Paper long abstract:

In the society of knowledge, the figure of the expert has stood as one of the most important and influent elements for the understanding and construction of a common world (Collins & Evans, 2002). Thus, we can find a large number of cases in which the governments use experts and his knowledge to participate in public policy development (Rip, 2003). In fact, the expert is often seen as a scientist who is able to work maintaining a neutral point of view that allows him to talk in name of thirts to provide relevant information about an issue (Brown, 2009). Nevertheless, today many stakeholder's voices, like, for example, those coming from emergent concerned groups (Callon & Raberahisoa, 2008), are claiming to be included in public controversies that affect them.

This incising demand of participation, the stablishment, in recent years, of a participatory turn (Jassanof, 1999), and the fact that economic crisis is changing the mode in witch governments, in special local governments, are including this new actors in policy making (Parés, 2014), moves us to consider the co-expertise (Stengers, 1997) as a central point for new models of governance.

This work, based on a case study in the local administration of a northern region of Spain, Catalonia, we present the elements and relations that take part in the role played by some of these co-experts included in the development and application of public policies.