A review of expert group-based science advisory processes in Canada

Some of the most authoritative science advice comes from groups of experts operating under systematic advisory methods. In this paper, we compiled publicly available information on 676 science advisory processes conducted over a 28-year period by five Canadian science advisory institutions (i.e. the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat, the National Advisory Council on Immunization, the Canadian Council of Academies, the Royal Society of Canada, and the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) and used these data to explore how these institutions operate. Despite common objectives (i.e. the delivery of sound scientific advice), we found considerable variation among institutions, including in the number of experts involved in developing and reviewing advice, the length of resulting science advice documents, and the time required for individual science advisory processes to be completed. In general, the institutions have become more transparent over time, driven primaril..., We collected basic information related to science advisory processes coordinated under the five different expert group-based science advice institutions described above using manual data extraction, and using the rvest (Wickham, 2024) and pdftools (Ooms, 2024) packages in R version 4.4.1 (R Core Team, 2021). The data collected included:
(i)             Title – the title of the science advice report produced as output of the advisory process;
(ii)            Publication Date – the date that the science advice report was publicly released;
(iii)           Advisory Period – the number of days between the start of the science advisory process and the publication date of the science advice report;
(iv)           Number of Authors – the number of experts involved in authoring the s..., , # A review of expert group-based science advisory processes in Canada

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n5tb2rc5c](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n5tb2rc5c)

## Description of the data and file structure

These data were collected to support an analysis of expert group-based science advisory processes in Canada. The data were compiled from publicly available science advice reports published between 1996 and 2024, which were accessed from institutional websites between May and August 2024.

### Files and variables

#### File: Science\_advice\_data.csv

**Description:** This file contains data on 676 science advice reports published by Canadian science advisory institutions between 1996 and 2024. Each row represents a single science advice report. 

##### Variables

* Series: Refers to the science advisory series (aka institution) where COSEWIC = Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, CSAS = the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat, RSC = Royal Society of Canada Expert Re...,