Helena Seibicke

• Seibicke, Helena (2025). The Institutional Design of Scientific Advisory Boards on Climate Change: A Comparison at the Intergovernmental, Supranational, and National Level. Global Challenges. 9(9). doi: 10.1002/gch2.202400371. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article investigates the institutional design of scientific advisory bodies (SABs) on climate change across three levels of governance: intergovernmental Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), national (UK's Climate Change Committee (CCC)), and supranational (European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change – ESABCC). Drawing on original empirical data and comparative analysis, the paper examines how institutional features (mandate, composition, autonomy, capacity, and knowledge provision) shape the potential roles and influence of these bodies in climate governance. The ESABCC, established in 2021, represents a novel institutional innovation within the EU's climate policy architecture. As the first supranational advisory body of its kind, it navigates a complex political space, balancing scientific independence with embeddedness in European Union's (EU) policymaking structures. Through a comparative lens, the analysis shows that while all three bodies aim to provide credible scientific input, their design reflects different governance logics and degrees of proximity to policy. The paper argues that institutional design is a critical determinant of how effectively SABs contribute to legitimate, evidence-informed climate policy. By mapping the ESABCC's position within the EU's multi-level governance framework, the study highlights its evolving role and outlines the implications for the broader use of expert knowledge in turbulent policy environments.

• Seibicke, Helena (2024). The role of interest groups in EU gender policymaking. In Coen, David & Katsaitis, Alexander (Ed.), Handbook on Lobbying and Public Policy. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISSN 9781800884700. doi: 10.4337/9781800884717.00046. Full text in Research Archive
• Seibicke, Helena (2024). Investigating stakeholder rationales for participating in collaborative interactions at the policy–science nexus. Policy & Politics. ISSN 0305-5736. 52(3), p. 477–500. doi: 10.1332/03055736Y2023D000000010. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Contemporary politics has become increasingly reliant on scientific knowledge. In evidence-based policymaking, science is invoked to address complex, ‘wicked’ problems. Yet, policymakers do not necessarily base decisions on the best-available evidence, and models of knowledge used in policymaking have long been criticised as simplistic. Therefore, collaboration with non-scientific actors has emerged as a possible way forward. On both sides of the policy–science nexus, collaborative interactions are extended to include ‘stakeholders’ to improve the impact of knowledge (that is, its usability and applicability). And while stakeholder involvement often follows this overarching justification, the question of stakeholder rationales for participating in these processes has previously received little scholarly attention. To address this gap, this article analyses stakeholder rationales, asking why organisations get involved in collaborative research. The theoretical expectations about divergent organisational rationales, drawing on theories of institutional and organisational logics, are investigated through an exploratory case study of stakeholders engaged in collaborative research projects in Norway. The theoretical and empirical analysis form the basis for a proposed new typology of stakeholder rationales. In this way, the article contributes towards the development of better tools for understanding and assessing the sources and potential pathways of knowledge, shaped by self-interested actors, making its way into policymaking processes, often as ‘neutral’ evidence.

• Seibicke, Helena & Michailidou, Asimina (2022). The Challenges of Reconstructing Citizen-Driven EU Contestation in the Digital Media Sphere. Politics and Governance. 10(1), p. 97–107. doi: 10.17645/pag.v10i1.4674. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article reflects on the discursive representation, legal, and practical challenges of locating, classifying, and publishing citizens’ views of the EU in digital media discourse. We start with the discursive representation challenge of locating and identifying citizens’ voices in social and news media discourse. The second set of challenges pertains to the legal, regulatory framework guiding research ethics on personal data but also cuts across the academic debate on what constitutes “public” discourse in the digital public sphere. The third set of challenges are practical but of no less consequence. Here we bring in the issue of marketisation of the public sphere and of the digital commons, and how these processes affect the ethics but also the feasibility and reliability of digital public sphere analysis. Thereby we illustrate that barriers to content analysis can make data collection practically challenging, feeding dilemmas with data reliability and research ethics. These methodological and empirical challenges are illustrated and unpacked with examples from the Benchmark project, which analysed the extent to which citizens drive EU contestation on social and digital news media. Our study focuses on UK public discourse on a possible European Economic Area solution, and the reactions such discourse may have triggered in two EU-associated countries, Norway and Switzerland, in the post-Brexit referendum period 2016–2019. We thus take a broad European perspective of EU contestation that is not strictly confined within the EU public sphere(s). The case study illustrates the research process and the emerging empirical challenges and concludes with reflections and practical suggestions for future research projects.

