Having been part of the emerging “impact profession” and followed the agenda closely since 2008, I found Smith et al.’s book an excellent account of the controversies, consequences and challenges that has risen from the impact agenda. I agree with their alternative and broad approach to supporting and incentivising research impact, and hope it gains support institutionally.

Accepting that we live with a result based framework of funding research, I see the assessment side as the main challenge though. I am not sure the alternative approach provides solutions to how we can better assess impact meaningfully with the transparency and rigour required.

For example, I am not sure how you would assess and reward activity if we don’t have evidence of its effectiveness, for example with regards to public engagement. NCCPE did, however, show that nearly half of case studies in REF2014 mentioned public engagement as a route to the claimed impacts, so I think this may be a slightly exaggerated problem. Learning from failure is really important, and from my experience this needs to take place in trusted spaces, so would be hard to demonstrate and reward in REF.

Some panels went too far in expecting a causal link between research outputs and discrete impacts in REF 2014. The current guidance is more specific on the many non-linear ways research can contribute to impact, but internal review panels may find these more risky to pursue. Likewise synthesis of research would met the quality threshold in most panels, but institutions may put additional barriers. I think though that weakening the link between research and impact would be unhelpful in an assessment of research. The impact of universities is of course much wider, but this is already covered through outcome agreements in Scotland, and through the Teaching and Knowledge Exchange Frameworks in England. I think a positive outcome of the research impact agenda is how many academic colleagues have focused their engagement around their research rather than seeing this as separate activities.

Whilst challenges remain with assessment, I think the eight principles, including those mentioned above, provide an excellent basis from which to build a positive impact culture. I share the authors’ worries that academic rigour and autonomy, as well as discovery based research, are challenged in the current environment. This is short sighted, as I’m convinced a research environment that combines the multitude of approaches both to research and to impact is the one that will make the most difference to the world; and also succeed in REF. The academic community, and the “impact profession” I represent, have a common course in advocating for this. Both to national stakeholders, and locally if we see management taking a narrow path to impact focussing solely on developing REF case studies.

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Anne-Sofie Laegran is the Head of Knowledge Exchange and Impact at the University of Edinburgh Research Office, promoting collaboration and engagement between academia and stakeholders across different sectors.

Earlier this year (against the difficult backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic), Policy Press published our book, The Impact Agenda: Controversies, Consequences and Challenges, co-authored with Nasar Meer, Ellen Stewart and Richard Watermeyer. This book brings together earlier work that we had developed in discussion with SKAPE colleagues.

Our aims were:

• To bring together disparate work on the impact agenda to critically reflect on the controversies, consequences and challenges that are arising;
• To reflect on our own role, as academics, within this;
• To collectively propose an alternative approach.

And the last point was the focus of our recent SKAPE seminar, and this linked blog, in which  we set out an alternative approach to research impact – one which we feel is more evidence-informed and sustainable and which, while inevitably still imperfect, addresses the major drawbacks of the current approach.

What might a more evidence-informed approach to supporting, assessing and incentivising research impact involve? 

Since we each brought our own experiences, preferences and convictions to the book, it was not easy for us to identify a way forward that we could all support. However, we all agreed that the following changes would better reflect what we know about both the complex relationship between academic work and real-world change and the consequences of audit regimes and performance assessment.

1. Reward impactful environments, rather than individual achievements: The requirement of impact case studies to demonstrate and document change inevitably narrows the scope of impact activities and outcomes. We should, instead, strengthen a focus on how universities create impactful environments; workplaces that are outward-looking, open and engaged with the world beyond academia.
2. Value a wider range of activities, especially around public engagement: The NCPPE is leading the way in both supporting academics to do public engagement better and encouraging the research audit process to value it fairly. There is more work for to do and, we suggest, it may be desirable to go further, recognising the impacts of the university’s wider role as an ‘anchor institution’.
3. Protect spaces and funding for critical and discovery focused academic scholarship (without obvious impacts): There are many examples of academic scholarship that is valuable for reasons other than impact. This includes critical, theoretical and experimental work (some of which, as several interviewees pointed out, contributed to major impacts at later dates).
4. Reject crude and simplistic classifications of ‘excellence’ (which, for example, denigrate the local): The quality of research in REF promotes the idea that wider geographical relevance equates to higher quality. Although most recent impact case study guidance notes that there is value in ‘having a big impact on a small group of people’, our interview data suggest academics tend to believe that those focusing on local impacts are not viewed as “impact stars”. If we want universities to be active members of their local communities, this could, and should, be changed. It should not be the proximity of external communities that is key to assessing excellence, but relatability to potential research users such as communities of policy and practice.
5. Weaken the link between original research and impact to encourage knowledge synthesis and collaboration: There are very good reasons to support mechanisms that allow for bodies of work to achieve greater influence than single studies. Yet the approach impact of both REF and the UKRI funders appears to do much more to encourage the impact of individual research projects than work to pool and synthesise knowledge for external audiences. We suggest that research funders and REF assessors are encouraged to do more to value academic scholarship that focuses on knowledge synthesis.
6. Develop a conversation about the ethics of impact: The approach to research impact being taken in the UK and elsewhere appears to assume that if research is ‘excellent’ then the impacts will inevitable be positive. Yet, there are plenty of examples in which excellent research has had deleterious societal impacts so we need to develop conversations and tools that allow us to meaningfully consider the ethics of research impact.
7. Defend and promote academic rigour and autonomy: Researchers already exist within governments, NGOs, think tanks, private companies and often produce rapid, responsive research. We worry that some of the impact incentives encourage academics to shift towards this kind of responsive research to such a degree that it risks blurring the role of academics with consultants. What exactly is unique about academic research and scholarship will vary by discipline and field but, if we want to maintain a distinction, we all need to get better at articulating and valuing our USPs.
8. Create spaces in which valiant failures are celebrated and learned from: The current form of impact assessment in REF, and the high financial value of impact case studies, combine to prompt institutions to focus on tried-and-tested pathways to impact. We suggest funders and universities should do more to promote innovation in engagement and knowledge exchange, encouraging contributions that are about learning from challenges and failures (as well as successes).

