RAPID: Evaluation of Science Advice in a Pandemic Emergency (EScAPE)

Scientific knowledge and expertise are increasingly important in support of effective decision making. In recent decades, the United States and other nations around the world have designed and put into place institutional mechanisms to better secure science advice. The Coronavirus pandemic has put these institutions to the test, offering a rare opportunity to assess their performance in the context of a global crisis. This project performs a comparative, international evaluation of mechanisms of science advice in the pandemic emergency. As the pandemic continues, the results of this research will be of potential immediate relevance to institutions that are addressing the continuing need for science advice. More broadly, this research has great potential to contribute to the continued improvement of scientific advisory practices, which will only become more important in confronting challenges of the 21st century.

This research project performs an international comparative analysis of the role(s) of science advice in national pandemic response. The project partners with the International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA), which includes in its membership science advice scholars and practitioners from over 90 countries. The results of this research have considerable intellectual merit, as the evolving response to the pandemic offers a true ?policy laboratory? to explore and understand the provision of science advice to decisions makers. Specifically, this project commissions a set of national case studies on diverse models and applications of science advice in shaping policies and decision-making in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, supporting the collection of perishable, contemporary data on the real-time uses (along with non-use, misuse) of scientific evidence in decision making, with a focus on formal mechanisms of science advice. The results of our evaluation will inform science advisory mechanisms around the world, which face urgent challenges as the pandemic continues. The initial and ongoing results of this work will be immediately shared with relevant decision makers in national settings, based on the network already in place via INGSA, this maximizing the potential for the lessons learned via the case studies to have a positive role in shaping science advisory processes in the COVID-19 epidemic. Project materials will also be made more generally available via a readily-accessible project website.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.