The Use of Research in the Public Sector in a Pandemic Context in the Face of Denialism

The study aimed to understand how two public organizations, the Institute of Applied Economic Research and the National School of Public Administration, mobilized academic research in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil. Methodologically, the study started with a description of the trajectory of these organizations and the different materials they produced in the pandemic context. It was found that both organizations, already having a prior structure for producing and mobilizing academic knowledge as central aspects, were able to act quickly and with a high volume to generate capacity building and information legitimized as academic within the public sector. Beyond that, through a co-productive dynamic with academia, both were also able to provide information and public value to civil society, acting in an opposite direction considering the denialist line of the government of the time.