The above suggestions are not exhaustive but they are intended to be a starting point for discussing how we might improve the current approach to research impact. We, as academics, are involved in constructing, enacting and reviewing impact’s performance indicators and we therefore have opportunities to reshape and improve the current approach. These are opportunities we should take.

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Kat Smith is Professor of Public Health Policy at Strathclyde University, with a longstanding interest in the relationship between evidence, expertise, policy and practice, especially for issues relating to public health and inequalities.

Justyna Bandola-Gill is a post-doctoral researcher at METRO, where she explores the production and governance of poverty indicators, with a wider interest in how knowledge is organised, governed and mobilised across different settings.

The past couple of months have increased the need for accurate, and transparent, tools that allow policymakers to track and forecast the behaviour of the pandemic we are going through. For instance, different groups of researchers in the UK have used machine learning (ML) algorithms to forecast the type of treatment a person should receive based on the first days of infection [see: 1, 2, 3]. In a broad sense, ML forecasting tools refer to a set of algorithms designed to process data and find patterns. Part of the authority set on quantitative tools (QTs), such as forecasts, is on the idea that as a way of transparency, they can be replicated. However, the notion of replicability understood as obtaining the same results as the original experiment might not be achievable. From a social perspective, a lack of replicability would impact the possibility to challenge a forecast by those been affected. In the case of QTs, at least three elements might not allow their replicability:

• The existence of mundane everyday processes that impact the production of these tools;
• The amount of tacit knowledge among researchers which is not transferred; and,
• Existing infrastructure inequalities where not everyone can have access to the technology required.

My research explores these issues through participant observation during the construction of the Violence Early Warning System (ViEWS). This tool, produced at the Uppsala University Department of Peace and Conflict Research (PCR), aims to forecast the probability of political conflict within the next 36 months; and, of climate-related conflicts within 100 years. Rooted in broader discussions, including SDG 16 and the IPCC, its producers expect to provide an accurate tool for interventions. The expected users of ViEWS include the EU Commission, Western governments and the World Bank. Understanding that their objective could impact people’s lives, ViEWS’ researchers claim to provide a replicable tool as a matter of transparency.

For some at ViEWS, a QT will be understood as replicable when others can intuitively understand the way algorithms deal with data. This implies that it is not enough to provide the instructions, but there needs to be a conscious understanding of the way a tool operates. However, these same researchers acknowledge that the degree of tacit knowledge among individuals is so high, that even within the team, the sudden absence of particular members could avoid starting the project from scratch. For instance, a ViEWS’ researcher told me how, even for them as a team, it can be impossible to replicate the tool:

“I don’t think that anyone would be able to replicate it from scratch. Like in the variables, they would run like copy-paste but trying to figure out what each part does, that might be difficult.”

In the case of the infrastructure required for the production of ViEWS, it is acknowledged that most countries do not possess it. Therefore, most of the countries that have been used as case studies to prove a methodology might not be capable of challenging a measurement. This imbalance between who can measure and who can challenge perpetuates power relations now being reinforced through unreplaceable algorithms. Another ViEWS’ researcher told me that most countries do not possess the supercomputers they need for the construction of ViEWS. Therefore, only rich countries could challenge the results -by inspecting the algorithms behind a policy tool.

In sum, there is an urgency to start the discussion on the social consequences the limitations around replicability of ML and algorithmic tools could have. While those producing QTs claim that any wrong forecast would be discarded through an existing ensemble of other tools used by policymakers, this does not increase the ability of local communities to challenge the algorithms. Acknowledging that these gaps might be impossible to solve in the short-term, QTs’ producers need to involve local communities [4] during the production of their tools. For instance, there is a need to translate the production of algorithms to non-technical terms.

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Antonio Ballesteros is a 4th Year PhD candidate in Science and  Technology Studies (STS). His research focuses on analysing the role everyday, mundane events play during the construction of environmental policy quantitative tools (rankings and machine learning).

1. Knight, S.R., et al., Risk stratification of patients admitted to hospital with covid-19 using the ISARIC WHO Clinical Characterisation Protocol: development and validation of the 4C Mortality Score. BMJ, 2020. 370: p. m3339.
2. Menni, C., et al., Real-time tracking of self-reported symptoms to predict potential COVID-19. Nat Med, 2020. 26(7): p. 1037-1040.
3. The Guardian, Is it possible to predict how sick someone could get from Covid-19? , in Science Weekly, N. Davis, Editor. 2020, The Guardian.
4. Visvanathan, S., Knowledge, justice and democracy, in Science and Citizens, M. Leach, I. Scoones, and B. Wynne, Editors. 2005, Zed Books: London.

Policy revolution

There’s been a revolutionary turn in energy policy and research circles. Organisations such as the Energy Systems Catapult, the Energy Institute, and consultancy firms such as PwC have all suggested that the UK energy system is facing a sweeping energy revolution. As part of its wider industrial strategy, the UK Government now channels much of its energy innovation spending under a ‘Prospering from the Energy Revolution’ programme, including an academic-led Energy Revolution Research Consortium.

While there’s an exciting and important role for research working at the cutting edge of change, it might also be worth questioning the inevitability of a wholesale energy revolution. For many, the defining issue in energy policy, and policy-driven research, is how to rapidly decarbonise while providing secure and affordable energy for all, and reaping maximum social and economic benefit along the way. Whether change is best achieved by revolution or reform is an open question, to be decided on an issue-by-issue basis using the evidence at hand.

Clouded judgement?

Studies of the history of technology suggest that revolutionary change is a common way of thinking about the future. The Danish Science and Technology Studies scholar Kasper Schiølin recently referred to ‘future essentialisms’ that sanction certain modes of change while discouraging others. That sanctioning effect is why some researchers and advisors might be wary of signing-up to a sweeping energy revolution prospectus. Upfront overarching commitments – to either revolution or reform – may cloud independent judgement on the best way forwards.

Is a revolutionary vision common?

