Table 2 Meeting attendance and the average number of redacted names over the study period.

From: COVID-19 and science advice on the ‘Grand Stage’: the metadata and linguistic choices in a scientific advisory groups’ meeting minutes

Timeframe (TF)

No. of meetings

No. of expertsa listed in minutesb

No. of experts named and attending 50% or more of meetingsc

Number of experts named in meetings

Average number of redacted namesd in meetings

Average

Min.

Max.

Experts

Observers

Secretariat

TF1

16

37

15

15.1

8

21

1.25

1.00

4.63

TF2

23

56

32

28.3

16

37

0.30

2.13

7.26

TF3

19

78

35

29.0

7

47

0.63

6.47

13.21

TF4

16

74

36

34.9

29

42

0.56

7.00

15.94

TF5

15

79

39

38.3

30

44

0.67

8.27

15.20

Whole study period

89

142

32

29.0

7

47

0.65

10.78

4.76

  1. aSome attendees switched from experts to observers and vice versa during the process—however, in our final count, we only accounted for each attendee’s most frequent role.
  2. bThis is our count using our expert database, rather than the official count provided in the minutes. On some occasions, we found that the number of named attendees plus the listed redactions did not add up to the officially provided number of total attendees e.g., meeting 62.
  3. cValue taken is rounded up, e.g., if 15 meetings, those listed attended eight or more meetings.
  4. dThese are the officially provided counts for redactions in the meeting minutes.