Democratisation of scientific advice

Scientific advisory councils in Western countries have become increasingly confronted with demands that are usually reserved for the political arena. Two such demands stand out: transparency and public participation. Although these seem legitimate demands, and have been taken up by governments in most democratic countries, it is unclear how they can be enacted or what their effects will be on the advisory process. Open and closed procedures are conventionally viewed as opposites. We argue that they have a dialectic relation and are not mutually exclusive, using the example of the Health Council of the Netherlands.