• Seibicke, Helena (2020). Gender Expertise in Public Policymaking: The European Women’s Lobby and the EU Maternity Leave Directive. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society. ISSN 1072-4745. 27(2), p. 385–408. doi: 10.1093/sp/jxz007. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Civil society organizations are involved in EU policymaking processes, but are faced with the potential dilemma of providing efficient expertise while at the same time advocating for their interests. This article asks whether the European Women’s Lobby, an EU-level umbrella organization representing women’s interests, manages this inbuilt tension by empirically investigating the balancing of three different types of expertise-based claims (procedural, technical, and normative) in a concrete instance of policymaking, namely the European Maternity Leave Directive. The analysis shows that although the EWL engaged in technical expertise provision, it infused the policy process with normative expertise-based claims.

• Seibicke, Helena (2019). Europeisering av nordisk kvinnebevegelse? In Holst, Cathrine; Skjeie, Hege & Teigen, Mari (Ed.), Europeisering av nordisk likestillingspolitikk. Gyldendal Akademisk. ISSN 9788205427044. p. 57–73. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  De nordiske landene omtales ofte som "en likestillingsmodell". De gjør det godt i internasjonale sammenligninger av likestillingsutvikling - og har en politisk kultur og en velferdsstatsmodell som fremmer likestilling i arbeidsliv og politikk. Vi undersøker i denne boka hvordan europeisk integrasjon har endret nordisk likestillingspolitikk - og hva som ikke har endret seg. Samtidig som vi spør i hvor stor grad Norden har satt sitt preg på EUs likestillingspolitikk. En hovedkonklusjon er at EU har hatt større innflytelse på norsk likestillingspolitikk enn mange tror, ikke minst ved å utfordre og bidra til å utvikle likestilling som rettighet. Slik har europeisk integrasjon også utfordret det etablerte sosialdemokratiske synes på likestilling i samfunnet.

• Seibicke, Helena (2019). Gender Expertise in Public Policymaking: The European Women’s Lobby and the EU Maternity Leave Directive. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society. ISSN 1072-4745. 0(0), p. 1–24. doi: 10.1093/sp/jxz007. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Civil society organizations are involved in EU policymaking processes, but are faced with the potential dilemma of providing efficient expertise while at the same time advocating for their interests. This article asks whether the European Women’s Lobby, an EU-level umbrella organization representing women’s interests, manages this inbuilt tension by empirically investigating the balancing of three different types of expertise-based claims (procedural, technical, and normative) in a concrete instance of policymaking, namely the European Maternity Leave Directive. The analysis shows that although the EWL engaged in technical expertise provision, it infused the policy process with normative expertise-based claims.

• Seibicke, Helena & Holst, Cathrine (2018). Unpacking Gender Expertise: The Case of the European Women’s Lobby. In Holst, Cathrine; Warat, Marta & Góra, Magdalena (Ed.), Expertisation and Democracy in Europe. Routledge. ISSN 9781138288232. doi: 10.4324/9781315268033-8. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Expertisation and Democracy in Europe provides a much-needed account of the role and re-organisation of expertise and expert knowledge in Europe and the European Union in a broad range of policy spheres, contributing to the debate triggered by the recent crises. It brings novel perspectives to debates on technocracy and our understanding of the relations between knowledge, experts and democracy. The book explores and assesses new and old linkages between knowledge, expertise and democracy, and expands and deepens the current debates by addressing questions such as: What is the role of expertise in Europe? How is knowledge of different kinds embedded in and decisive for democratic practice in contemporary democracies? How are we to assess recent transformations of the expert-citizens and government-civil society relationships from the perspective of democracy, and which paths are viable in the years to come? Finally, the book engages with and gives flesh to the notion of expertisation not only as a broad political and societal diagnosis, but also as a multidimensional and deeply contested process that enfolds in concrete practices and institutional settings.

• Seibicke, Helena (2017). Campaigning for Gender Equality Through Social Media: The European Women’s Lobby. In Michailidou, Asimina & Barisione, Mauro (Ed.), Social Media and European Politics Rethinking Power and Legitimacy in the Digital Era. Palgrave Macmillan. ISSN 9781137598899. p. 123–142. doi: 10.1057/978-1-137-59890-5_6. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA

• Seibicke, Helena & Boasson, Elin Lerum (2026). Scientific Advisory Councils: Facilitating Climate Governance Implementation in Turbulent Times? Full text in Research Archive
• Østbakken, Kjersti Misje; Seibicke, Helena & Umblijs, Janis (2026). The effect of public R&D funding on knowledge diffusion and workforce reallication. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Evaluations of public R&D subsidies typically stop at firm-level outputs such as patents, private R&D and productivity. We instead ask whether green R&D subsidies reshape firms' demand for high-skilled labour, and whether the workers who accumulate green knowledge in funded firms subsequently carry it elsewhere. The framework has two steps: accumulation, where firms build research capacity internally or hire it externally, and reallocation, where worker mobility diffuses that capacity across firms. We use a stacked difference-in-differences event study on Norwegian register and R&D survey data (2008–2018), comparing firms receiving their first public green R&D grant with not-yet-treated firms funded at least four years later. Preliminary results show that total R&D FTEs rise but the effect fades, while personnel with a master's degree or higher increase persistently across all three post-treatment years. Firms also shift in-house R&D expenditure toward materials and other technologies and away from ICT. This is evidence of accumulation, and of a composition change consistent with external hiring; the mobility analyses testing diffusion are the next step.

