The Brussels Declaration will be published at next month's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, Massachusetts. It is a 20-point blueprint for a set of ethics and principles to inform work at the boundaries of science, society and policy. It makes the case for a multidisciplinary approach that will encourage greater integrity and accountability among stakeholders.

The document brings together findings from a series of five consultation events and symposia at global conferences in 2012–16, in which more than 300 individuals from 35 countries examined the science of science policymaking. Using a grass-roots approach involving politicians, science advisers, scientific officers from industry, civil-society leaders, clinicians, social scientists, academia and science editors, the aim was to boost understanding of how power operates in science and society and to explain why evidence plus dialogue rarely equals good decisions and laws.

Most policy decisions are informed by evidence that is provided by experts. All too often, who those experts are, how they are chosen and the true reliability of their advice is open to question. Key requirements for public dialogue and better understanding are transparency, scrutiny and inclusivity.

We offer the Declaration for public comment (www.sci-com.eu) as an attempt to provide guidelines for incorporating scientific progress into the policymaking that affects all areas of our lives. It is in all our interests that we benefit from evidence-based policymaking rather than suffer policy-biased evidence.