News item | 14-10-2025 | 4:00 PM
Scientists who can realize nuclear fusion sooner with the help of AI, students who have their profile papers written by ChatGPT and AI-generated novels that do not involve a human being. AI is taking an increasingly important place in our daily lives at a rapid pace. It changes, among other things, the role of the teacher in education and how we organize education. AI is also increasingly used in scientific publications. A lot of scientific research is already being done into the impact of AI on the education, culture and media sectors. To encourage the latest knowledge to be properly included in policymaking, OCW will appoint Prof. Dr. Vanessa Evers as Chief Science Advisor with a focus on the impact of AI as of November 1. Evers is currently also director of the Center for Mathematics & Computer Science and professor at the University of Twente. She will fulfill the role of Chief Science Advisor AI for one day a week.
Secretary General Loes Mulder: ”By appointing an independent scientist as Chief Science Advisor AI, we as the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science want to continue to encourage state-of-the-art scientific knowledge to be used more in the development of policy. We ensure good cooperation between science and policy, and contribute to solutions in response to the challenges posed by the use of AI at the moment.”
Chief Science Advisor AI
The Chief Science Advisor is an independent scientific advisor. She will directly bring a scientific perspective on the impact of AI on education, culture and media sectors from outside to the ministry. In her advisory role, she will connect knowledge from the Dutch AI research field and from scientific advisory councils with policy makers within OCW. This advice will contribute to answering and identifying challenges that OCW is currently working on; such as the knowledge and skills that people need to participate in the digital society, how we deal with the changing way in which art, music and literature is produced and experienced, and preventing undesirable dependencies on (private) AI providers.
The Chief Science Advisor AI has been appointed as part of a pilot within the project Science for policy. In this project, OCW encourages new ways to connect science, practice and policy, so that policymakers can incorporate insights from different sciences into policy earlier and better.
About Vanessa Evers
Prof. Dr. Vanessa Evers (1974) is a researcher in the field of interaction with intelligent systems. Her research includes AI, robotics and autonomous systems, with a strong emphasis on how these innovations can improve people’s lives. Evers is a professor Human Media Interaction at the University of Twente, member of the Supervisory Board of Radboud University and this year was appointed director of the Center for Mathematics & Computer Science (CWI).