The governance of expertise production in the EU Commission’s ‘high level groups’

In this study, we trace the claim of an ‘expertisation’ of EU governance, a claim that is frequently made, but rarely assessed over time. We ask how expertisation pressures are translated into organisational patterns and modes of committee governance within the EU Commission’s expert group system. More precisely, we focus on committee chairs and mandates as two key organisational parameters of committee governance and zoom in on one particular committee type: the Commission’s high level groups. Our results indicate a rise of academics amongst chairmen and increasingly scientific–technical mandates framing. We interpret this as part of a reputation management strategy by which the EU Commission show its commitment to knowledge-based policy-making and promotes itself as a rational, science-based executive.