Aidan Gilligan (Irish) is CEO of SciCom, a Brussels-based science diplomacy agency striving to make greater sense of science-policy-making for public, private and cause-related groups. Its ethos is to engage with decision-makers at the highest levels of the global scientific enterprise to champion ‘evidence-based policy above policy-biased evidence’.

SciCom draws on twenty years of top-tier experience working at the nexus of science and society. For example, SciCom is currently spear-heading a pan-African consultation process to create the first all-stakeholder blueprint on Ethics & Principles of Science & Society Policy-Making.

An EU affairs and political science expert, Aidan was Director of Communications at the College of Europe. He spent ten years at the heart of the European Union’s in-house science services. He was also seconded to the Office of the Irish Chief Science Adviser.

Aidan retains close working partnerships with senior international science officials; representatives of national governments, academies and agencies; prominent business leaders and talking-heads from internationally renowned research facilities; stakeholders from global scientific organisations and membership groups; and science media and senior editors from peer-reviewed journals.

Current science diplomacy roles include, amongst others, International Adviser to the Japan Science & Technology Agency (JST); Co-creator and Adviser to the Science Forum South Africa (SFSA); International Adviser to the Latin American & Caribbean Open Forum (CILAC); International Media Partner for The World Science Forum 2015 Budapest & 2017 Jordan and a Planning Group Member of the International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA).