Academic Experts in Policymaking: Divergent Patterns but Persistent Profiles Across Parliament, Government, and Media

Key findings from this study

• The study found that academic expert involvement varies substantially between parliament, government, and media arenas, with minimal repeated participation and cross-arena overlap.
• The researchers demonstrate that senior male professors from social sciences and humanities are consistently overrepresented relative to the academic population across all three arenas.
• The authors report that arena-specific logics including supply-demand dynamics, gatekeeper mechanisms, and institutional mandates critically structure academic expert involvement in each setting.

Overview

This comparative study examines how academic experts participate across three distinct policy-influencing arenas in Belgium: parliament, government, and media. The research analyzes 17,843 consulted actors, of which 3,440 were academic experts, to characterize patterns of expert involvement and identify which academic profiles gain access to policymaking. The study integrates interest group literature to understand how arena-specific institutional logics shape the selection and deployment of scientific expertise.

Methods and approach

The researchers compiled an original dataset documenting expert consultations across parliamentary committees, government advisories, and media appearances in Belgium. Academic experts were identified and categorized by discipline, rank, gender, and frequency of participation. The analysis examined overall involvement patterns including frequency rates, repeated participation across settings, and cross-arena overlap. Arena-specific mechanisms including supply-demand dynamics, gatekeeping functions, and institutional mandates were assessed to explain variation in expert inclusion.

Results

Academic expert involvement varies substantially across the three arenas, with limited repeated participation and cross-arena overlap observed. Senior male professors from social sciences and humanities disciplines are persistently overrepresented relative to their proportion in the broader academic population across all venues. Distinct institutional logics operate in each arena: parliamentary involvement reflects formal mandate structures, government consultation follows supply-demand dynamics, and media appearances are shaped by gatekeeping mechanisms. These arena-specific factors fundamentally structure which academics gain access to policy-influencing settings.

Implications

The findings demonstrate that scientific expertise in policymaking is neither uniformly distributed nor shaped by uniform mechanisms. Academic participation patterns reflect the particular institutional requirements and logics of each arena rather than a single hierarchy of expert credibility. This structural variation suggests that policy-influence analyses must attend to venue-specific dynamics rather than treating expertise as a monolithic resource flowing through multiple channels.

The persistent overrepresentation of senior male scholars in social sciences and humanities raises questions about knowledge gaps in policy engagement. Underrepresented disciplines and demographic groups remain marginal across arenas despite potential policy relevance. These patterns indicate systematic exclusions embedded in institutional gatekeeping rather than isolated biases, warranting examination of how arena-specific requirements differentially advantage particular academic profiles.

Mapping expert involvement across multiple venues reveals whose voices shape evidence-informed policymaking at a structural level. The findings suggest that policy advice depends not on expertise alone but on fit between academic profile and arena-specific selection criteria. Understanding these mechanisms enables assessment of whether current expert inclusion patterns serve policy needs or reflect institutional path dependencies that limit knowledge utilization.

Scope and limitations

This summary is based on the study abstract and available metadata. It does not include a full analysis of the complete paper, supplementary materials, or underlying datasets unless explicitly stated. Findings should be interpreted in the context of the original publication.