/ PROJECT

Project

The ECHOES project (Epistemic Communities in Healthcare and prOfessional ExpertiSe) analyzes the production and circulation of knowledge within epistemic communities in the healthcare sector, focusing on the networks of so-called early home-care practices during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Through a sociological approach, the study investigates the communicative dynamics, professional practices, and institutional interactions of these networks of doctors who, in different forms and ways, mobilized to respond to the earliest and most dramatic phases of the pandemic.

Objectives

  • To examine the production, sharing, and validation of knowledge among the physicians within the networks.
  • To analyze the organizational and professional impact of the networks and assess their functioning as epistemic communities and/or communities of practice.
  • To investigate the institutional and public implications connected to the performative dimension of scientific knowledge.

Methodology

The project relies on a set of qualitative methods from social research to explore a phenomenon that is, in many respects, hidden and little known. This movement of physician networks developed primarily through digital instant messaging platforms (such as WhatsApp) and social media (such as Facebook), engaging professionals outside the jurisdiction of their employing organizations or the territories to which they formally belong. To retrospectively investigate the activities and outputs of these networks, the study has employed:

  • Collection of institutional documentation (ministerial circulars, regional regulations, operational protocols)
  • Collection of video materials disseminated through social media (Facebook groups, YouTube channels)
  • Collection of scientific articles 
  • Collection of journalistic materials 
  • Semi-structured interviews with physicians active in the networks 
  • Semi-structured interviews with key informants (not members of the networks)

Expected Results

  • Mapping of physician networks and their communicative practices.
  • Development of a middle-range theory on the performativity of expertise in situations of epistemic crisis.
  • Analysis of the challenges to the production of medical knowledge in the post-pandemic era.

Duration

24 months (October 15, 2023 – October 14, 2025).

Partner

Università di Bergamo
Università Politecnica delle Marche
Fondazione Bruno Kessler

Financing

The project “ECHOES – Epistemic Communities in Healthcare and prOfessional ExpertiSe” (CUP: F53D23006250006) has been funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU (Italian Ministry of University and Research Decree No. 1060 of 17-07-2023) under the PRIN 2022 program, M4,C2, Investment 1.1.