To find out whether a revolutionary vision of the UK’s energy future is widely shared among experts, we carried out a large online survey of UK energy academics and stakeholders. We discussed some of our findings in an earlier UKERC post and research briefing. In a newly published paper in Energy Policy(part of an upcoming Special Issue from UKERC researchers) we look more closely at expert responses to the energy revolution proposition.

The results suggest that most academics and stakeholders aren’t committed energy revolutionaries. We found widespread recognition of the growing importance of digitalisation and decentralisation in the energy sector, seen in the rise of ‘smart and local’ energy systems. At the same time, many existing technologies and organisations – adapted to the transition challenge – are also expected to play important roles. Large scale technologies and networks are seen as key contributors to the transition, as are some rather mundane innovations, such as improved buildings fabric.

System change, a mix of disruption and repurposing

Under one-fifth of our survey respondents showed a strong commitment to a wholesale energy revolution. Most saw energy system change as involving a mix of disruption and repurposing, and many highlighted complementarities between established and emerging solutions, such as the way large scale infrastructure can offer resilience for local systems. Interestingly, these views were held by the majority of both academic and non-academic respondents, and across the many different disciplinary groups we surveyed.

Transition over revolution

Despite the revolutionary turn in energy policy and research, our survey suggests that most experts are pragmatic problem solvers. For most, transition rather than revolution is the defining issue in energy policy and research.

The new journal paper is available to download from here. It can be cited as: Winskel, M., Kattirtzi, M., 2020. Transitions, disruptions and revolutions: Expert views on prospects for a smart and local energy revolution in the UK. Energy Policy 147, 111815, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111815

In addition to the expression of thanks in the Acknowledgements section of the article, the authors wish to thank two anonymous referees for their detailed comments and suggestions on an earlier version.

This blog was originally published on the UK Energy Research Centre blog and can be found here.

Select committees are the principal mechanism of accountability in the House of Commons and act as information-gathering tools for Parliament. They are generally regarded as influential in the UK policy-making process (even if this is often informal), who enjoy widespread media coverage, and who have a generally positive reputation. Despite their importance, we know comparatively little about how they approach and use evidence to support their work (with some notable exceptions). In this blog, I want to explore precisely this topic.

Select committees are made up of small groups of MPs, elected as members by their colleagues. In order to hold governments to account, select committees rely on extensive evidence-gathering, including an open call for written evidence and oral evidence through invite-only committee hearings. Evidence is analysed and published in a report, which will include recommendations for change. What does ‘evidence’ mean in this context?

The formal meanings of ‘evidence’ are set out in Erskine May, the authoritative reference book on parliamentary procedure for the UK Parliament. It is expected that evidence is ‘truthful’ (para 38.31), which may otherwise be ‘treated as a contempt of the House and investigated and punished’ (para 38.55). Interestingly, evidence prepared for a committee becomes its ‘property’ (para 38.32) in order to be protected by parliamentary privilege (preventing evidence from being called into question by the courts).

Erskine May is an important starting point because it highlights a relationship with law that has percolated into MPs’ views of evidence. For example, one MP told me that ‘I think we act like a jury’ and another that the evidence-gathering process is similar to court proceedings.  However, and at the same time, the legalistic use of evidence means that what counts as evidence is extremely flexible. One official remarked that ‘when we say evidence, what we mean is testimony … someone’s told us something [and] we would call that evidence’.

The role of evidence in committee work is further akin to court proceedings in that the ‘for’ and ‘against’ notion is emphasised. Multiple research participants explained the importance of ‘balance’ in committee hearings, which contrasts with an ideal for the ostensible quality or truthfulness of evidence. This suggests that different claims to knowledge must be placed within the wider political context and especially the representative lens in which MPs represent diverse political opinions.

So far, this suggests that the evidence-gathering process is mediated by beliefs around its legal status, and through a need to be politically diverse. However, once written and oral evidence has been gathered, its function shifts from being openly scrutinised to being pulled together to write an authoritative report. Evidence is used to increase the legitimacy of the report’s claims and based exclusively on the evidence that they have gathered. Some have raised questions about the diversity of that evidence following findings that revealed the disproportionate number of men from southern England in committee hearings.

This discussion highlights the role of evidence in committees. But we also need to consider the practical issues that affect evidence use, and which might explain (though not justify) the types of evidence that are more prevalent along the committee corridor. First, committees work to tight timeframes and often in response to wider political issues, leading one official to conclude that committees are ‘essential reactive’. This means that organisations do not have enough time to prepare a report, and witnesses may be unable to attend hearings (especially if they are travelling from further afield). Second, officials rely on their professional networks to gather evidence. While evidence can come from many quarters, clerks need to get ‘stuck into the wider policy community’, and arguably often sustain them through word-of-mouth with different groups (such as academics recommending colleagues, etc.) as well as engagement through structured activities (such as academic engagement programmes). Third, evidence-gathering is affected by the nature of hearings themselves. Seen as the most important part of committee inquiries, hearings are often perceived as a ‘theatrical performance’, which means that witnesses need to present themselves and their evidence in certain ways that is accessible to political elites. So while we may think that, in theory, evidence-gathering is based on the best available evidence coming to Parliament to hold government to account, the process is, in practice, mediated by a number of factors.

Why does all this matter? Select committees are often praised for being ‘led’ by evidence. Yet the legalistic framework for evidence and the political nature in which it is placed means that the relationship between committee scrutiny and evidence is far more complex. This does not mean that evidence is not unimportant. Indeed, it is crucial in the construction of authoritative reports that have significant impact on decision-making. However, we need to think carefully about how the beliefs and practices around evidence use affect those reports. This raises questions about the specific uses of evidence, but also who is included and excluded from parliamentary processes, to ensure that the House of Commons relies on, and makes appropriate use of, the best available evidence.

Parliaments are the principal democratic arenas of most representative democracies, who juxtapose political ideas and different types of knowledge on a daily basis. This means that they are crucial arenas to understand the relationship between science, knowledge and politics. Historically, this has been understudied. And yet, given the widespread debates as a result of Coronavirus/Covid-19, studying the relationship between knowledge and politics in parliaments matters more than ever.

