Orienting Public Policy

Frans W.A. Brom is secretary-director of the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), an independent advisory body to the Dutch government. The WRR's mandate is to provide science-based strategic advice on issues with significant political and societal impact, directed at government, parliament, and the broader public. The WRR is an independent part of the Prime-Ministers Office. In conjunction with the WRR, he holds a professorship in Normativity of Scientific Policy Advice at the Ethics Institute of Utrecht University.Before he was appointed at the WRR Frans was head of Technology Assessment at the Rathenau Institute. (2007 to 2015) The Rathenau Institute supports the formation of public and political opinion on socially relevant aspects of science and technology. It conducts research on this subject and organises debates on science, innovation, and new technology and advices parliament. He combined the function with a professorship at the Ethics Institute of Utrecht University in Ethics of Technology Assessment (2010-2025). He worked before as professor of Ethics of Life Sciences at Wageningen University (2004-2009). Between 1991 and 2007, he worked as a lecturer and researcher in ethics mainly at Utrecht University. Frans has combined his academic work with service on several advisory committees. Among other roles, he has been a member of the Board of the Committee on Genetic Modification (COGEM), a member of the working group on xenotransplantation of the Netherlands Health Council, Chair of the Scientific Integrity Committee of Wageningen University, a member of the Netherlands Animal Council, and Chair of the Central Research Ethics Advisory Group of Unilever International. He also served as Chair of the Dutch Society for Bioethics (NVBe), founding secretary of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics (EurSAFE), and board member of Societas Ethica.Frans studied ethics at the Catholic Theological University in Amsterdam, with an extended minor in philosophy of law at Free University Amsterdam. He obtained his doctorate in ethics in 1997 at Utrecht University with a thesis on animal biotechnology as a moral problem. For his thesis he worked as co-secretary of the Temporary Committee for the ethical assessment of transgenic animals that advised the Netherlands Department of Agriculture (see: Brom, F.W.A., J.M.G. Vorstenbosch & E. Schroten, ‘Public policy and transgenic animals; case-by-case assessment as a moral learning process’, P. Wheale, et al. (eds), The social managment of genetic engineering. Aldershot: Asgate 1998: 249-264).