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Short abstract:

This paper explores the use of a multi-criteria decision analysis as a technology of mediation for interdisciplinary scientific policy advice. The MCDA can facilitate qualitative, deliberative considerations of insights from various disciplines for more transparent scientific policy advice.

Long abstract:

Scientific experts played a central role in advising policymakers during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands. The main government advisory body in the Netherlands, comprised of epidemiologists, medical doctors, and public health scientists, has been the foundation of the government’s pandemic response. Several institutes have also regularly advised the Dutch government on behavioural and social issues, but it was less clear what happened with their recommendations. In the absence of more integrated interdisciplinary scientific advice, one of the key lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands and beyond is the need for multi- and interdisciplinary research (KNAW 2022; Escandon et al. 2021). Although significant efforts in funding and research initiatives have followed to stimulate interdisciplinary pandemic preparedness efforts, there is little engagement with the politics of interdisciplinarity. In this paper, I reflect on the implications of a research project which aims to facilitate integrated interdisciplinary pandemic policy advice as part of a large research consortium on behavioural and social science pandemic preparedness. I follow Hardon and Mol’s (2021) conceptual understanding of interdisciplinarity as a mediation process, and I explore how this might be facilitated through a multi-criteria decision analysis (Thokala et al. 2016). Rather than focusing on a performance matrix as a quantitative analysis, I explore the use of an MCDA as a technology of mediation. This technology can then facilitate qualitative, deliberative considerations of insights from various disciplines. As such, the MCDA has the potential to negotiate different disciplinary insights for policy advice in a more transparent way.