Examining co-production and the role of brokers within New Zealand’s ‘science advisory ecosystem’

Abstract

Responses to the apparent crisis of expertise have taken the shape of calls for intermediaries to bridge what are characterised as formidable boundaries between the spheres of science and policy. In a ‘post truth’ era, brokers are deemed essential for translating science into policy-useable knowledge. In New Zealand, brokers are conceived as inhabiting a ‘science advisory ecosystem’ – a complex array of institutions, organisations and roles through which advice makes its way (or not) to policymakers. The vision for New Zealand’s science advisory ecosystem is for policy to be ‘evidence-informed’ rather than ‘evidence-based’ in a move to garner its legitimacy by scientists not stepping into the political realm of making value judgements. From a Science & Technology studies perspective, this boundary work can entrench the demarcation between science and policy. As such, the broader co-production of science and policy is ignored as well as the power relations that constitute the identities and positions of scientists within the ecosystem, and the role brokers, can play. To begin to understand the science advisory ecosystem that is gaining currency in New Zealand and internationally, and the role of brokers within it, we examine two examples of knowledge governance used in the Canterbury region of the South Island to implement water policy reforms. We will argue from these examples that the broker does not simply act as a conduit for information to flow from experts to policy-makers, but must actively participate in the co-production of policy-useable knowledge. As such, conventional conceptions of ‘science’ and ‘expertise’ will be shown to be too narrow, since the knowledge required for making decisions is distributed across an array of experts, institutions and organisations. These examples illustrate the multiple scales at which knowledge co-production works and the multi-faceted role of the broker within the ecosystem.