• Seibicke, Helena (2026). Navigating the turbulence of the energy transition - Workers, institutions, and power in the energy sector. doi: https:/www.mn.uio.no/english/about/news-and-events/events/the-sustainability-seminar-2026.html. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This presentation examines the energy transition as a fundamentally social and political process rather than a purely technological one, with a particular focus on workers, institutions, and power relations. Using Norway as a critical case, it explores the “Norwegian paradox” of ambitious climate leadership alongside continued expansion of oil and gas production, intensified by concerns over energy security and geopolitical instability. The talk introduces the concept of transition “turbulence” to highlight how overlapping crises, policy uncertainty, and conflicting time horizons disrupt linear transition narratives. It argues that workers face a potential “valley of death”, where jobs, skills, and institutional protections may erode faster than new opportunities emerge. Trade unions are analysed as constrained but influential actors who simultaneously protect existing workers and risk reinforcing carbon lock-in. The presentation concludes that a just transition is neither automatic nor guaranteed by green technologies alone, but depends on adaptive institutions, early worker involvement, new forms of representation, and the redistribution of transition risks from individuals to collective systems.

• Umblijs, Janis & Seibicke, Helena (2025). Green Money, Big Impact? Public Sector Investment in Private Sector Environmental R&D. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Public funding is a crucial driver of environmental research and development (R&D). Existing research indicates that government investment in environmental R&D has a positive impact on innovation, technology development, and subsequent commercialization of new climate technologies. Much of the evidence, however, is based on sector level data and does not investigate the potential added benefits of publicly funded projects that include collaboration between the private sector and universities. We utilize Norwegian firm-level register data, with a linked survey of R&D investment in the private sector, to investigate the impact of public funding and university collaboration on environmental R&D spending. We exploit the panel structure of the registry data and follow a stacked difference-in-differences event-study approach, to study how private firms react to receiving public research funding. We find that in the years following project funding, firms increased the amount of their own capital used for green R&D. On average for every 10 euros of public funding increased a firms own green spending by 4 euros. However, when looking at the difference between firms that collaborate with universities and those that don’t, we only find a significant effect for the former. We conclude that while public R&D funding clearly increases the amount of money spent on environmental research in the private sector, it only stimulates firms to increase their own green spending when projects include collaboration with research institutions. In this sense, only public funded university collaboration projects have a multiplicative, as well as direct, effect on private sector environmental R&D spending.

• Seibicke, Helena (2025). The Role of National and Supranational Scientific Advisory Boards in Climate Policymaking. Full text in Research Archive
• Seibicke, Helena (2024). The Institutional Design of Scientific Advisory Boards on Climate Change: A comparison at the intergovernmental, supranational and national level. Full text in Research Archive
• Seibicke, Helena (2024). The Supranational Institutionalisation of Legislative Science Advice: What Role for The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change? Full text in Research Archive
• Seibicke, Helena (2024). Epistemic Trustworthiness, Organizational Reputation, and Their Role in Shaping Science Advisory Mechanisms. Full text in Research Archive
• Wilde, Pieter de; Seibicke, Helena; Magin, Melanie & Moylan, Tom (2022). Webinar: Citizen Engagement With European Politics on Social Media. [Internet]. Cogitatio Press, Youtube. Full text in Research Archive
• Seibicke, Helena (2022). Taking the citizen out of citizen participation? Full text in Research Archive
• Seibicke, Helena (2021). Taking the ‘citizen’ out of ‘citizen participation’? The discursive, legal and practical challenges of reconstructing citizen-driven EU contestation in the digital media sphere. Full text in Research Archive
• Seibicke, Helena (2019). The role of civil society in communicating Europe. Full text in Research Archive
• Seibicke, Helena & Holst, Catherine (2015). Gender Expertise in the EU: The Case of the European Women’s Lobby. Full text in Research Archive
• Holst, Cathrine & Seibicke, Helena (2015). Gender expertise in the EU: the case of the European Women's Lobby. Full text in Research Archive
• Seibicke, Helena (2014). Book review of "Lobbying in the European Union" by H.Kluver. Journal of Common Market Studies. ISSN 0021-9886. 52(4), p. 964–965. Full text in Research Archive
• Seibicke, Helena & Holst, Cathrine (2014). Experts on gender: On the role of expertise in EU gender politics. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA