RAPID: Collaborative Research: A Comparative Study of Expertise for Policy in the COVID-19 Pandemic

当政策制定者努力避免因新冠状病毒感染而造成灾难性的健康和经济后果时，他们正在努力解决一个棘手的问题：是什么使专业知识在公共政策中的使用可信、合法和可靠？这一问题尤其紧迫，因为国家和区域当局正面临着科学上的不确定性和跨越地缘政治边界的快速变化事件，而且需要迅速采取行动，与需要以强有力的专家知识和令人信服的分析为基础的政策相矛盾。确定值得信赖的专业知识来源的方法是至关重要的，但它们在很大程度上仍然属于各国政府，它们的机构、研究传统、文化承诺和公民信仰各不相同。私人投资机构将在十个地区进行多地点调查，在疫情展开时捕获有关新冠病毒19号危机的详细信息，然后进行严格的比较分析，以更好地了解专业知识和信任之间的关系，在信息分散和政治两极分化的时代，信任是政策制定者至关重要的纽带。向关键政策分析员和政策界有效传播成果是这一项目成功的关键。为了实现这一目标，私人投资机构将利用他们及其合作伙伴与科学政策制定者以及国家和国际组织的广泛联系。私人投资机构组建了一个由研究伙伴组成的团队，他们是十个地区的知名STS学者，他们已经同意参与该项目。该团队将收集和分析各地区与新冠肺炎政策制定有关的出版物和公共文件。这些材料将为以科学、技术和创新为基础的每个区域的知识和政策制定提供基础，以便进行对该项目至关重要的比较。为了提供这一说明，他们将建立一个基本的政策时间表，跟踪每个地区应对大流行的关键事件和决定。跟踪这些动向将使他们能够记录变化，并分析问题的框架和证据收集方式的变化。他们还将收集有关不确定因素(如科学知识的范围和局限性)和争议的信息，重点放在每个区域冠状病毒政策最具争议性的方面。此外，在将精心挑选的对象纳入政策讨论时，他们将跟踪这些对象。这些目标包括特别有影响力的流行病学和认知学模型、广泛传播的可视化表述、关键政策概念以及关于医疗干预的可用性、有效性和未来前景的知识声明。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

As policy makers work to avert catastrophic health and economic outcomes due to COVID 19, they are struggling with a difficult question: What makes expert knowledge credible, legitimate, and reliable for use in public policy? That question is especially urgent since national and regional authorities are facing scientific uncertainty and fast-moving events that cross geopolitical borders, and the need for quick action stands in tension with the need to ground policy in robust expert knowledge and convincing analysis. Ways of identifying trustworthy sources of expertise is essential, but they remain largely vested in governments with their differing institutions, research traditions, cultural commitments, and civic beliefs. The PIs will conduct a multi-sited investigation in ten regions that will capture detailed information about the COVID 19 crisis as it unfolds, and then conduct a rigorous comparative analysis to provide a better understanding of the relationship between expertise and trust, a critically important nexus for policy makers in an era of decentralized information and polarized politics. Effective dissemination of results to critical policy analysts and policy communities is key to the success of this project. To achieve this goal, the PIs will utilize the extensive connections that they and their collaborative partners have to science policymakers and national and international organizations.The PIs have assembled a team of research partners, well established STS scholars in ten regions, who have agreed to participate in the project. This team will collect and analyze publications and public documents pertaining to COVID-19 policy making in each region. These materials will provide the basis for STS-based accounts of knowledge and policymaking in each region for the comparisons that are central to this project. To provide that account, they will build a basic policy timeline tracking key events and decisions in each region’s response to the pandemic. Tracking these moves will enable them to document change and analyze variations in how issues are framed and evidence is gathered. They will also collect information on uncertainties (such as scope and limitations of scientific knowledge) and controversies, with a focus on the most contentious aspect of coronavirus policy in each region. In addition, they will track carefully chosen objects as they are incorporated into policy discussions. Such objects include particularly influential epidemiological and epistemic models, widely circulated visual representations, key policy concepts, and knowledge claims about the availability, effectiveness, and future prospects of medical interventions.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.