"A Militia of Anarchists Run by a General". A Case of Scientific Policy Advice in Austria During the Pandemic

Vol.:(0123456789) Minerva https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-025-09572-4 “A Militia ofAnarchists Run byaGeneral”. ACase ofScientific Policy Advice inAustria During thePandemic ThomasKönig1 · MichaelStampfer2 Accepted: 14 January 2025 © The Author(s) 2025 Abstract As many other countries, Austria was hit by the Corona pandemic by surprise. After a swift initial response, the continuing crisis laid bare deficiencies. This article investigates an unconventional intervention starting in March 2020: an ad-hoc body set up by scientists and policy makers in the unfolding of the initial Corona crisis, without official mandate and resources. The “Future Operations Platform” was an embodiment of the lack of science advice infrastructure in Austria. Yet the puzzle that the article wants to explain is: why did the platform remain a place of deliberating scientific evidence in an interand transdisciplinary manner for three years? Three factors are investigated in detail: the specificity of the Austrian institutional landscape; the functioning of this partial organization; and the motivating factors to its members. Based on this analysis, the article concludes with what can be learned about policy structures in Austria, and the role of expertise in (post-) pandemic societies. Keywords Austria· COVID-19· Evidence· Policy learning· Scientific policy advice “… Those who were ready to participate in all ventures, without ever asking if it meant more or less work, if it were an important or a trivial one, whether Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https:// doi. org/ 10. 1007/ s1102402509572-4. * Thomas König [email protected] Michael Stampfer Michael.Stampf[email protected] 1 Austrian Council forSciences, Technology, andInnovation (FORWIT), Vienna, Austria 2 Vienna Science andTechnology Fund (WWTF), Vienna, Austria T.König, M.Stampfer it would entail major consequences or just endless trouble for themselves …” (Kropotkin 2002: 426) (translated by the authors) Laying outthePuzzle This paper looks at the creation and continued work of the “Future Operations Platform” (FUOP, or “platform”) in Austria. During the ensuing three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the platform provided a structured meeting place for researchers of multiple disciplinary backgrounds as well as for policymakers from different organizations and agencies within the federal Austrian state bureaucracy. While informal and without any government mandate, it would turn out to be a nationally important science-policy nexus. It was initiated during the initial outbreak of the pandemic on the initiative of one major general Thomas Starlinger, then adjutant of the Austrian Armed Forces to the Austrian Federal President and former Minister of Defense. But why? And why exactly at this point of time? One obvious answer to this question would be to interpret the initiative as an act of desperation, pointing to the lack of existing structures for exchange across disciplines and organizations. Another, maybe counterintuitive approach would be to interpret the platform’s foundation as a cunning proposition. The situation offered an opportunity to come forward with policy innovation. Starlinger, the instigator, certainly saw it that way. Showing that something can be first seen and then done in a different and supposedly better way can ultimately have effects on its social environment, maybe even on the entire system. In social theory, this is known as “contingency opening” (“Kontingenzöffnung”) (Reckwitz 2021: 72–78).1 Hence the bold title for the new body, “Future Operations”, with future indicating both a focus on projections and mid-term perspective and a statement that this body was intended to stay. Founding the platform in early March 2020 was an attempt to seize the moment. Usually, any such initiative develops along one of two possible paths: either it peters out as the imminent severity of the crisis cools down, or it is formally mandated. Neither did happen, however. The platform was not formalized, and continued to exist, nonetheless. Increasingly, it exerted a certain degree of influence. In retrospect, FUOP was one of the few places in Austria for structured policy-learning, mid-term thinking, interand transdisciplinary exchange over the whole COVID-19 pandemic. Scholars have long been interested in the sensitive interplay between scientific evidence and political decision-making (Jasanoff 1994; Weingart 1999; Pielke, Jr 2007; Eyal 2019; Barlösius and Ruffing 2021). Broadly, three strands of reflections can be discerned. One strand considers scientists’ perspectives, including practices and firsthand insights into how to best provide scientific evidence to policymakers (Gluckman 2014; Falk etal. 2019; Šucha and Sienkiewicz 2020). Another strand is 1 Reckwitz defines it as “to make the contingency of a social given visible and confront it with other possibilities” (73– translated by the authors). “A Militia ofAnarchists Run byaGeneral”. ACase ofScientific… embedded in the broader topic of policy learning (Sabatier 1988; May 1992; Dunlop 2017). Given that decisions at the political level are determined by different factors, it asks, inter alia, for the role of scientific expertise and the conditions under which it is considered (Dunlop and Radaelli 2013; Zaki and Wayenberg 2021; Edler etal. 2022). The third strand concerns the question of ignorance and how state bureaucracies determine which social knowledge is relevant, and which is not (McGoey 2012; Rayner 2012; Fourcade and Gordon 2020; Boswell 2023). While following different objectives, these strands encounter the same empirical issue, namely, that nation states have different institutional arrangements to organize the nexus between scientific expertise and policy making. The pandemic was a stress test to those institutional arrangements, stimulating retrospective inflections and evaluations. For Austria, a number of studies and publications investigate the role of scientific policy advice during the pandemic (König and Stampfer 2021; Bogner 2022; Bogner etal. 2023; Bogner and Buntfuß 2023). This article complements those studies and provides a reflection on the platform’s nature and influence. It also offers a detailed insight into the peculiarities of the Austrian institutional setup, and into the challenges of providing scientific evidence for policymaking. Austria has not been the only nation where an informal gathering for scientific advice gained traction during the pandemic; the best known is probably the British “independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies” (Independent SAGE) (McKee etal. 2022).2 And yet, the Austrian platform’s peculiar endurance asks for an explanation. How could such an enduring presence be achieved without mandate, spoils, or formal embedding? Why did the platform remain a place attractive enough for busy scientists and policymakers to meet and exchange over years? Durability is the puzzle that this paper aims to explain. To do so, it follows a pragmatic approach (Boltanski and Thévenot 1999; Gross etal. 2022), focusing on social practices to understand change and human agency within complex social structures (Schatzki 2001; Reckwitz 2003). Social practices have long been determined as a key analytical element of contemporary societies (Giddens 1984: 21–28). In turn, contemporary societies are characterized, inter alia, by their (restricted) knowledge about contingencies of current orders, and by the normative goal that contingency itself shall be one of their major continuums (Reckwitz 2021: 72). Discourses about contingency openings (and closings) – and ensuing changes – appear to happen increasingly on the level of practices (and less through grand theoretical or ideological designs), and can even be defined as social practices against (or in defense of) existing dominant settings (Reckwitz 2021: 118). As a distinct “pragmatic regime of engagement” (following Thévenot 2001), one can hardly overestimate the role of scientific policy advice in this respect, which is all about proposing possible openings or closures of 2 The name was a deliberate dig at the official advisory body of the British government, which is called SAGE (Bogner etal. 2023: 15–24). T.König, M.Stampfer contingencies.3 In the case of the platform, this means analyzing its practices as “a set of organised sayings and doings” (Nicolini 2017: 23). To explain the puzzle, this paper reconstructs the history of the platform, a loosely organized network of experts who share tacit convictions as well as common goals, as a regime of practices that “emerges from … the association of meaning, skills and tools” (Nicolini 2017: 29).4 The analysis builds on three complementary perspectives, starting with context: Chapter2 provides a brief history of the platform against the backdrop of how the pandemic unfolded in Austria and the logic of the Austrian (political) institutions. It is the context against which the regime of practices emerges. Chapter3 analyses the functioning (the “doings”) of the platform as a partial organization. Chapter4 discerns the programmatic self-understanding of the platform from the expectations and experiences of its members as they themselves state it (the “sayings”). Chapter5 briefly discusses the potential impact of the platform. The analysis relies on different data sets. FUOP produced 18 reports as Expert Opinions (EO) between August 2020 and early 2023; together with other public statements, they were systematically taken from the platform’s website. Full access to available documents of the platform (over 50 meeting minutes and a large number of presentations) allowed for a detailed picture of topics, presentations, and discussions. König and Castellucci (2023) provided further insights and analyses into the platform documents. In addition, twelve semi-structured expert interviews (Bogner etal. 2018) with members of the platform took place in early autumn 2023 (for both interviews and meeting documents, see the annex on methodology, electronic supplementary material). The datasets were analyzed using content analysis, aiming at extrapolating both dimensions of practices mentioned above. As for the dimension of “doing”, factual statements were extrapolated and checked for accuracy and relevance against the information contained in all the data sets. As for the dimension of “saying”, implied or explicated meaning was reconstructed through interpretative analysis, in which the authors collectively engaged – again scrutinizing preliminary results with the overall body of information from the data sets. Where appropriate, direct quotes from the interviews were used to emphasize the findings. FUOP inContext A hallmark of the Covid pandemic was its longevity; with every new wave and mutation of the virus, it transformed into a social crisis. Although it was a global event, actions to contain the spread of the virus and to mitigate the effects of those actions were mostly taken at a national level. As resources, institutional arrangements, and 4 Nicolini calls this a “genealogical orientation” (Nicolini 2017: 29). In the literature, applying practice theory to organizational analysis more broadly is discussed for a while (Jagd 2011; Loscher etal. 2019). 3 The strong function of research(ers) for the nexus of practice-orientation and contingency opening obvious fact has not been missed by scholars of practice theory (Nicolini 2017: 24; Reckwitz 2021: 132– 35). “A Militia ofAnarchists Run byaGeneral”. ACase ofScientific… legal and political frameworks were unevenly available to different nation states, the pandemic played out differently in each country (Greer etal. 2021; Lynggaard etal. 2023). To understand the context within which the platform acted, it is relevant to understand both its connection to the pandemic as well as the specific Austrian setting of political institutions, and their peculiar logic. Three Phases ofthePandemic The pandemic in Austria forms a chronology of events that resulted from the intricate interaction of different factors: The epidemiological development, the attempts by the government to slow down the spread of the virus, the public attitude towards those attempts, and the economic impact.5 Each of these factors were interlinked. At first, this took place in nearly complete synchronization. After the first wave, however, each began to take a somewhat different trajectory. Ultimately, they got more and more out of sync, ending in disharmony. It is possible to discern three phases of the pandemic in Austria, representing the broader historical context in which the platform was developed. The first infections of SARS-CoV-2 originating from Austria were reported on 27 February 2020 (Heger and Moshammer 2020; Kreidl etal. 2020; Müller 2020). Fourteen days later, general containment measures were implemented (“lockdown”). By then, the disease had increasingly become a topic of concern among policy makers as well as in the public; like most European countries, Austria fell into an initial crisis mode. In April, when the lockdown was lifted, Austria was seen as a role model: it had reacted quickly, and swiftly, to the outbreak of the virus, and had implemented accompanying measures that were well-proven, such as a program for short-term work (Czypionka etal. 2020; Jones 2020). In late summer 2020, it became clear that the virus would return (and with a vengeance). Even though experts had warned about it, few preparations seemed to have been made over the summer (Mätzke 2021). Thus, stringency measures that had been successfully set up in the spring were introduced again – and again. The “hammer and dance” metaphor (Pueyo 2020) lost its charm quickly. Compliance was withering, and criticism was getting louder – from those opposing stringency measures as well as from those criticizing the lack of political learning (Prandner and Moosbrugger 2021). The second phase, mostly characterized by growing dissent and disorientation, lasted approximately until fall 2021. While a few important new tools were introduced to compile, control, and contain the spread of the virus (such as the usage of masks, testing capacities, and a vaccination program), the government was increasingly found grappling with implementing these effectively. The result was a zig-zag course of lockdowns, then promises of opening and returning to better times (Fallend and Miklin 2023). 5 A comprehensive and politically neutral depiction of the pandemic in Austria is provided by a series of blog entries accompanying the Austrian Corona Panel Project (Pollak etal. 2020a; Pollak etal. 2020b; Pollak etal. 2020c; Pollak etal. 2021a; Pollak etal. 2021b; Pollak etal. 2021c; Walcherberger etal. 2022; Walcherberger etal. 2023) T.König, M.Stampfer In late 2021, two momentous events took place. One was the early resignation of Sebastian Kurz as head of the government. In all likelihood, it had an additionally debilitating effect on the government’s capacity to coordinate. The other was a huddled and crude political compromise including a vaccination mandate. While never implemented, it “further undermined public trust in healthcare policies and aggravated the polarized public sentiment” (Müller 2022: 814). During this final phase, when the Delta variant, and later the Omicron variants raged, Covid politics seemed to go awry. Public discontent reached new heights, while the government maintained continuously high levels of stringency measures – also in comparison to neighboring countries (Schönberger 2024).6 Only in March 2023 were the last containment measures withdrawn. The three phases (see Table1) serve as the background to summarize the history of the platform, as told in the interviews and interpreted from the minutes. The first meetings in early March 2020 took place in eerie conference rooms within deserted office buildings, with striped plastic bands everywhere to keep people at a distance, as several interviewees vividly recount (IP 1, IP 3, IP 4). The meeting minutes reflect a sense of somber sobriety. Presentations were narrow in terms of topics, and mostly discipline related. The initial emphasis was on essential supplies such as food, however, this broadened to encompass “valuable context know-how” (IP7) on epidemiological development, economic, social, and health-related issues, as well as specific vulnerable groups. Much time was spent on setting up the platform, while in parallel the broad skill sets of the participants from over ten disciplines and backgrounds allowed for constant deliberation, exploring potential tools for the platform. Probably the platform’s most important achievement in phase one was to continue its operation into fall. From then onwards, it was better prepared to meet emerging challenges from the prolonging pandemic. The experts were now organized in working groups (WGs) discussing various topics, including variants, the spread of the virus, and pressure on hospitals, schools, or companies; regular meetings allowed participants to discuss new findings and data. The platform increasingly reached a common understanding how to frame and conceptualize the epidemiological developments and what would be required to counter them. In phase three, the platform routinely issued proposals to provide projections and a mid-term perspective. At the same time, as public attention began to shift and pandemic fatigue was setting in, participation was slowly declining. FUOP was tied to the pandemic: the platform could not branch out successfully to other topics, such as geopolitics. It was durable only as long as the pandemic was present as a social and political reality. Conventional Ways Industrialized countries, such as Austria, have developed a distinct landscape of bodies that interact between science and administration, known as “boundary organizations” (Braun 1993; Guston 2000). In principle, the Austrian government could 6 This analysis is confirmed by our own computation (based on data provided by Phillips and Majumdar 2023). “A Militia ofAnarchists Run byaGeneral”. ACase ofScientific… rely on several such organizations (Reiss and Czypionka 2022; Bogner etal. 2023: 36–46). Yet the pandemic revealed a painful reality of either defunct or merely shortsighted organizations. One glaring example is the Oberste Sanitätsrat (Chief Medical Council, OSR), which, during the first 12 months of the outbreak, remained out of operations.7 Another was the SKKM (Staatliches Krisenund Katastrophenmanagement, National Crisis and Disaster Management), which was involved in coordinating daily government responses but was not mandated to provide a midterm view. In addition, several attempts to set up new formal advisory bodies were made during the pandemic (see Table 2). In late 2021, the Gesamtstaatliche COVIDKrisenkoordination (GECKO) was introduced. Hailed as the solution by the time of its creation, it proved to be riddled again with the problems of its predecessors. Namely, the inability to distinguish between facts and interests, between advice and control, and between shortand medium-term issues.8 Table 1 Phases of the Covid pandemic in Austria Duration Epidemiological development Political reaction Social attitudes Phase 1 Feb – Aug. 2020 First wave Quick and hard reaction; first lockdown; quick reopening; strong message control Rallying around the flag; high compliance Phase 2 Sept. 2020 – Nov. 2021 Second and third wave Zig-zag course: two more consecutive lockdowns; mask mandate; vaccination campaign; regionalization; change in government Decrease of compliance; vaccination doubt Phase 3 Dec. 2021 – Jan. 2023 Delta wave, Omikron wave Fourth lockdown and vaccination mandate; fifth lockdown Pandemic fatigue; polarization; anti-vaccination demonstrations 7 In 2019, the caretaker government had refused to renominate the members of the council because of concerns regarding democratic accountability. The council was re-established only in March 2021, betraying the statement of the Minister of Health who called the OSR “his most important advisory body” (ORF 2021). 8 As argued by one interview partner (IP3) and now also revealed in the official GECKO accolade, which – after pages of praise – recommends for future policy advisory boards to “avoid the impression that scientific expertise is being subjected to a kind of practicability test based on special interest politics” (Rakowsky etal. 2023: 55) (own translation). T.König, M.Stampfer The difficulty in setting up proper scientific advice mechanisms cannot be blamed on political turmoil alone, although, to be fair, it might have had a part in it.9 Rather, specific structural features of the Austrian institutional landscape need to be considered. One is the neo-corporatist formation of the state (Katzenstein 1987: 34–83). So-called social partners (Sozialpartner) organized along chambers with compulsory membership dominate many political spaces: Commerce, labor, MDs, pharmacists, lawyers, and more, with privileges, co-decision rights, and party entanglement (Ennser-Jedenastik 2017; Hinterseer 2020). In health policy, specifically, their influence is high, not least because they control public social and health insurance providers and their data.10 Secondly, Austria is also a consensus democracy with a relatively compartmentalized federal system (Luther and Müller 1992; Lijphart 2012). While the federal level bears the brunt of state obligations, including tax collection, many administrative tasks are delegated to the provincial level (Länder). In the Realpolitik of Austria, this has led to a powerful status of the provincial governments, particularly through the informal conference of provincial governors (Landeshauptleutekonferenz) (Bußjäger and Eller 2023), with policy fields like health or education being a maze of constitutional co-decision rights between both levels. A third feature is that the bureaucracy of often siloed ministries is driving policymaking rather than the legislative branch(Konrath 2020). Furthermore, the ministries’ higher ranks have been politicized in the last decades, which favored political candidates over subject matter experts (Gratz 2020; Wieser 2022). The state bureaucracy is accompanied by public agencies that are often without much leeway, and the same is true for the in part weak public health research infrastructures. Austria is not alone with conflicting interests and veto players at different levels of the policy process. Yet those structural features seem to have particularly debilitating effects on scientific advice. Also, political leadership appears to be prone to focus on short-termism, close relationships with media outlets (Balluff etal. 2023) and, at times, strict “message control” (Fleischmann 2022). Overall, the Austrian political system appears to be at the same time rather rigid and rather short-term orientated, with few reliable sensors for knowledge production.11 Initially, acting outside conventional ways was seen as a weakness of FUOP. During the first phase of the pandemic, considerable energy was invested to formalize the platform as part of the official advisory structures. One attempt, in March and 10 As has been noted in one of our interviews, this setting differs from other countries like U.K., but also from Germany (IP10). 11 A comparative report on health security and preparedness towards a pandemic in 2019 (!) had found that, when it came to coordination, foresight, and strategy, Austria did not fare all too well (Cameron etal. 2019). 9 Only a few weeks before SARS-CoV-2 arrived in Austria, a newly minted government had been installed. Headed by Sebastian Kurz, a media-savvy politician, it relied on a rather unlikely coalition of two parties, one of which – the Conservatives – were continuously in power for more than 30 years, the other one – the Greens – for the first time. Kurz had to step down embroiled in scandal in late 2021; by then, internal frictions had already worn down the first minister of health, a portfolio held by the other party. The coalition would remain in place, but in total, it saw three chancellors, three ministers of health, two ministers of labor and economics, and a reshuffling of competencies along the way. “A Militia ofAnarchists Run byaGeneral”. ACase ofScientific… April 2020, was to collect questions from ministries, to convince the government of the platform’s usefulness. The effort failed because the huge questions provided were impossible to answer in a short time. Another attempt was to join forces with a global consulting firm in the spring of 2020. Interested in what the research community had to offer, the consultants helped structure work processes and draw comparisons with other countries. However, pro bono work is not paying off for profit-oriented consultancies, and the collaboration lasted only a few weeks. A third attempt consisted of direct negotiations with heads of the Parliament, the Federal Chancellery, and the Health Ministry for a formal mandate to advise on the unfolding pandemic. It ultimately failed because of a lack of interest from those institutions. The efforts were not entirely useless, however: strong ties to the official pre-Covid think tank of the Federal Chancellery were established, with its head Antonella MeiPochtler joining Thomas Starlinger early on to act as moderator. More generally, those attempts helped to foster links with government administrators, some of which became regular attendees of platform meetings. This allowed for linking FUOP with political decision makers, albeit without a mandate and at arm’s length. “Doings” ofaPartial Organization Among members of the platform, there is still a range of opinions about what should have happened. Some speak of “a missed opportunity”, arguing that “FUOP should have become a SAGE, a scientific service for the Parliament or for government” (IP10). Others see specific value in the informal status: “… the autonomy gave us something special, even gravitas, and independence in views” (IP9). Whatever their perspective, members accepted that the platform would stay a self-organized Table 2 List of relevant advisory structures during COVID-19 in Austria, based on Bogner etal. (2023: 38) Body Task Advising … Taskforce (informal) COVID-19 (2020-21) Health ministry Oberster Sanitätsrat (formal) Medical advice (permanent) Health ministry GECKO (formal) COVID-19 (2021-23) Government Future operations platform (informal) COVID-19 (2020-23) All COVID-Prognose-Konsortium (semi-formal) COVID-19 (2020-23) Health ministry (later: GECKO) Corona-Kommission (formal) COVID-19 (2021) Health ministry; provincial governments Nationales Impfgremium (formal) Medical advice (permanent) Health ministry Bioethik-Kommission (formal) Ethical advice (permanent) Government SKKM (formal) Crisis management (permanent) Government T.König, M.Stampfer positive filter effect: “curiosity and creativity” mattered (IP9). At the same time, the threshold to participate in the platform was low: in line with the Austrian academic and administrative culture, members did not require a formal approval from their host institutions. “Sayings” ofPractices In retrospect, the interviewees saw the platform as a unique experience. They highlight friendliness, voluntary action, openness, and willingness to listen to and understand unknown communities and their jargon as traits that were commonly shared. Conflicts were restricted to different views on how to contain the pandemic; they “hardly ever boiled over” (IP8). All interviewees characterize their contributions to the platform as meaningful. It seemed to have cast a motivating atmosphere by establishing a regime of practices that consisted of some programmatic guardrails, experiences, and emerging tacit convictions. Imperatives oftheMission The platform’s mission contained three distinct yet closely related imperatives: interand trans-disciplinarity; evidence; and transfer of knowledge. This was how the platform was supposed to operate, what it was holding on to (and hoped to be able to create), and why it existed in the first place – given that adequate structures were missing when COVID-19 began. The mission was enshrined in the minutes of the first meeting, stating that “[t]his group of scientists and administrators will act as a clearing board to help policymakers make evidence-based decisions in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.” (FUOP Meeting Minutes, 26.3.2020, p.1) Similarly, the public mission statement stipulated the “… open exchange of research results and information and a high-quality expert discourse … exchange of up-to-date information, data and analyses of potential relevance for evidence-based policy action …” (FUOP 2023). Which actual practices did these imperatives entail? It is useful to look at how each of the three imperatives was brought to life. Interand transdisciplinarity: As a default mode of collaboration, the platform claimed to bring together scientists from various fields and administrators from ministries and agencies on an equal footing. Initially, however, this mode was established in a rather narrow sense, meaning that mono-disciplinary inputs at the Clearing Board meetings were discussed with experts from different fields. At least those inputs quickly came from representatives of a wide range of different disciplines. A more transgressive practice was established by the WGs, where de facto cross-disciplinary learning environments were being established. Beginning with the second phase, the more prolific of those groups started to deliver joint papers and statements, combining knowledge and deliberations about the health and the social crises stemming from the pandemic – a pace that could also be upheld in the third phase. In this way, the deliberations among the various disciplinary viewpoints “A Militia ofAnarchists Run byaGeneral”. ACase ofScientific… came before the writing of any statement and helped members to give more balanced media statements. Evidence: The platform claimed – rather boldly – to rely on the best available facts and scientifically scrutinized data about a certain issue, to be created in a timely manner. Already, the earliest meetings of the Clearing Board consisted of presentations on how the (first) lockdown impacted behavior (mobility, consumption), supply chains, and how other countries organized their efforts. Ambitiously, “trigger points” for a partial re-opening from the lockdown should be identified (FUOP Meeting Minutes, 3.4.2020, p.6), and it was to be calculated until when a lockdown would be economically affordable (FUOP Meeting Minutes, 16.4.2020, p.4.). None of these projection exercises were realized during phase one of the pandemic. Bringing together data points was accomplished successfully only from phase two onwards: Sequencing capacities, sewage monitoring data, school surveys, various economic dashboards, panel surveys on policy compliance, state subsidies, surveys on mental health networks and other vulnerable groups, and more.15 It was in phase three, when these different sources of evidence could be aligned in more sophisticated analyses and forecasts (Bathke etal. 2021a, b). Transfer of knowledge: The platform had the ambition to present analyses and findings to policymakers at their discretion in decision-making, but this often proved difficult to accomplish. In the first phase of the pandemic, dominating channels consisted of rather informal and reactive transfer and communication modes. In addition, the two moderators acted as occasional transfer agents (IP11, IP12) to deliver opinions and results from the platform to top politicians and administrators, and back. While these means continued to exist, they were soon perceived as inadequate. Instead, the platform would turn to a more interactive approach, and other lines of communication were explored. From the second phase onwards, the EOs were established as the most important communication tool, both within the platform (to coordinate joint positions) and to the public (even though their uptake remained mixed). In the third phase, the platform branched out, with an international conference in May 2022 (“Science for Resilience”), and structured collaboration with other actors as well as more active media work. The stated mission raised different expectations amongst platform members. One is concerned about what the group would potentially learn as a collective about the pandemic. Namely that the collaboration within the platform would lead to a more comprehensive grasp of the dynamics of the pandemic, and that its inter-disciplinary mode and the focus on evidence would yield explanations superior to those from individual perspectives. The members of the platform were out to “see the big picture” (IP8). Ideally, the comprehensive and detailed analysis provided by the experts in the platform would also result in better decision-making. 15 Less than two months after the start of the platform, those topics were presented for the first time (FUOP Meeting Minutes, 30.4.2020, p.4). Data came from diverse sources, dedicated surveys and ad hoc official collections like anonymized movement patterns from mobile operators, credit card payments or cross-border truck passages, as well as economic data from Statistics Austria and the Austrian National Bank. T.König, M.Stampfer There was also a personal gain expected by individual members from participating in the platform, and that was access. For some, this notion referred to the platform and the wide array of different experts, its nuanced and widespread pool of knowledge. For others, it meant a way to obtain data sets otherwise hidden or inaccessible for analysis and modeling; for others still it meant, quite literally, access to policymakers and transfer opportunities. For most, probably, the attraction of the platform was a mixture of all three. Experiences Platform members strongly felt that the platform’s collaborative setup was a remedy against the perils of grasping and explaining the pandemic solely from one disciplinary point of view. As one interview partner pointed out, “if mono-disciplinary expertise is challenged, it makes academics at the same time clueless polymaths and narrow experts” (IP11). The platform managed to achieve “over time, increasingly, longer shots” (IP4). However, as much as a better understanding of the pandemic and its dynamics was seen as fulfilled, this was not always recognized among policymakers. The role of FUOP was not on the front stage, and often, it was muted: “The decisions have been taken elsewhere, whatever our initiatives and contributions” (IP9). Therefore, the expectations about access were also met only partly. Regular access, namely to experts with different disciplinary backgrounds, but also to civil servants within FUOP, was seen as an advantage. The high number and variety of presentations, often by external speakers, provided an efficient means to harvest evidence for information transfer, while cross-disciplinary discussions made the evidence valuable (IP4). The channels to the level of decision-makers were varied, sometimes scattered, and the role of the platform as a gateway to more data remained small. As for access to policymakers, the platform included members with executive functions in ministries and public agencies including public health, who reported in their organizations what they learned or used it (IP12).Being informally close to some ministries was seen as helpful by some (IP5, IP6). Structured access to the highest echelons happened in exceptional cases, e.g., one presentation to the Federal Chancellor (FUOP Meeting Minutes, 2.7.2020, p.1) and various meetings with the top brass of ministries. The mission constituted an important ingredient in the platform’s cohesive power, not least because it created initial expectations by its members. Yet mission statements are worthless if they are not fulfilled by practice; in this section, it means the set of practices, mostly in saying, that provided meaning to the routines of collaborative action, seen through the practical experiences made by members during their collaboration. As one of the interviewees indicates: “[The platform] opened up completely new perspectives” (IP6). These experiences can be analytically delineated along two dimensions: understanding the pandemic as a social crisis and the platform’s role as an instigator outside the norm. Interview partners unanimously stressed that they experienced the platform as the premier place in Austria to gain a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of “A Militia ofAnarchists Run byaGeneral”. ACase ofScientific… the pandemic. The fruitful “dialectics between the natural/formal sciences and their ‘must be done’ approach and the social/health scientists and their ‘how to implement it in a societal context’ concern” was emphasized (IP8). Through cross-disciplinary discussions, advantages included speed, variety, new contacts, openness, and trust (IP3). Interviewees point to panel studies (IP8, IP10) and the active recruitment of researchers running surveys for more nuanced evidence (IP6). The capacity to gain an overall picture was particularly valuable in those periods of the pandemic, when everything – political goals, measures, solutions, COVID variants, evidence, and stock of knowledge – appeared to shift simultaneously. The platform continued assessing current developments in the education system, the employment situation under regulations restricting social contacts, economic threats, and sagging compliance, and how the pandemic disproportionately affected vulnerable groups. When economists presented their respective economic forecasts, the relationship between economic development and (prospective) vaccination rate, inflation, and unemployment were discussed (FUOP Meeting Minutes, 17.12.2020). As a result of these exercises, the pandemic was increasingly understood as a social crisis. While FUOP meetings remained open to different topics, from ecology to geopolitics, from vaccination to economic measures, the social fallout from the pandemic would become the overarching topic: how to maintain overall social stability and economic prosperity, and, at the same time, deliberately paying attention to groups that were either less prioritized by the government, or rhetorically prioritized but not delivered, or stuck in the limbos of the neo-corporatist, federal Austrian policy system. Salient examples were schools and vulnerable groups, be it psychiatric patients, migrants, poorer families or single parents with schoolchildren, chronically ill people, but also owners of small shops or blue-collar workers in exposed industrial sectors. While some papers and FUOP discussions tried to transfer results regarding measures to protect vulnerable groups, other EOs and deliberations discussed opening strategies that would avoid further hurting those groups.16 The instigator role of the platform was perceived as a sort of laboratory to organize cross-disciplinary environments (primarily through the WGs), with “a unique interand trans-disciplinary group trying to be of societal relevance with great patience and continuity” (IP8). FUOP became a safe room for respectful discourse and an opportunity for self-enactment, controlled by a group of critical companions. “Boundaries have become fluid” (IP10). Debates across disciplines were necessary prerequisites for publishing joint EOs, and for the enhanced ability of the experts to talk to politics, media, colleagues, or the public – a capacity that even those learned to enjoy who initially had not sought such exposure (IP11). With the platform not in the position to formally become a player in the institutional landscape of policy advice, its members resorted to a different tactic. Given that knowledge transfer was still seen as necessary, it became a forum for informal exchange and knowledge update, sometimes the development of new knowledge – to instigate others and to shed light on topics that were usually not discussed in relation to the pandemic. 16 At special instances, evidence was useless: “We never discussed about evidence for mandatory vaccinations, as we all knew that such an intervention in Austria would be useless and fail.” (IP6). And fail it did. T.König, M.Stampfer There are several examples, such as the early paper on schools (Holtgrewe etal. 2021), and early contributions to the impact of Covid-related restrictions on the workplace (Korunka et al. 2020) as well as issues regarding vaccination compliance (Kirchler etal. 2020). In a similar fashion, the paper on polarization (Gangl etal. 2022) appeared to have primed the government’s initiative to assess the pandemic overall (Der Standard 2023). One particularly nagging constraint concerned creating and editing evidence of the impact of the pandemic. Dealing with facts and numbers was, of course, the core competence of the scientists, yet the basic substance – data – was not always available, or reliable. Agenda setting via EOs was important insofar as they charted the (seemingly endless) sea of piecemeal and contesting evidence (IP10). The platform was perceived as a place “outside of the usual” (IP2). As another interviewee pointedly stated, it acted like “a militia of anarchists run by a general” (IP8). The interviewees report strong lateral transfer of knowledge among researchers, bypassing placid and cautious academic hierarchies (IP11). Nobody had to defend their stakes; there was no need to showcase one’s reputation, rank, or competence. As one participant explained, “We could speak more freely outside the eminence base of academic hierarchy ridden with all their concerns” (IP11). Public servants, too, considered the time in the platform was well spent, since “we normally do not have enough time for analysis and broader discussion” (IP12). Some perceived FUOP as a meaningful surrogate for widely missing strategic, curated third mission activities by universities (IP8, IP10).17 Putting the responsibility for third mission on individual shoulders without providing institutional resources for once at least happened in a structured and solidary form. Tacit Convictions The practical experiences of the collaborative work during the pandemic created a positive attitude among its members: “I have never before learned that much that quickly” (IP10). Learning involved different aspects: from methodological progress “I have learned how the other disciplines design surveys” (IP6) to building up national cross-disciplinary bonds and, from there on, designing new initiatives (IP6). Interestingly, the latter was emphasized by experts with already strong international disciplinary cooperation networks. Even more significantly, a set of tacit convictions about the need for the platform, its basic operative functioning, and the approach towards the pandemic seems to have formed. Members remained convinced that the platform was a meaningful instrument with individual contributions when it came to stabilizing the cohesion of Austrian society during the pandemic. Somewhat ironically, this translated into two simultaneous forms of opening contingencies. One was to think out of the box of entrenched administrative solutions and alleged inherent necessities, to open new avenues. Instead of letting political preferences and institutional constraints dictate the reaction to the pandemic, its motivation was the other way round: 17 The notion of third mission is notoriously ambiguous, and there is almost no literature on its implementation in Austria (For an introduction, see the informative Working Paper by Lassnigg etal. 2017). In the context of this article, the focus is on the non-commercial aspects of third mission. “A Militia ofAnarchists Run byaGeneral”. ACase ofScientific… whatever means and instruments were needed to manage the pandemic should dictate policymaking and the behavior of public administration. Consequently, the other opening concerned the best approach towards managing the pandemic. It would have to be a cautious opening – that is, not to let the virus float freely, but also not to make too stringent restrictions on the way. The caveat was to use those restrictive measures that were minimally invasive, from wearing face masks to no public gatherings (IP4). That implies averting the necessity for too many or too long lockdowns by making adaptations in infrastructure as well as in daily behavior, by being stricter with less intrusive measures. Several EOs argued for this cautious approach (Fasching etal. 2021b; Schmidt etal. 2021; Foitik etal. 2022; Bathke etal. 2023). It also requires ensuring robust and continuous monitoring, which, as has been stressed several times in the interviews, requires that data sets and time series are collected and made available (IP4, IP9). These convictions were strongly shared by members of the platform; they also provided reason to quit for others who eventually stopped contributing. For those who remained, common drivers were to bring evidence from various fields to understand the wild and multi-faceted dynamics of the Covid pandemic (and not to give in to the lure of conspiracy theories). Shared traits also included a positive view of the role of science and knowledge within and across disciplinary boundaries. Furthermore, a positive view on producing and using