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 Dr Marc Geddes is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, and Co-Director of the Centre for Science, Knowledge and Policy (SKAPE). He has recently published a book about select committees in the UK House of Commons.

Kat Smith (Strathclyde), Sudeepa Abeysinghe (Social Policy, Edinburgh) and Christina Boswell (PIR, Edinburgh) presented three complementary perspectives on the on the impact of Covid-19 on the study of the relationship between science, knowledge and policy.

Christina Boswell noted the extent, and unprecedented level of granular coverage of science and the scientific debate around Covid-19 in the media and public debate. At the same time, there is a dependence on expert knowledge around the virus, in particular at the level of the UK government, that points to symbolic uses: government representatives are flanked by experts at daily press conference and the mantra is that any decision is “led by the science”. This goes beyond symbolic uses of science to bolster policy choices; with Covid-19, science has become an insurance policy for the government.

Two risks emerge from these observations. The first is that science will disappoint because of unrealistic expectations. In the medium to long term this could lead to an erosion of trust in science. This extends to individual scientists too. The second risk emerges from a paradox: science and scientists need to be independent to work as a resource and to ensure the credibility of science; science needs to retain its fallibility and can’t be responsible for prescribing courses of action. But in the context of Covid-19, science has appeared closer to political decision-making, and in support of policy and decision-making, it undermines the resource. There is a high degree of dependence in science to resolve the Covid related issues but, in the action of deploying this resource, it undermines the resource. This is a paradox that can be observed in other policy and decision-making areas, such as migration for instance. This led Christina Boswell to raise a central question: how can we build trust in these models to make sure they are relevant as a resource and without undermining their credibility and legitimacy? For Christina Boswell, there is a need to explore further governance models of the interface between science and policy and decision-making.

Kat Smith’s thinking and discussions with Justin Parkhurst and colleagues around Covid-19, has centred a lot around the role of legitimacy and the pressure on the evidence-advisory systems in the current times. Legitimacy of the evidence-advisory systems takes on three aspects: technical legitimacy, political legitimacy and process legitimacy. In terms of technical legitimacy, in pandemics, decision-makers appear to be naturally drawn towards epidemiologists and models that are future orientated, presenting quantified data, no doubt because it provides “something that they can hold onto”. But these models are very difficult to scrutinise. Kat Smith is particularly concerned about the way in which the absence of knowledge is recognised and made clear in these models and the way the results are being communicated more broadly. This leads to the second aspect of legitimacy: in terms of political legitimacy, more delineating should be done between evidence led decisions and politically motivated ones. Decision-makers focus strongly on modelling and it isn’t always clear that models are used as guidance only. This means that the assumptions about the environment intrinsic to these models, are not made explicit by decision-makers. This has serious implications, notably for broader socio-economic issues. And finally, in terms of process legitimacy, transparency is key to ensure that there is both scientific and public scrutiny around decision-making about pandemic responses (which tend to sit outside normal legitimacy processes, such as elections and party manifestos). Accountability systems in these pressured times of rapid and major policy developments cannot function without transparency. Both scientific and public scrutiny could be usefully strengthened in the UK and it was notable that the limitations of current arrangements were cited by Sir David King in explaining his decision to convene the Independent SAGE group.

Kat Smith provided a final reflection stemming from her conversations with colleagues working on COVID-19 responses in policy settings, which underlined once again her major concern around how evidence, and particularly modelling, is being portrayed in the public debate. Echoing Christina Boswell’s points, she noted many of the policy colleagues she had spoken to were concerned about the long-term implications for public trust in science.

Sudeepa Abeysinghe first reflected on how Covid-19 subverts expectations around how scientific uncertainty plays out in public health interventions. The virus and its impacts were, and to some extent continue to be, underpinned by scientific uncertainty. Epidemiological modelling was – at least initially – based upon analogous, anecdotal, theoretical and speculative evidence. Under such circumstances, we tend to see the blurring of boundaries between politics and knowledge under post-normal forms of science. This, for instance, played out in the case of the WHO and H1N1: Epidemiological uncertainty was reframed as a politically motivated decision. However, instead of scientific uncertainty providing a means of contestation, we instead experienced a consolidation of the ‘factiness’ of the case. For many, the science-based nature of interventions, as asserted in political messaging, was taken-for-granted. This is despite the messiness of the data and modelling as recounted by the scientists themselves. This prompts the question: why is this the case?

And secondly, Sudeepa Abeysinghe also reflected on the simplified packaging of scientific evidence in government guidance and publications. Drawing on some initial empirical work in relation to Covid-19 in Indonesia, Sudeepa Abeysinghe suggests that instead of a knowledge deficit, the public may be engaging in complex decision-making weighing different and aspects against each other, notably bringing in socio-economic concerns too. Sudeepa Abeysinghe concludes by raising the question: why and how are issues of public health intervention still framed and discussed as a deficit of knowledge of the public?

A number of points also arose from responses to questions during the seminar. A first question prompted reflections on science coming from China. Christina Boswell noted that there is a discourse that data coming from China is not trust worthy and suggested that there is a tendency to nationalisation of science advice in the public debate. National competiveness of science is remerging. In the UK, it also raises questions about funding research.

There was also a question on why there is such reluctance to admit to uncertainty. Kat Smith suggested that this is part an evidence-advisory systems issue, part an institutional issue. Do these systems look at broad types of knowledge, beyond epidemiology ? For instance, logistics were not taking into account in the delivery of PPE initially. Secondly, there is a fragmentation of governance; in Scotland for instance, there are many different groups of scientific advisers that have been set up and the entire civil services has been rearranged ass a resit of Covid-19. This creates a very fragmented decision-making landscape.

There was also a reflection on the way in which the role of experts has changed as a result of Covid-19. A much wider range of experts is now involved, with some having more influence and traction because of social media and salience. There may be an indirect effect on the institutionalisation of the use of science.

