Science Advice in the Philippines during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Where Science should go? How Science advice should work in the government, according to Nature

The International Network for Governmental Science Advice, based in New Zealand, is one of the organizations that Nature sent its survey to. Half of the people that responded worked in research and half in government or advisory group. Respondents can work in both research and government roles. The survey respondents were asked about the quality of science advice to governments and also about the advice given during a COVID-19 Pandemic.

Zuckerman would come and say his piece and leave and nobody would know that he’d been involved in the controversy. In addition to the lack of transparency, the kind of summarizes how science advice should work is what Mark Ferguson said when he was the chief science adviser to the government of Ireland.

Aside from an understanding of science, a core attribute for science advisers is a good grasp of: how governments and their departments work; the goals and deadlines of policymakers; and how evidence can be appropriately added to the mix. That experience can be gained, for example, through fellowships or internships in government agencies. In the United States, the American Association for the Advancement of Science runs one well-known fellowship in Washington DC. There are many more.

Pielke was exposed to the United States lack of high-level expert advisory mechanism to inform the government’s response, similar to the SAGE in the United Kingdom. “Given that the United States is kind of the world’s colossus of scientific research, it’s a shocking oversight,” he says.

But Pielke argues that by challenging government advice, Independent SAGE often “delegitimized SAGE, and in the process, science advice itself”, he says. “Even members of Parliament got confused about SAGE versus Independent SAGE.”

In the Philippines, less controversially, a pop-up shadow team of experts called OCTA Research became a leading source of science advice during the pandemic. The group was successful because it had a wide range of expertise, including physicians, economists and a media specialist, says Benjamin Vallejo Jr, an environmental scientist and OCTA member at the University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City. It also communicated to politicians “in a way that wouldn’t threaten their public credibility”, he says.

Pillay and Pielke agree that science advice needs to incorporate more expertise in the future. Pielke suggests to invite the shadow voices into the room if they become more significant or influential. More than 60% of survey respondents said that science advice fails to incorporate a diversity of people or viewpoints.

Another requirement is a repertoire of people skills: the ability to communicate complex ideas in succinct, everyday language; the capacity to build trusting relationships, so that politicians have faith in the information they receive and that their confidences will not be breached; being able to respectfully understand others’ views and priorities, however different. Mark Ferguson, Ireland’s chief science adviser from 2012 to 2022, said that only by doing this could he hope to convey the evidence in a way that helps them understand and appreciate it.

A growing number of institutions worldwide offer training to both scientists and knowledge brokers. Zakri Abdul Hamid is a former science adviser to Malaysia’s prime minister who founded the international institute for science diplomacy and sustainable living in Kuala Lumpur. The institute trains people to bridge science and international diplomacy and prepare them for United Nations climate meetings.

INGSA offers training too, but wants to do more, says Rémi Quirion, chief scientist of Québec, Canada, and INGSA’s president. Research funders and employers should encourage researchers to do training. Many survey respondents thought that funders’ failure to do so was an impediment to science advice.

Evidence is required to inform these efforts. A study in 2022 identified more than 1,900 initiatives worldwide aimed at promoting greater engagement between policymakers and researchers, from the collaborative production of policy briefs to networking events (K. Oliver et al. Evid. Policy 18, 691—701, is in place. Only 6% had been evaluated to assess how well they worked.