The study shows that most people in most countries have relatively high level of trust in scientist, despite oft-repeated claims of a crisis of trust in science. Furthermore, a majority of survey participants believes that scientists should be more involved in society and policymaking.
This study is a result of the TISP Many Labs project led by Dr. Viktoria Cologna (Harvard University, ETH Zurich) and Dr. Niels G. Mede (University of Zurich). Prof. Dr. Simone Dohle was involved in collecting the data for Germany.
The authors of the study surveyed 71,922 people in 68 countries, including many under-researched countries in the “Global South”. The study provides representative global survey data for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic. It contains a snapshot of
(1) trust in scientists,
(2) societal expectations of researchers involvement in society and policymaking
(3) and public views on research priorities.
The study provides the following details:
(1) Across 68 countries, the study finds that a majority of the public has relatively high trust in scientists. Most people perceive scientists to be qualified (78%), honest (57%), and concerned about people’s well-being (56%).
In the global comparison, Germany ranks in the midfield (44th place): although there is a moderately high level of trust in science in Germany, this level is just below the average of all the countries studied and thus below that of many African and northern European countries – but still above Russia and some former Soviet republics.
(2) A majority of survey participants are in favor of science playing an active role in society and policymaking. Globally, 83% of respondents believe that scientists should communicate about science with the public. Only a minority (23%) believes that scientists should not actively advocate for specific policies. In Germany, 60 % believe that scientists should be more involved in the policymaking process.
(3) Participants assigned high priority to research dedicated to improving public health, solving energy problems, and reducing poverty. Research on developing defense and military technology was assigned a lower priority. In fact, participants explicitly believe that science gives more priority to the development of defense and military technology than they would prefer.
Besides publishing their results in a peer-reviewed journal article, the authors also developed a data visualization dashboard, in which users can explore the data and compare them across countries: https://www.tisp-manylabs.com/explore-tisp-data1