In relation to legitimacy, concerns were raised in view of the shift of the responsibility for risk onto the public and how this may feed into existing inequalities for instance. More broadly, it is important to note that we are only partially into this crisis.

Sudeepa Abeysinghe is Lecturer in Global Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh.

Christina Boswell is Dean of Research, College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Follow Christina @Boswellpol

Kat Smith is Professor of Public Health Policy at the Strathclyde School of Social Work and Social Policy. Follow Kat @ProfKatSmith

Covid-19 has spread across the globe, upturning our personal lives and uprooting our routines; and led to significant health problems including, sadly, deaths. Across the globe, people have been forced into lockdown to prevent physical contact with others. Covid-19 has already, or is going to, impact all areas of our lives. It will challenge us in many as-yet unforeseen ways.

From the beginning of this crisis, we have witnessed a growing importance of the questions of the role of science, knowledge and expertise in politics and society. As the SKAPE community we have been exploring these themes from multiple perspectives for nearly a decade and during this challenging time, we would like to open up a discussion on potential impacts of COVID-19 on this field and offer a space for scholars working in different disciplines to engage in a debate. In this blog, we identify seven questions that emerge in this new reality and explain them in the UK context – though we are aware that our themes are not comprehensive nor that the UK is alone in this pandemic.

First, what does Covid-19 reveal about the relationship between experts and political decision-making? Covid-19 has renewed many questions that have long been studied about how scientists and experts interact with policy-makers. For example, we may raise questions about the role, transparency and independence of the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE), or the role of different institutional players in the wider network of scientific advice (e.g. Government Office for Science, Chief Medical Officer, etc.). Does Covid-19 confirm our previous scholarship on the role of evidence, or do we need to re-think it? One key issue here is the novel character of the virus and illness; how are scientific judgements made about responses to an infection which is not yet understood in detail?

Second, and closely related to the above, how are questions around how scientific advice and forms of expertise communicated? It has now become a familiar sight to see a government minister flanked by two scientific advisers at the Number 10 Press Briefing at 5pm each day. Politicians are keen to emphasise that they are following ‘The Science’. But how well has scientific advice been explained? What impact do different formats have on the public psyche? What is the role of identifying targets? And how well is the public receiving and interpreting scientific advice?

Third, who are our scientific advisers and from where does their expertise come? We ask this question to highlight the types of experts we see in public, the forms of expertise that are seen as authoritative and the impact of diversity on policy-making. For example, some have criticised the small number of social scientists on key advisory committees, whose knowledge and understanding of human behaviour to identify policy proposals post-lockdown are seen as crucial, while others believe that engineers and transport experts are missing.

Fourth, what is the global nature of this pandemic? We are keenly aware that the World Health Organisation plays a key role in identifying global challenges, yet policy responses to Covid-19 have been largely set by national (and devolved) governments across the world. This is rather different to other recent crises, such as the global financial crisis where world leaders were able to meet and discuss support packages. While the EU has recently agreed financial support for the looming economic consequences of Covid-19, what other lessons can we learn about the global nature of this pandemic? Will we see a reversal of globalising forces, as some have predicted?

Fifth, what is the impact of Covid-19 on different communities and social groups? We need to be aware of the emerging concerns that Covid-19 will have unequal impacts across society, and ask how these could be mitigated. We already know that caring responsibilities disproportionately affect women and, with the closure of nurseries and schools, this inequality may have been exacerbated by Coronavirus. We also know that many ‘key workers’ who have been essential in keeping our lives running for the past few weeks come from low-income backgrounds and therefore are likely to be more exposed to the virus. More recently, a survey has suggested that wealthier families are able to educate their children more than those from poorer backgrounds. Covid-19 is likely to also have a disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities. And finally, what of the digital divide?

Sixth, turning our minds to universities, what are the likely implications of Covid-19 for the study of evidence and policy? Across academic circles, many have reported that journal submissions has declined from certain groups, notably women. Opportunities for early-career academics have been frozen and we are at a difficult moment where the next generation of scholars could be pushed out and away from academia. What is the precise nature of the challenges that Covid-19 poses for us as scholars, and how can they be addressed equitably?

Seventh, and finally, what are the opportunities that Covid-19 may bring? The above themes have largely focused around problems and challenges, but we need to be aware that Covid-19 may also bring some changes that are beneficial. We have seen, for example, the arts opening up spaces for digital exhibitions or making plays and concerts more readily available. Elsewhere, many people – though facing the challenge of childcare and home-schooling – are able to spend more time with their loved ones. Others have re-imagined their working or personal lives, becoming aware of the joys of working from home or finding treasures in their local communities. It is also possible that people may have learned to live with less business travel (firms’ accountants may turn out to be keen on the savings from not-travelling), while many people may decide to restrict their commuting if employers allow. The environmental consequences of these changes should not be exaggerated, but they are likely to be positive.

We are sure that the themes that we have identified are not exhaustive – not having focused on, for example, changing practices of political organisation (e.g. virtual parliaments) or policy areas that are affected by Covid-19 (such as the environment or education). We believe this blog should serve as a starting point for a wider discussion: on what should researchers on Covid-19 focus? What contribution can existing research bring to debates about Covid-19? Understanding and answering these questions requires engagement across a range of scholars across the arts, humanities, and social sciences, as well as the natural sciences. SKAPE is one space where inter-disciplinary perspectives may come together and discuss this, with a membership across many disciplines.

The first step towards this goal was to hold an open discussion among our members on the 27^th of May. During the discussion, we identified two main themes for our future explorations on knowledge and policy during the COVID-19 crisis.

The first theme was of the key importance of the politics of knowledge production and expertise. The UK government time and again declares it follows The Science; however, it is not clear what such a declaration means in practice.  What counts as The Science – what disciplines and institutions are seen as credible and authoritative, how is data produced and translated into models and consequently – policy advice, how research, its uncertainties and ambiguities are communicated to the public? What emerges in this context is not lack of evidence but rather a multiplicity of different pools of evidence. Consequently, there is a need for a different form of scientific advice – focused not only on producing knowledge but also mediating and coordinating it.

