Pioneering also an IT infrastructure and ELSI concept as being a distributed, is a distributed research infrastructures and 70% biobanks hospital based BBMRI bridges between healthcare and research. And very happy to see that. As far as concerning, the mission is giving key contribution in implementing the mission by different projects and the role of federated platform in Eric Forum project and others.

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But I cannot end my talk without looking at the reality. Just a few minutes ago, President Putin addressed the Assembly in Russia, threatening again the West and for nuclear reactions. And the Prime Minister of Estonia, the country that Andres described so well as not excluded for the first time, that boots on the ground can be an option. Of course, President Macron did some days ago.

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Of course, this is what we are going to expect, an escalation on the war in Europe after 70 years after World War Two. Of course, we don't want death, but we have to realise that we are not living in a vacuum. We are not a paradise focusing ourselves only on research, publicly highly impact article in journal paper.

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And essentially we have to understand that we as scientists, we as professionals, we as leaders have to first of all realise how the situation is changing a change of epoch and how to manage. Because for the first time, the dams that shaped our security are trying to break. And of course, if you look at our demography in 1960, when the European Union was started, the population of the 27 countries that currently make up the Union represented 12.9% of the world population.

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Today is 5.7%. By 2070, Nigeria only will have a higher number of inhabitants compared to the 3.7% of humanity that will make. And so this is a problem for our economy and our sustainability because Europe currently spends with 5% of the population 50% of the money which is spent worldwide for welfare, for research, for this kind of activities.

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But the problem is that our economy is shrinking. In 2013, only a few years ago, our GDP was 91% of the American one. It is now 65%. So the problem is, the problem that we don't have enough money to spend. And of course, if you look at the military expenditures of Nato, I mean, it is striking that some money is going there rather than on research.

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So we had to focus ourselves on how we can maximise our pros and minimise our cons. And if you think that in 300 years no President of the United States and a single accusation of felony and the President that may be is going to be elected later this year is already 91 and has been convicted for three.

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We have serious problem to take into account for our economy. Recently, Professor Draghi, who has been the president of European Central Bank and Prime Minister of Italy, was asked by President von der Leyen to chair a group and to produce a report on European economic competitiveness. Some years ago, some days ago in Washington, DC, we received the poll worker.

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A word is saying The global economic order is changing, bringing challenges for politics and the nature of the shocks our economies face will change. And just four days ago in Brussels to the Minister of Economic and Finance, he played: “It is time to do something. You decide what, but please do something. You can’t spend all your time saying no”.

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And this is the social dilemma. This is the problem of Europe, because essentially when we speak about change, everybody wants change, but very few wants to change and nobody wants to lead the change. And this is essentially the change of epoch. And that has to be led in a way that we can win our battle. So the future, the future, as you may understand, is not a beautiful place.

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We take a train or a flight and we arrive in Rome or get the Garda Lake, because it's not that beautiful. It is, according to our demography, our economy, our problems that we are facing now, is kind of dystopic. place, we don't want that. We want the future which is bright. Maybe we can imagine the future more like a bridge than have a nice place.

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But the bridge that we have to imagine, we have to imagine that the past ten years, what BBMRI-ERIC flourished, are going to spend the next ten years. How? The next ten years would be crucial for the future of the world and the future of Europe. So we have to imagine how we want to spend also in BBMRI the next ten years.

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We have to plan correctly with the vision, with the skills, with essentially all the elements that make change possible. And we have to build it. And I'm sure that BBMRI is going to play a leading role in this. Thank you very much for your attention.

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Prof. Ricciardi took questions from delegates. The first came from Jennifer Dorleijn who is a policy advisor at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in The Netherlands. She referred the bridges BBMRI-ERIC builds between healthcare and research and she asked for Professor Ricciardi’s view on how scientists and policy makers can bridge the gap between research and policy.

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This is a very difficult relationship because essentially you can essentially organise this relationship around to, I mean, take Mars and Venus. Researchers are like Mars. You know, they like evidence, they like science, they like very important articles on newspapers. Politicians are from Venus. They like to be voted, consensus. So they don't want to say, they don't like the truth because the truth is disturbing for their population.

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So we have to understand anthropologically, these are two different groups, but they have to work together because if they don't work together is going to happen a disaster. So, of course, from the political side of you need good politicians, not populists, not people that understand and do not think about the next, only about the next election, but to the next generation.

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And this is becoming very rare because the political cycle is very short and polarised. But also we have to change in the sense that we have to be able to speak the truth to the power, which doesn't happen often. And rather than having, you know, some reluctancy to do that, we have to do that repeatedly. But how has been possible that some scientists have been totally ignored, even producing this very strong burden of evidence?

