Tasker, Alex;
Irvine, Lucy C;
(2022)
Embedded Social Science and the British Government COVID-19 Response.
Anthropology in Action
, 29
(1)
pp. 60-68.
10.3167/aia.2022.290107.
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[17522285 - Anthropology in Action] Embedded Social Science and the British Government COVID-19 Response.pdf - Published Version Download (698kB) | Preview |
Abstract
The complex and evolving nature of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic poses significant challenges to national and international emergency preparedness and response. Governments must navigate streams of emerging data in real time, synthesising knowledge from diverse sources to inform policy. The UK government drew on experiences from earlier pandemics to bridge perceived gaps between social science research and policy through the secondment of early-career academics as embedded scientists. In this article, we present comparative ethnographic data describing embedded social scientists’ contributions to UK COVID-19 preparedness and response. We find that the liminal position, loose identities, and high degree of autonomy of embedded scientists allowed these individuals to navigate multiple networks to strengthen and legitimise the role of social science within policy debates.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Embedded Social Science and the British Government COVID-19 Response |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3167/aia.2022.290107 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3167/aia.2022.290107 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the generous support from a global network of libraries as part of the Knowledge Unlatched Select initiative. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19; embedded scientist; pandemic; policy; social science; UK government |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10151734 |
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