The second theme discussed by the SKAPE members was the role of comparisons and analogies in decision-making. The boundaries between the global problem of the pandemic and the local solutions implemented by national governments are becoming increasingly blurred. Comparison across countries emerges as the central mode of both knowing and addressing the crisis. Consequently, we witness a powerful role of data visualisations as both performing ‘the global’ of the pandemic and evaluating governments’ performance. The question of what analogy to use in public decision-making (e.g. comparison to other countries or other crisis – is it like flu? Is it like the AIDS epidemic?) is in itself a political decision and a matter of science advice. In relation to the idea of the performance of data, SKAPE members raised how the introduction of metrics act to re-shape people’s actions and objectives, while also pointing out the limitations data comparison (e.g. comparing the UK to other countries despite different methods of recording the spread of Covid-19).

We want to provide the space for scholars to answer these questions, and welcome you to join us: follow us on Twitter, where we will be sharing insights and research around these topics (and the role of knowledge in policy more broadly); write for our blog – we are always looking for new contributors (get in touch); and/or join our discussions at virtual seminars that we have organised:

• 27 May, 11.30am-12.30pm: Open discussion based on this blog around issues studying science, knowledge and policy during Covid-19
• 24 June, 11.30am-12.30pm: Kat Smith, Sudeepa Abeysinghe and Christina Boswell offering reflections on the impact of Covid-19 from their area of expertise: the summary of the seminar is now on the SKAPE blogpage
• 15 July, 4pm-5pm: Alison Cohen offering reflections on community-based participatory research during Covid-19, based on current work-in-progress

We look forward to sharing ideas and knowledge, and to have debates and discussions, in the months and years that lie ahead!

This blog was amended following a SKAPE seminar discussion on the 27th of May where key issues were discussed; with thanks to Justyna Bandola-Gill for collating input and leading on this updated blog

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Dr Marc Geddes is Lecturer in British Politics and Co-Director of SKAPE, University of Edinburgh. He has recently published a book on how MPs and officials interpret ‘scrutiny’ and ‘evidence’ in the UK Parliament. Follow Marc on Twitter: @marcgeddes.

 Professor Steve Yearley is the Professor of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge and also Director of IASH, Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.

 Dr Justyna Bandola-Gill is a Research Fellow in Social Policy and Deputy Director of SKAPE. Her recent publications include a book on the controversies, challenges and consequences of the ‘Impact Agenda. You can follow her on Twitter @justynabandola.

This blogpost is a repost of a blogpost published in April 2016 on the SKAPE blogpage 

The global management of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases present a complex governance issue. The most recent Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), the incidence of cases of microcephaly associated with the Zika virus, demonstrates the high level of scientific uncertainty associated with infectious disease risks. When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the PHEIC in February, the issue was surrounded by a high degree of uncertainty: for example, around the mode of transmission (and the possibility of sexual transmission), the association between microcephaly and Zika infection, and the likelihood of a Zika-infected pregnant woman carrying a child with microcephaly.

Such uncertainties are integral to the experience of infectious disease. The riskiest threats are those which are transmissible, novel and/or under-evidenced; diseases which may also have the highest potential to spread globally amongst an immunologically naïve population.

The 2009/10 H1N1 Pandemic, the WHO’s first PHEIC declaration under the revised International Health Regulations, provides a useful lens through which to investigate the relationship between uncertainty and policymaking around contemporary risks. Here, the novel infectious agent of the influenza H1N1/A virus spread swiftly across the globe, but the perceived lack of severity of the disease lead to widespread criticism of the WHO’s management.

In understanding the WHO’s position in calling a PHEIC and declaring a Pandemic, the issue of scientific uncertainty is key. As illustrated by co-productionist conceptions of risk, knowledge around a new risk is always in itself uncertain (due to the number of variables and contingencies involved), and often highly politicised. Risky phenomenon such as H1N1 are novel, complex, variable and by definition ill-understood.  Although it is assumed that infectious diseases are stable and knowable phenomena, initial investigation cannot produce solid and complete evidence. What is achieved instead are probabilistic models, which are essentially untestable and tentative.

The initial knowledge surrounding the newly spreading disease is limited (based upon partial and preliminary epidemiological evidence) and abstract (based on modelling and necessarily incomplete data). However, once a risk has entered the social and political consciousness it necessitates action. The institution in charge of responding to the risk needs to be seen to act swiftly. Simultaneously, interpretations of the empirical data are unstable because of the multiple contingent variables, and complex network of actors, involved.

Risk managing institutions – the WHO in this case – must be seen to act despite (or even because of) the uncertainty surrounding the disease. In the case of H1N1, as events unfolded, it became clear that the disease was relatively mild. The WHO was criticized for the apparent mismatch between the global response and the severity of the pandemic. Yet this lack of severity could not be forecast during the early, uncertain, emergence of disease threat.

In dealing with the threat of infectious disease, policies attempt to produce preparedness for often unpredictable events. The diversity of diseases declared a PHEIC – H1N1, the resurgence of poliovirus, Ebola, and microcephaly associated with the Zika virus – are a demonstration of the variation in potential global threats and the flexibility needed by policy frameworks. Acting at the early and most unstable emergence of a threat, risk-managing institutions are placed in a precarious position of negotiating action around potentially severe events bound by uncertain knowledge.

Sudeepa Abeysinghe is Lecturer in Global Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh.

This blogpost based on a talk at the SKAPE seminar on 27 August 2019 

Time and practices of governing are intertwined in multiple ways. Political rule in general and its democratic form in particular are not possible without the temporalisation of processes and of institutional settings which constitute specific rhythms of political participation, deliberation, and decision-making. Political order can be seen as a complex configuration of stages, periods, intervals, cycles, and deadlines, which foster predictability and enable purposeful political action. At the same time, political strategies can be built on utilisations of time, for instance through an allocation of budgets, a sequencing of events, or an adjustment of the pace of processes. In recent years, research in political science and policy analysis has started to recognise how techniques and institutions of governing are characterised by these temporal features (cf. Pollitt 2008, Howlett and Goetz 2014).

