ISFiT: COVID-19: a case study

December 31st 2019, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission reported a cluster of suspicious viral pneumonia cases. As COVID-19 started spreading around the world, understanding the emerging pandemic to the best of our ability, became paramount. Because the pandemic has had such an invasive effect on people's lives, the motivation, method and process of research connected to the pandemic has been far more visible than what is typically the case for scientific investigations.

The overall theme of ISFiT this year is creating knowledge. At a very basic level, research and the scientific method, are intrinsically linked to the creation of and utilization of knowledge. Yet, because of its general inaccessibility to the public, it is sometimes poorly understood. This includes understanding what motivates research, how research methods are developed and the actual scientific process, when a claim put forth by an article can be trusted, and so on. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study presents a unique opportunity to elucidate and discuss the many aspects of research and how it affects our lives.

With us to discuss this we have:

Camilla Stoltenberg
Director General of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPT). In this role, she has been chief responsible for advising and coordinating with the Norwegian government when developing guidelines, both for the lockdown in March and April, as well as further handling of the pandemic. In addition, Camilla Stoltenberg has been very visible in Norwegian media outlets as an important part of communicating the guidelines and the importance of these to the Norwegian public.

John-Arne Røttingen
Currently holds the position of Global Health Ambassador for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he works to, amongst other things, coordinate the Norwegian global effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including distribution of the vaccine to all countries, independent of their ability to pay. He has previously held the position of CEO at the Norwegian Research Council and has worked as a special advisor to the WHO.

Sulalit Bandyopadhyay
Postdoctoral researcher at NTNU, Department of Chemical Engineering. His research has focused on the development and use of functionalized magnetic nanoparticles. He was part of leading the team of researchers that worked to develop the Norwegian COVID-19 test, letting the Norwegian government ramp up testing capacity in April.

Nina Kristiansen
Editor in chief at forsking.no and regular writer for Uviten. Nina Kristiansen is a journalist and has worked in science communication for the majority of her career. At the beginning of the pandemic, she wrote in Uviten about the dangers and pitfalls resulting from the extremely high pace at which research was being conducted about COVID-19.

Moderator: Christopher Devik Fjeldstad
PhD-student at NTNU and generally interested in science communication and use of science as part of the public discourse. Christopher is part of the team that organizes the plenary sessions during ISFIT.