Parliaments across Europe gather, produce, and contest knowledge every day—yet no one has systematically studied how they do it or what the consequences are for democracy. This project fills that gap by examining seven European parliaments and three policy areas—health, environment, and welfare—to understand how knowledge flows through these institutions, what values shape its use, and what happens when different forms of knowledge clash. The research matters because democratic decision-making is under intense scrutiny, and while philosophers and social scientists have long debated the role of knowledge in governance, parliaments themselves have been largely overlooked as knowledge institutions. If successful, this work could transform how we understand representation, law-making, and accountability—not by changing how parliaments operate directly, but by revealing the hidden infrastructure of evidence, expertise, and contested information that quietly shapes every law and policy. This is fundamental social science: it will not produce a new tool or service, but it may reshape how politicians, officials, and the public think about what counts as good evidence in democratic debate.
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How is knowledge used in parliaments? What are the values that underpin knowledge use in those institutions? And what are the effects of knowledge production, acceptance and contestation on democratic governance? These are pivotal questions at a time when democratic decision-making has never been more scrutinised and contested. And while there have been many longstanding debates across philosophy, humanities and social sciences about the role of knowledge in decision-making, we still know comparatively little about the role of parliaments, and their impact on democratic governance, within such debates. In this project, I undertake the first systematic and comparative study of parliaments - and the representatives and officials therein - as consumers, producers and mediators of knowledge. In doing so, I transform how we understand these democratic institutions as knowledge institutions. This is a necessary intervention to inform wider debates about the health of democracies given that knowledge and information have become ever more accessible and yet more contested for politicians and the public to navigate and use effectively. I adopt an ambitious research design, focusing on 7 European parliaments and 3 policy areas (health, environment, and welfare), and an innovative mix of methods to: interrogate how knowledge is gathered, circulated and exchanged; examine values and motivations underpinning the use of knowledge; and explore the impact of parliaments' knowledge use on democratic governance. SPARK pushes the boundaries of political science by drawing on STS, sociology and social anthropology to offer new answers to essential questions about representation, law-making and accountability. In rethinking parliaments as knowledge institutions, SPARK will have a deep impact on how we conceive of these democratic institutions and address urgent social problems and challenges including environmental degradation, healthcare crises and continuing social inequalities.
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