SciComm Roundtable – Part 3 – Can policy Makers Tip the Scales Hand in Hand With the Scientific Community?

This is the third and last part of the special series on science communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. The world is still very much fighting and trying to understand the COVID-19 pandemic at the moment this episode is airing, so I am bringing you the interventions of my guests on a panel that took place in May, titled "Scientists and the News Cycle – What Role Can We Play?" In this third part, I discuss with Mónica Feliú-Mójer, Ph.D., with Joana Lobo Antunes, and with Adriana Bankston about how governments have been dealing with the pandemic and specifically about what role the interface between goverments and the scientific community can inform decision making and lead to better outcomes. Another very interesting conversation about a subject that often takes the backstage #gallery-3 { margin: auto; } #gallery-3 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-3 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-3 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */ Adriana Bankston, PhD Joana Lobo Antunes, PhD Mónica Feliú-Mójer, PhD Episode transcript: David Mendes: I think a lot of very important things are being shared around the table, and I hope that people that are on the live, on Facebook, are appreciating that, too. I see little hearts popping up on the Facebook page, so I think it's a good sign. Now, in this part, I've named it "Can Policies Tip the Scales" and my first question is for Adriana: apart from universities and scientific societies and organizations like we've talked up till now, could governments also –  and we, all around the table, know the answer to this, and we've even said that only governments can – be the final decider in the end? From your position of being in DC, what does that engagement look like from the federal point of view? What have you seen in terms of, initiatives, programs that have been making a difference ever since the crisis started? Adriana Bankston: I think a lot of this comes down to funding. So, governments can support universities and also other entities that relate to research and education. There have been bills and supplements coming out, multiple ones around supporting COVID-19 research, vaccines, testing, community events, a lot of different angles of this. And I think if we're talking about policy makers specifically, obviously they're busy people, they have a lot of priorities, they have, you know, as I said, they like to hear from constituents, they have the ability to appropriate funds for research and so on. So I think a lot of this, sort of the engagement from the government and policy side has been to hear the advocacy that comes in around the COVID issues and also financially supporting universities. David Mendes: Now, I had the chance of listening to a conversation that Joana had in Portugal, in Portuguese, not so long ag, and Joana talked about what's been happening in Portugal and how government has been doing there in managing the crisis at the pandemic. So, Joana, I heard you mention that Portuguese government has done a very good job in terms of taking decisions and implementing measures based on the input of specialists and of scientists from the medical and scientific community. Can you share with us what you think worked well in the Portuguese case, so far, and why? Joana Lobo Antunes: Yeah, well, we are extremely fortunate and we are grateful because as you know, in Europe, we are usually paired more with Italy and France and Spain than with Denmark or Austria, and we actually have numbers more similar to those countries than to the Latin ones. And one of the key factors here was that government listened to scientists and they promoted the lockdown early – the other countries locked down much later. When the government in Portugal locked down,