Expert knowledge and expertise are increasingly important to support of effective decision making. In response to the Covid-19 outbreak, most nations have put in place new institutional mechanisms to secure expert advice in a variety of contexts to inform public health response. This international research project, led by Prof. Roger A. Pielke Jr at the University of Boulder in Colorado performs a comparative, international evaluation of mechanisms of science and more in general of expert advice in the pandemic emergency. The purpose of the project is to comparatively investigate the ways in which scientific knowledge is being used to inform policy in response to the Covid-19 emergency.
I am leading the Italy case study, with Professor Federica Angeli, Chair in Management at the University of York, as co-lead. We are assisted in this research by Giorgia Dal Fabbro of the University of Trento. Alongside collecting and analysing relevant policy documents, we are now in the process of interviewing key stakeholders, including members of the Italian Technical and Scientific Committee (Comitato Tecnico Scientifico Nazionale, or CTS); members of other expert committees and task force groups, both at national, and at regional level, policy-makers and politicians.
For more information about the ESCaPE Italy project, or if you would like to put yourself forward as a key stakeholder for an interview, email me at:
silvia.camporesiATkcl.ac.uk
