Scientific advice to policymaking plays a central role in modern techno-scientific societies, informing and legitimizing policymaking. Yet its appropriate role and how to institutionalize it remains problematic, with a fundamental tension existing between its appeal to scientific authority and the neutrality of science, and the need for policy relevance and democratic accountability. Studies of scientific advice have demonstrated that it is both an epistemic and a political activity, and its effectiveness rests on carefully constructing and managing the boundary between science and policymaking. However, scholarly attention has mostly focused on institutional structures. Based on personal experience of working in scientific advice in the European Union and following the "practice turn" in policy studies, this thesis proposes to go beyond organisational features of advisory mechanisms to explores the practices used in the construction of scientific advice.
The thesis combines document analysis, interviews, and autoethnographic observation to explore the micro-dynamics and practices of expert advice in two detailed case studies of scientific advice in the context of European Union (EU) policymaking, namely the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM). This analysis shows how, despite their near-invisibility in the frontstage of the scientific advisory process and in its outputs, secretariats have substantial influence in its construction. In particular, it argues that in the context of EU scientific advisory committees, whose members are mostly drawn from laboratory science and lend scientific credibility and political legitimacy to the advisory process through their independence from policy, secretariats play a key and necessary role in ensuring policy relevance. The division of labour between advisors and secretariat is therefore interpreted as an important boundary management strategy to ensure the effectiveness of advisory mechanisms
