Getting ready for trouble

An international scientific symposium and stakeholder workshop

organised by the Belgian Pandemic Intelligence Network

Brussels, 27-28 November 2025

Keynote speaker: Prof. dr. Simone Rödder (University of Hamburg), sociologist of science and science communication and principal investigator of the WISDOM project: Exploring knowledge transfer as a wicked problem through the COVID-19 case

Calls for papers

This event wants to bring together the research traditions connected to evidence-informed policy-making (EIPM): science communication research, risk communication, organisational communication, knowledge exchange, journalism studies, crisis management and political sciences.

We welcome empirical and theoretical contributions with a special focus on the communication processes for EIPM in the context of the management of crises such as pandemics and other emergencies (natural disasters or incidents involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear agents, usually grouped under the acronym CBRN).

In those contexts, we propose to analyse two intertwined levels of communication that are crucial to understand: 1) the organisation of scientific knowledge exchange between a diversity of stakeholders (amongst others: researchers, professionals, knowledge brokers, interest organisations and policy-makers); and 2) public communication explaining the policy decisions and managing the risks produced by public administrations, university press offices, scientists, journalists, etc.

Themes:

-        Science communication as part of crisis management

-        From (scientific) evidence to decisions: the communication processes of EIPM related to crisis preparedness and response

-        Public communication of (evidence-informed) policy during a crisis

-        Citizen perspectives on and expectations of public policy communication during crises

-        Ethics and governance of EIPM in crisis times

-        Professional knowledge and competences for an efficient EIPM ecosystem

Participation to the event will be free of charge for those presenting accepted papers.

Please submit a 300-word abstract, indicating the theme you want to contribute to, by 30 June 2025 (extended deadline) to ingrid.van.marion [at] ulb.be