evidence for policy while at the same time understanding the sometimes-shaky ground of the diverse forms of evidence, coupled with the wish to individually engage in a group with mixed expertise. In the context of a tightly knit and yet somewhat threadbare Austrian institutional setup with ready-made solutions on the shelf, FUOP had a kind of contender and outsider role. However, the list of its members included many high-ranked, well-paid, respected academics and public sector managers. Without such ambiguity, it might be argued, it would have been difficult to achieve common ground in times of crisis and to insert at least part of the findings into the sometimes soft and opaque, sometimes rigid and unforgiving Austrian policy system. Impacts The platform was founded with the ambition of opening new avenues of interdisciplinary collaboration to understand the impact of the pandemic, as well as co-designing responses to that crisis. In that sense, it was a deliberate act of contingency opening. Which contingent opportunities of change did FUOP open, and which impacts might the platform have achieved? FUOP itself can be characterized by the knowledge of its members about the contingencies of current orders. As interviews and minutes show, that perception was the main driver to assemble and do the self-organized pro bono work over a few years in great durability. Further, we find the shared normative goal that contingency itself shall be one of the major continuums (on all levels, within FUOP, in the pandemic crisis, but also for some Austrian policy settings beyond COVID). This view becomes evident through the actions of the platform, i.e., the EO, and their narrative, i.e., the minutes and interviews, of the platform. T.König, M.Stampfer That the platform made a difference was believed by its members, or else they would not have continued to participate in its activities. However, impacts are difficult to identify, and even more difficult to evaluate, whether they have been intended or not, and whether they have been expected by their instigators. Still, an incomplete and brief look at three different levels of impact reveals the following. Impact on the containment of the pandemic: Maybe the most exemplary impact of FUOP activities was the testing regime Alles Gurgelt (TS). From early 2021 onwards, some regions of Austria, namely Vienna, built up a unique PCR testing infrastructure consisting of free kits, sophisticated sample collection logistics (together with a supermarket chain), special testing structures for companies or schools, and a professionally managed central laboratory. The result was a simple and useful diagnostic tool with a comparatively high degree of reliability for everyone. However, Alles Gurgelt came with high costs and the discussion about the effectiveness of this infrastructure remains difficult. Experts estimate that, e.g., Vienna might have had a much lower estimated number of unreported cases than other regions.18 FUOP was instrumental in two ways for establishing Alles Gurgelt, first by forming a platform for (mainly biomedical) researchers to develop test strategies and robust hypotheses, and second, by one of the moderators (Thomas Starlinger) convincing important decision makers to set up the PCR test infrastructure. The platform was also involved in ongoing initiatives to keep schools open. Initially, surveys and discussions among FUOP members tried to establish an evidencebased narrative for schools to counter the close-all-and-everything policy over most of the year 2020, putting the needs of schoolchildren and families in the forefront, and acknowledging that school closures had severe negative effects on education or psycho-social outcomes. Internal discussions were controversial, as the level of contagiousness of children remained unclear for some time. Once solved, the platform’s position was clear: cautious opening accompanied by massive (pool) testing. Various EOs were published, and members instigated tense discussions with the Ministryof Education and other public actors. Those efforts seemed to have had some limited effects on an often-reluctant school bureaucracy. Impact on Austrian institutions: Indirectly, FUOP likely contributed to several institutional innovations in Austria. Platform members were involved in setting up the Austrian Micro Data Center (AMDC) and creating the Austrian Supply Chain Intelligence Institute (ASCII), as well as institutionalizing a household panel (Austrian Socio-Economic Panel, ASEP). On January 1, 2024, in line with the new legislative steps, the new Krisensicherheitsgesetz (a national resilience act) came into force. The platform was pointing towards the difficulty of getting up-to-date health data on Austria.19 At one point, the platform’s WG on “Data” embarked on writing a blueprint for a national data strategy including health and for the integration of the 18 See https:// www. spekt rum. de/ news/ allesgurge ltwasdiewienertests trate gieleist enkann/ 19778 83 (last accessed 2024-01-24). Alles Gurgelt means “everybody is gargling”. How difficult the measuring is, is shown by the phrasing “lower estimated number of unreported cases”, making this measure a target for spending critics. 19 The problem of missing data, exacerbated by outdated infrastructure, GDPR obsessions, and unwillingness of major players, has been outlined in several documents (König and Schmoigl 2020; Thurner and Klimek 2021; Klimek etal. 2022; Neuwirth 2022). “A Militia ofAnarchists Run byaGeneral”. ACase ofScientific… EU Data Governance Act (DGA) into national legal and organizational structures (Schürz etal. 2023). Recent initiatives for a government data strategy on national level might have been influenced in part by the efforts of FUOP. Impacts on culture: Several interview partners mentioned that the most important achievement was the creation of an interand transdisciplinary community with strong interactions. FUOP induced transfer of methods within the social and health sciences at numerous instances and enabled members to establish a mutual framework of key assumptions and concepts amongst. That certainly had an impact on the quality of the statements and recommendations issued by the platform; whether this will also inspire improvements with the third mission structures of Austrian universities, waits to be seen. Eventually, quite a few members of FUOP found their way into policy advisory bodies, into the media, into the public, and in other forums. There, the interdisciplinarity of the deliberations seemed to have had a positive effect on their (semi-)public statements, in the sense that experts were more balanced in what they said and that they could weigh better, for example, between necessary steps and the negative impact that would have on specific groups. Even if those experts would have been invited without their FUOP participation, it is safe to assume that their respective contributions could easily have turned out in a narrower manner. In May 2022, the platform organized a two-day-conference on “Science for Resilience”, convening national experts (many, but not all of which were members of the platform) together with international speakers. While the Austrian media covered the conference,20 and it was generally praised by the participants from abroad as a unique opportunity for exchange, academic institutions did not take up the format and there were no further conferences of this sort. Additionally, Austrian delegates seem to be absent from other international gatherings with similar scope (Delfraissy etal. 