However, the relationship of time and governing can also be grasped as an ontological and thus more fundamental one. In this sense, the very possibility of governing, understood as a specific social practice, both builds on and produces a certain notion of time and history. Time thus becomes de-naturalised, bringing to the fore the complex ways how (political) realities and temporalities emerge in mutual dependency (cf. Barbehön 2018).

In this SKAPE seminar, I will develop such a perspective on the basis of Michel Foucault’s lectures on the governmentalisation of the state (Foucault 2007, 2008). With this notion, Foucault has reconstructed the emergence of a specific kind of knowledge about how to govern (through) the state. Going back as far as to the 16^th century, Foucault traces the consolidation of a distinct political rationality that embraces beliefs about what governing is for, how it is to be practiced, and what kind of knowledge it depends on. Starting from this general perspective, I will argue that the genealogy of a modern governing rationality could also, and maybe even primarily, be captured as the construction of a specific understanding of time and history (cf. Hamilton 2018; Portschy 2019).

Central to the historical emergence of a political art of governing is the generalisation and transformation of pastoral power; the Christian idea that the guidance of souls is exerted by a shepherd who leads his herd to otherworldly salvation. From the 17^th century onwards, this notion of conduct becomes secularised, constituting the idea that governing is not the exercise of sovereignty over a territory, but, similarly to the pastorate, the guidance of individuals and, later in history, of the population. In the course of this fundamental transformation, the eschatological idea of an ultimate destiny is replaced by the notion of an “open historicity”: “we now find ourselves in a perspective in which historical time is indefinite, in a perspective of indefinite governmentality with no foreseeable term or final aim” (Foucault 2007, p. 260). The art of governing is thus not directed towards a fixed and ahistorical point in time which will inevitably arrive (Last Judgment), but a radically contemporary practice whose future is contingent upon current actions and events.

This transformation of time is fundamental to the emergence of a distinct political rationality, as an open future is the precondition for the conviction that the way worldly events develop in time can be influenced here and how. However, this notion of time and history is not external to governing practices which themselves yield time. This mutual relationship manifests in the (specific) temporal characteristics of the different forms of power/knowledge relations Foucault discerns. Disciplinary power, for instance, tries to dispose of the open future entirely in that it assumes that the unfolding of time can be controlled by an ever more far-reaching and fine-grained web of disciplining regulations. To be able to govern in every detail, the state starts capturing all that happens within its territory. A statistical knowledge emerges, a “knowledge of the state, of the forces and resources that characterize a state at a given moment” (Foucault 2007, p. 274). Disciplinary power thus both builds on and constitutes a time which is open and controllable through present interventions.

In contrast, the security dispositif observes the future not only as open, but also as a blind spot that can never be fully known. As societal dynamics result in “a never-ending generation of history” (Foucault 2008, p. 308), one can try to anticipate, though without being able to entirely control what will happen next. Governing according to the security dispositif thus means to establish institutions which are able to reduce future risks or which are, in today’s political semantics, resilient. For this purpose, a type of knowledge is needed which allows for prognoses or scenarios of possible futures. Based on knowledge of (assumed) nexuses and causalities, the security dispositif regulates probabilities which are calculated at the level of the population and, as a consequence, practices of governing erect a notion of time as contingent and inconsistent.

Finally, the disciplinary power over the human body and the regulation of collective life at the level of the population coalesce during the 19^th century into a biopolitics which “exerts a positive influence on life, that endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it” (Foucault 1978, p. 137). This kind of power establishes yet another notion of the general idea of an indefinite time, as it constructs the open future as a room for enhancement and optimisation.

A time-centred interpretation of Foucault’s genealogy thus allows to grasp the relationship between time and governing in a more nuanced way as compared to perspectives that reduce time to a matter of organising political procedures, institutions, and strategies. A governmentality perspective enables us to investigate how the modern art of governing is, on the one hand, bound to a specific understanding of time and history, while this very understanding is, on the other hand, enacted and reproduced in and through governing techniques. This sheds new light on both the temporal requirements and the temporal performativity of current rationales of governing, as manifest for instance in the semantics of risk, precaution, or resilience.

References

Barbehön, Marlon 2018: Ever more complex, uncertain and urging? ‘Wicked problems’ from the perspective of anti-naturalist conceptualizations of time. diskurs – Zeitschrift für innovative Analysen politischer Praxis 3, 1-20.

Foucault, Michel 1978: The History of Sexuality. Volume I: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon Books.

Foucault, Michel 2007: Security, Territory, Population. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-1978. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Foucault, Michel 2008: The Birth of Biopolitics. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hamilton, Scott 2018: Foucault’s End of History: The Temporality of Governmentality and its End in the Anthropocene. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 46 (3), 371-395.

Howlett, Michael and Klaus H. Goetz 2014: Introduction: time, temporality and timescapes in administration and policy. International Review of Administrative Sciences 80 (3), 477-492.

Pollitt, Christopher 2008: Time, Policy, Management. Governing with the Past. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Portschy, Jürgen 2019: Biopolitik der Zeit. In: Gerhards, Helene/Braun, Kathrin (eds.): Biopolitiken – Regierungen des Lebens heute. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 67-93.

This blogpost is based on a talk at the SKAPE seminar on 20 March 2019

In the SKAPE seminar, I would like to discuss a first outline of a research proposal that I am developing. It focuses on the involvement of ‘lay’ or ‘citizen experts’ in knowledge and advice production through practices such as citizen science, service user involvement and certain forms of citizen panels.

I have been working on the relationship between expertise and democracy for a while and, more particularly, on institutional solutions to the tensions between epistemic and democratic demands in the phase of policy development. For instance, I have assessed different modes of selecting participants of advisory rounds (such as expert committees or mini-publics) in terms of their potential to strike a balance between these two normative requirements. In this research, I have often come across forms of expertise production that claim to be participatory and democratic, to represent ‘citizens’, ‘the people’ or ‘the public’. One manifestation of such participatory expertise production that seems to be on the rise at present are forms that emphasise the involvement of ‘ordinary’, lay citizens into processes of generating expertise. These practices radiate understandings of participation that are more direct, open, non-mediated, and possibly more authentic and democratic than representative forms of participation by organised political elites (e.g. party politicians and interest groups).

