The variety of structures and institutions for science-based strategic advice across different national governments is of great value for ESAF. The members have a lot to gain from exchanging information, expertise, practices and results. ESAF provides a platform to broaden the access to existing work. ESAF has no formal advisory role collectively, but by sharing information, expertise and practices, members can individually contribute feedback on advisory outputs of other ESAF member countries and also on outputs of the Scientific Advice Mechanism of the European Commission (SAM)... ESAF was set up as a Europe-wide network of government science advisors in June 2014 by Professor Anne Glover, then Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA) to the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso. ESAF was intended to allow European and national science advisors to discuss the scientific evidence on topics of pan-European relevance ahead of political decisions by national governments, to..