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Paper short abstract

This study examines how expertise, personal authority, and leadership shape the framing and formulation of pandemic policy advice for wicked problems, drawing on STS perspectives on co-production and ethnographic research within the UNITY advisory framework project.

Paper long abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic placed the resilience and preparedness of healthcare systems firmly on national policy agendas. Yet responses varied across countries, highlighting differences in crisis governance that cannot be explained by epidemiological evidence alone. Policymakers relied heavily on scientific advisory bodies to formulate policy advice for a rapidly evolving and inherently wicked problem. From a STS perspective, scientific knowledge and social order are co-produced. As Jasanoff argues, what counts as valid expertise both shapes and is shaped by institutional arrangements. In the Netherlands, virological and biomedical expertise became particularly influential in pandemic advisory structures, while behavioral and social sciences remained comparatively marginal. Although such asymmetries are often attributed to disciplinary hierarchies, less attention has been paid to the role of the individuals representing these fields. Personal characteristics such as leadership, credibility, and authority may influence how expertise is interpreted, how knowledge is prioritized, and how the crisis itself is framed in the formulation of policy advice.

This study examines how expertise, knowledge, and the individuals who represent them interact in the formulation of pandemic advice. Following the UNITY research consortium, we use qualitative methods including interviews, observations, and document analysis to study the development and testing of an integrated advisory framework in simulation exercises.

The study contributes to understanding how expertise, authority, and framing shape decision making in the governance of wicked problems.