What the European Union is doing right in research is encouraging scientists to collaborate across borders (see Nature 569, 455; 2019). It also boosts communication between researchers and decision makers at the science–policy interface. This is a daunting endeavour in the European Parliament’s volatile, multilingual and multicultural political environment.

An internal source of strategic advice is therefore crucial for providing the scientific facts needed to resolve difficult arguments in negotiations. This source is the Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA), which works with parliamentary committees on issues related to science and technology. It has an impartial agenda-setting role in the EU policy cycle, creating policy options for different scenarios and assessing their likely social impact. STOA’s findings are made public.

For example, a STOA study on the ethics of cyberphysical systems helped to shape the European Parliament’s resolution on civil-law rules on robotics (see go.nature.com/2xeji9n). Another study, on precision agriculture, fed into the legislative proposals on the common agricultural policy beyond 2020 (see go.nature.com/2xjft4u).