Advisory Committee

An Advisory Committee has been established with whom the consortium can reflect and who advises the consortium on key moments throughout the project.

Role

The role of the Advisory Committee is to provide input to and advice on the way the GLOBIOM partial equilibrium model is used by the project consortium to model ILUC. While the project consortium appreciates the important role of the Scientific Advisory Committee, it should be noted that all decisions concerning the project will be taken by the European Commission and the project consortium. This means that it is not necessary for the Advisory Committee to reach agreement or unanimity on its advice.

The Scientific Advisory Committee has the following tasks:

  1. Advise on desired improvements to the GLOBIOM model and on the way they could be incorporated;
  2. Help identifying limits to the approach chosen and options to overcome possible caveats;
  3. Advise on possible lessons to learn from other ILUC modelling efforts;
  4. Advise on the chosen baseline and policy scenarios and chosen feedstocks;
  5. Advise on relevance of input received from stakeholders
  6. Views on initial, draft outputs of the project (not a review, rather sharing thoughts).

Meetings

Three meetings with the Advisory Committee have been scheduled between September 2013 and early 2015. A first meeting has been organised in October 2013, a second one in February 2014 and a last one is planned at the end of the project. Prior to these meetings, separate interviews also took place with each of the committee members to collect first ideas and input on the points listed above. In addition, bilateral contact with the members of the Advisory Committee can be established on an ad-hoc basis to ask for their opinion or input.

   Minutes of the Plenary meeting of the Advisory Committee are available here.

Composition

The Advisory Committee consists of a mixed group of modellers and ILUC experts from the EU, US and Brazil who can contribute to the project from their different backgrounds. The Advisory Committee has the following members:

  • Robert Edwards (JRC)
  • Jacinto Fabiosa (USAID)
  • David Laborde (IFPRI)
  • Chris Malins (ICCT)
  • Koen Overmars (independent modelling consultant)
  • Richard Plevin (UC Davis)
  • Andre Nassar (ICONE)
  • Don O’Connor ((S&T)2 Consultants)
  • Prem Bindraban (VFRC)

Don O’Connor and Prem Bindraban were added as members following requests from biofuel industry and NGO stakeholders. During the process of selecting additional members, Alexandre Gohin (INRA) was temporary committee member.