On top of the ‘democratising’ promise that the framing of many of these endeavours bespeaks, some forms of participatory expertise creation also attribute expert status to the ‘lay citizens’ involved so that the roles of citizen and expert converge (and possibly blur). Participants’ input is then not only valued on the grounds of having a right to be heard, or being affected by the problem, but also on the grounds of their somehow specific knowledge, competence and insight. The idea is to use ‘local’ expertise and the resources of non-professionals, to open up input channels and to bring down barriers of institutionalised knowledge production. These practices thus hold a double normative promise: by involving citizens as experts, new sources of knowledge and new sources of participation can be tapped into simultaneously. Public policies that build on such input promise to be both ‘democratised’ as well as fact-based, substantiated and expert-approved and, therefore, to reconcile two potentially conflicting sources of political authority, i.e. the epistemic validity and democratic legitimacy of claims.

The EU’s White paper on citizen science, for instance, promotes collaborative research networks that involve non-scientists into data collection, question development and co-creation of scientific culture, “leading in turn to a more democratic research based on evidence and informed decision-making” (So-cientise 2014, 10).

Along similar lines, participants of citizen juries in Scottish health policy are expected to draw conclusions that are ‘representative of the wider public’ and to bring with them “the good sense and wisdom born of their own knowledge and experience” (Scottish Health Council 2014, 1).

This double normative promise can be a huge asset in times of dwindling levels of trust in both political and knowledge elites. Against the background of a declining commitment to traditional channels of participation (e.g. elections, political parties and interest groups) and disappointments with the closedness, biases, elitism and rigidity of science, these institutions can, in the ideal case, contribute to counter the failings of representative democracy as well as of the science system.

Yet, several problems may arise from these high hopes and the high normative standards associated with them: first, as we know from empirical studies, not every form of engagement is particularly democratic. Democratic theory has frequently underlined that political participation cannot be taken as a democratic good in itself but needs to be seen in context and to respond to certain standards of democratic worth, such as openness, inclusion or empowerment (Fung 2003; Warren 2002) – and this also goes for participatory expertise production. Second, democracy is a complex, contested and multi-dimensional concept. There are many, partly rivalling understandings of democracy and, accordingly, a plurality of (partly conflicting) standards of democratic legitimacy. Democratic dilemmas abound. There are tensions between core values of democracies, such as between system effectiveness and citizen participation (Dahl 1994) or between freedom and representation (Barber 1984). Third, although epistemic and democratic demands to policy-making are by no means irreconcilable, further tensions can occur between the specialisation logic of expertise and the equality imperative of democracy that essentially constitutes the ‘epistemic-democratic divide’ (Krick 2019; see also Moore 2017). The key epistemic standard of competence that qualifies an expert, for instance, in some respect runs counter to the democratic principle of equal access to power. The epistemic standard of expert independence, as another example, conflicts with accountability requirements. Instances of citizen expertise production need to deal with these challenges to develop their full potential.

Against the background of the frequently enthusiastic rhetoric around participatory expertise production and the challenges of achieving and reconciling the ambitious goals in reality, I would like to take a critical look at these practices and ask: does the involvement of ‘local’, ‘ordinary’ people as experts into policy-making help to democratise expertise?

Crucial questions from a democratic theory standpoint seem to be:

• Who are the ‘citizens’ in these endeavours?
• To what extent can they speak for others?
• Can they claim to represent the public, the common good or a more authentic, non-partisan perspective?
• How ‘lay’ or ‘ordinary’ are the involved perspectives and how direct and unmediated is participation?
• Which democratic legitimacy norms do these institutions link up to (e.g. inclusion, accountability, representation, self-determination etc.)?

Key questions from an epistemic perspective would be:

• Which validity standards do these practices refer to (e.g. personal experience, scientific methods, reasoning, independence, impartiality, closure etc.)?
• In what way are those in the role of experts qualified for their tasks?
• Do the roles of expert and citizen converge in the same individual(s)?
• Are there boundaries as to what counts as ‘expertise’?

In my talk, I would like to discuss ways of addressing these questions in terms of research design, data analysis and case selection. I am particularly interested in the conjunction of the expert role and the citizen role and the nexus of knowledge and democracy in policy-making processes. I would like to take a holistic and integrated perspective to shed light on – organisationally and ideologically quite different – phenomena that claim to produce expertise in participatory, democratic ways, and particularly those that claim to involve ‘citizens’. In my view, such an analysis promises insights into contemporary understandings, and possibly culturally specific shadings, of democratic legitimacy and the validity and reliability of expertise in politics.

References

Barber, B.R. (1984): Strong democracy: Participatory politics for a new age. University of California Press.

Dahl, R.A. (1994): A democratic dilemma. System effectiveness versus citizen participation, Political Science Quarterly 109(1), 23-34.

Fung, A. (2003): Survey article: Recipes for public spheres: Eight institutional design choices and their consequences, The Journal of Political Philosophy 11(3), 338–367.

Krick, E.K. (2019): Creating participatory expert bodies. How the targeted selection of policy advisers can bridge the epistemic-democratic divide, European Politics and Society 20(1), 101-116.

Moore, A. (2017): Critical elitism. Deliberation, democracy and the problem of expertise. Oxford University Press.

Scottish Health Council (2014): Why use citizen juries, URL: scottishhealthcouncil.org/ patient__public_participation/participation_toolkit/idoc.ashx?docid=0d0afa71-704f-4089-a635-de6541fdd8e3&version=-1 (accessed 04.03.2019).

So-cientise (2014): White paper on citizen science for Europe (commissioned by the EU Commission), URL:  https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/system/files/ged/socientize_white _paper _on_citizen_science.pdf (accessed 04.03.2019).

Warren, M.E. (2002): What can democratic participation mean today?, Political Theory 30(5), 677–701.