Science policy in the time of a pandemic: When to go to the mattresses

When Leslie Knope runs for Pawnee City Council, there is a brief period of time when Ann Perkins serves as her campaign manager. She has just been dropped by her professional campaign team and the Parks Department swoops in and saves the day, offering to help her relaunch her campaign after a scandal. They have passion. They have heart. But they have absolutely no experience running a political campaign. After her relaunch event is riddled with misprints, slips, and a failed slam dunk, Leslie admits that even though she’d been looking at her team’s lack of experience as a good thing, she may need to seek out professional help.

This morning, I sat down to write about the current climate of science policy in our country during the COVID-19 pandemic. In my communication with elected officials in our state, they seem to be getting the information they need to make informed decisions. In times of crisis, it’s not necessary for me to translate between scientists and decision makers, because both parties are well aware that they need to communicate effectively. Human lives depend on it. At the same time, this has left me feeling a bit helpless and unsure of my role in this crisis.

Just like Leslie Knope looking at her campaign team, I had always thought that my lack of theoretical knowledge of public policy-making helped me to come up with innovative solutions and strategies. But what if that’s not true? Am I making the same mistakes that others have made in the past, forcing them to develop our common practices and strategies? Or is my inexperience really leading to a novel approach to incorporating science in public policy processes?

At this point, you may be thinking one of two things. If you’re my mom, you’re probably thinking “this is just impostor syndrome, she’s great at what she does”. If you’re someone who has been trained in science policy and public policy-making [and could tell me what the heck a white paper really is] you’re probably thinking “wow, who gave her permission to claim any expertise in science policy?”. To be honest, I’m not really sure where I fall, but I will make a promise to you and to myself. Moving forward, I will work to understand the industry standards before I challenge those approaches. I won’t discount the experience of my predecessors, but I also won’t settle for the status quo. After all, Ben Wyatt had never run a campaign, but he still did a pretty damn good job.

Overall, my hope is that this pandemic leads to fruitful relationships between policymakers and the scientific community, but we must remember that war times call for different strategies than peace time. We can’t expect that this dialog will continue after COVID-19 has cleared and we can’t use this as our prime example of why we need scientists working in public policy.