Establishing a Legitimate Knowledge-based Dialogue among Institutions, Scientists, and Citizens during the COVID-19: Some Lessons from Coproduction

Within a STS approach to science policy, the concept of coproduction suggests that scientific explanations and normative evaluations are deeply entangled. Science-based decisions surrounding the use of surgical masks and the measures for contact tracing in the context of Covid-19 show that coproduction can be a powerful democratic instrument to open up science policy to public discussion by highlighting how its statements are negotiated and elaborated.