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Of course, politicians don't want to listen. Maybe also some scientists have not been able to produce the result of their research in a way that is approachable, palatable, manageable by politicians. Another very important issue where you are aware is warning our politicians and our managers that artificial intelligence is going to play a very important role in producing this kind of interaction.

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And if we don't manage that, is going to be a disaster. You know that worldwide what's happening is that artificial intelligence spoke, not spoken, but really implemented is happening only in two countries in the world: the United States and China. What Europe is doing is a kind of referee role, which is not good for this kind of relationship in the future.

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Personality of scientists, good behaviour by politicians and appropriate use of new tools in order to make them working together. I don't know if you have seen the balloon that colleague from Canada produced. There is a cartoon. There are some people on the balloon and one person on the balloon ask a fisherman: “Where am I?” And the fishermen replies: “You are 30 meters high in a balloon” and the person on the balloon: “You must be a researcher”.

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“Yeah. How did you know that I am researcher?” “Because you gave me a totally correct but totally irrelevant answer”. But the fisherman says: “And you must be a politicians”. “Yes. How do you know?” “Because you do not know where you are going. You don't know where you are, and you are blaming me for all this mess”.

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And this is a essentially the relationship that we have to avoid in the future. Working together is not easy, but is possible. 
 
The next question was posed by Gerrit Meijer, National Node Director of The Netherlands who was asking about influencing human behaviour involving researchers and the gap he saw between researchers and research infrastructures. He asked: “How do we influence our colleagues out there to engage with us and us to engage with the researchers?”.

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You have to manage that. You're perfectly right. You have to manage that. What I studied very carefully the implementation of the mission to the moon by JFK. So the first two years were a disaster because essentially everybody went on in working as so the engineers with the engineers, the astronauts with astronauts, the mathematician with the mathematician, the physician with the physician, then a certain point they realised that this was going to be a disaster.

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So essentially they put somebody in charge and the guy in charge led it, led it the change that was mission to the moon, easier in comparison with the challenges that you are describing. But at least there must be somebody in charge, maybe not the person, maybe your organisation. You know that whatever the organisation is now very much focusing on changing behaviour in the health sectors.

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But of course, it's a very underfunded organisation. How can they really manage something which is becoming incredibly dangerous and problematic to do. So, we have to support this kind of organisation and we have to support the leaders that essentially are able to do that out there, among our communities. Yes, but sometimes they are not exactly listened, heard and supported.

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So we have to support that. And also having in mind that in our opinion, the best scientific leader is one that has a lot of h-index, a lot of impact because the progression of the career among our academic world. So we should start including also the people that are able to shape the world, not only the one who make a good public presentation.

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Unknown
The last question was asked by Jonathan Ewbank of ERINHA, the research infrastructure for contributing to European pandemic preparedness. He referenced the use of contrarian scientists by the tobacco and oil industries that was a pattern repeated at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. He asked, how can one deal with contrarian scientists and gurus who distort the public debate?

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This is this has happened with tobacco, is happening with the food industry now. You know, take the example of food labelling, you know, that has been totally, totally slowed down the process of. So we have 5% of the population, 40% of the chronic disease burden and we are still reluctant to do something which the evidence has shown to be very important.

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Again, you are Harari, an Israeli philosopher and sociologist, says that the strongest aspects of Homo sapiens is not being alone in fighting, is organising the organisation. The bad people organise them very well because greedy and profit is a very easy leverage and very strong incentives. The good people are much more reluctant, they are more autonomous, individualistic, they stay alone.

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That's the problem. Unless we organise ourself in a better way and we use the tools that the bad people use: fake news, artificial intelligence. Of course we are not able to provide that kind of challenge to them, but it's up to us to organise. I mean, the evidence is from our side, but of course the dynamics of profit making and of course of aggregation of bad forces is stronger.

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But in Europe we can have a say, in other parts of the world is already down, take the United States. I mean, United States is a country where essentially corporations and the power of people is probable that the Supreme Court is going to say no to the several states that have tried to regulate the social media and the fake news.

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So this is essentially something which is not possible to address anymore. In Europe we are still but rather than being only the referee, wish you start to play the game. Thank you. 
 
We want to thank Professor Ricciardi for delivering this keynote and for the questions that came from workshop delegates. We really hope you enjoyed listening to the interconnected perspectives of Professor Ricciardi.

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I mentioned that Professor Ricciardi is part of BBMRI’s governance structure and to learn more about how we work, visit the BBMRI-ERIC website – bbmri-eric.eu and browse the ‘about’ section. We regularly share news from across the biobanking community via the BBMRI-ERIC newsletter; you can sign up on our website.

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