2024). Conclusions This micro-study analyses FUOP along with its practices in both doing and saying. The efforts to modulate (i.e., as a rule to open) contingencies have been presented by elucidating the participants’ skills, the FUOP tools, and the construction of meaning through constant cross-disciplinary deliberation. Somewhat provocatively, this has been labelled in the title as “a militia of anarchists run by a general”. Besides the obvious irony of that interview quote, all three elements provide deeper insight into the remit of the group. The militia stands for the practice of voluntary, unpaid, often unrecognized hard work of experts with demanding professional lives. Working as a militia has been a distinct and over time a deliberate tool of FUOP, providing for a regime of practices, including a normative dimension of collective action. Having a general as an organizer and mediator provided FUOP with the skills and tools for its formidable tasks: How to set and operationalize a strategy? How to provide for logistics in a bureaucratical setting that is unprepared for the crisis 20 See https:// scien ce. orf. at/ stori es/ 32132 98/ (last accessed 2023-11-23) T.König, M.Stampfer at hand? How to move from target A to target B in an enduring situation where the virus was often termed as an invisible and cunning enemy? The least obvious element is the anarchists. Here, one should not think of events like the bloody revolt of the Asturian miners but of a more peaceful set. Peter Kropotkin (a notable scientist himself) describes the Jura watchmaker federation in the late 1870s, along the following meanings, skills, and tools: self-organization, division of labor, solidarity, efforts for social justice, and ambition to publish their views on the world, and how to change it (Kropotkin 2002: 421–6). Policy advice is expected to provide a differentiated overview of the current situation, based on quickly available and reliable data and facts. It operates at the nexus between scientific expertise and political accountability, a crucial intersection where “the boundary between science and politics has to be constantly redrawn and reiterated” (Weingart 1999: 160). The platform was mostly about providing the space for social learning and dealing with the lack of any mid-term perspective (König 2020: 105). It demands a few basic requirements (see specifically Bogner and Buntfuß 2023: 84): given the platform’s continual stream of scientific advice, one can conclude that it fulfilled most of them, or found creative (if only temporary) work-arounds. The micro-story of the platform provides some broader insights into Austria. For one, the Austrian policy system has had difficulties in understanding the difference between evidence, policy advice, and actual policymaking. Corporatist interests and bureaucracy have been part of the bodies that were supposed to be advising, hence not providing space for organized deliberation. If confronted with new challenges, the system resorted to tested strategies off the shelf that were, however, not always appropriate to the specific situation (Mätzke 2021; Fallend and Miklin 2023). New bodies emerged in times of heightened alarm, and they were abandoned once the heat was off (Bogner etal. 2023; Bogner and Buntfuß 2023: 85–86; Rakowsky etal. 2023). Austria’s academic institutions, often claiming the instigation of third mission activities, had a continued dismal record in that regard. Participants claim that FUOP was the largest Austrian non-commercial third mission activity they are aware of, yet purely bottom-up. The platform had more than one stand-in function in times of crisis: Advocate for contingency openings and for thinking in options, collector of evidence, multidisciplinary discussion forum, and training ground for forming multi-faceted policy advice and transfer, large-scale third mission activity. Can such properties be institutionalized without losing zeal and freshness? What is the trade-off between a formal mandate and the spirit encountered at FUOP? The answer to those questions is dependent on institutional settings and the kind of crisis. However, the ten scientific Covid advisory boards at an international learning exercise (notably, with Austria missing) conclude that the following factors were crucial prerequisites for sound advice during the pandemic: A formal role of the advice-giving body; a cross-disciplinary set-up with a focus on evidence; a clearly defined boundary between experts and politics, an active communication; speedy set-up with appropriate preparation before crisis. Specifically, the report also states that, for rapid responses to the pandemic, it was helpful if “individuals had worked together before the pandemic, but it was important to bring in new experts to ensure input and insights from the full range of disciplines” (Delfraissy etal. 2024: 510). Obviously, times between acute crises are the “A Militia ofAnarchists Run byaGeneral”. ACase ofScientific… more promising periods to build institutions that are deemed to provide support during times of crisis. More generally, this is also a study on the growing importance (and altering role) of experts in the public sphere (Hirschi 2021). They contribute topical expertise, and increasingly seem to have challenged the position of the towering public intellectual in media appearances. As a recent study has convincingly shown, however, many experts faced massive “epistemic resistance” during the pandemic crisis (Amlinger and Nachtwey 2022: 270–85). Experts could be, at the same time, rockstars and culprits, while governments, advised by experts, experienced strong shifts in political routines. The case of FUOP provides a less extreme story: Its members came in as experts, and experts they remained, although – or maybe because – they had to balance their domain knowledge with many others. Of course, FUOP was not a platform to discuss things with the public better. But then again, platform members, in their public appearances, could draw on preceding cross-disciplinary discussions.21 Acknowledgements We are grateful to our interviewees. Clelia Castellucci and Barbara Ungerhofer helped us with organizing the documents, which is greatly appreciated. Arne Bathke, Sylvia Kritzinger, and Herwig Ostermann gave us valuable feedback on an earlier version of the draft. The article was greatly improved thanks to the constructive review of two anonymous peers. Maggie Hardiman did an excellent job in language editing the manuscript. All remaining errors are solely the responsibility of the authors Declarations Conflict of interest The authors have been participating in the meetings of the “Future Operations Platform” over the whole period covered. As experienced science administrators with a record in the study of past and current policy developments they are confident to combine firsthand insight with the required distance in analysis. No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript. Ethics Approval All interviewees were informed about their rights and signed an informed consent beforehand. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. References Ahrne, Göran, and Nils Brunsson. 2011. Organization outside organizations: the significance of partial organization. Organization 18: 83–104. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1177/ 13505 08410 376256. 21 The modeler being aware of the contexts of the policy field she is dealing with; the epidemiologist having learnt before what a radical measure would mean for social life; the planner avoiding mono-causal plans.