Researchers agree to conduct an international survey of scientific culture

The project was launched in November 2019 in Beijing at an event hosted by China’s National Academy for Innovation Strategy.

By Elton Alisson in Beijing*  |  Agência FAPESP – Researchers from 14 countries, including Brazil, have agreed to conduct an international survey of scientific culture with the aims of evaluating global knowledge on science and technology and investigating the public perception of and support for these activities.

The project was launched in early November in Beijing during an event hosted by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) and its National Academy for Innovation Strategy (NAIS).

“Science is undervalued today. Distrust of scientific knowledge is growing in some countries,” said Michel Claessens as the spokesperson for the World Investigation of Science Culture (WISE), an informal alliance set up at the meeting.

Claessens is a professor at the French-speaking Free University of Brussels (ULB) in Belgium and the press and information officer of the European Commission’s research directorate.

“We want to emphasize the importance of scientific culture to strengthen public support for science, share best practices, and work together on defining and measuring scientific culture globally,” he said.

All the countries involved in the project, including the United States, Brazil, China and the members of the European Union, regularly conduct surveys to gauge public perceptions of science and trends in scientific culture, according to Claessens.

However, the survey methodologies do not permit cross-border inferences, correlations or common measures of scientific literacy and culture.

In addition, while scientific and technological concepts and applications are ubiquitous in contemporary society, there are concerns that a lack of strong scientific culture could undermine public support for science.

“Science is currently threatened by a growing distrust, with anti-science movements at the highest social and political levels casting doubt on scientific knowledge and the scientific method,” Claessens said.

“Rising opposition to vaccination and skepticism regarding climate change appear to show that the influence of science and scientific knowledge may be at risk. Moreover, young people in some countries aren’t interested in studying science or pursuing scientific careers.”

The authority of scientists, science teachers, science policy makers and science journalists has also been questioned, according to Bernard Schiele, a professor at the University of Quebec in Canada.

“Mediation is now a byword for public involvement. Citizens don’t want to be separate from decision-making processes that may affect them, especially where social choices are concerned,” Schiele said.

The international survey on scientific culture will use a methodology designed to make the findings comparable across countries, including standardized questionnaires and will be repeated at regular intervals.

This will enable the researchers to measure scientific culture in a coordinated manner, conduct a cross-border analysis of the data, track its development on a global scale, and help governments establish strategies to improve the data, according to the coordinators of the initiative.

“Scientific culture dissemination helps create a positive environment to support scientific research, technology and innovation and to give the public enough knowledge to understand, question, and act in today’s techno-scientific society,” Claessens said.

“For this reason, we hope countries will not only increase funding for science but also promote scientific culture in their societies in order to celebrate scientific values such as the respect for evidence and analysis.”

China’s example

China has conducted surveys on public perceptions of science since 1992, and in 2018, China set a target for working with other countries to promote science education and scientific literacy at home and abroad.

“The popularization of science has played a key role at different stages of China’s economic and social development,” said Ma Lin, a senior official at the Beijing Association for Science and Technology (BAST), in his opening address to the International Week for Science Culture and Science Museums.

The event took place on November 3-5 at the Beijing Science Center, which was unveiled in September 2018, to foster an interest in science and technology, especially among children.

“In just under 20 years, China has significantly increased the proportion of scientifically literate citizens [from less than 2% in 2001 to almost 10% in 2019 and aiming at 12% by the end of 2020],” Ma Lin said.

Some of China’s top universities and research institutions are located in Beijing, where the proportion of scientifically literate citizens has doubled in under ten years, from 10.03% in 2010 to 21.48% in 2018, according to Ma Lin.

“The vast majority of young people in China are literate in basic science after nine years of compulsory schooling. The higher education gross enrollment rate has reached 48.1% in recent years,” he said.

Although science education existed in China before the twentieth century, he added, it was mainly limited to a number of practical subjects. At the end of the nineteenth century, science education was gradually institutionalized, science schools were opened, and efforts were made to popularize basic scientific concepts and methods. The foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 led to a strong expansion of science education, but the content mainly consisted of basic knowledge and everyday practical skills communicated in a simple and direct manner.

After the 1978 reforms and open-door policy, China was able to learn from the experience of more developed countries and begin using modern technology. “China introduced many kinds of content and innovative forms of science popularization, while enhancing its capacity to do this,” Ma Lin said. “In Beijing, for example, there are more than 2,000 locations dedicated to science education and diffusion, such as science museums and science centers.”

Lack of compilation

Surveys on scientific culture and similar research started in the United States in the late 1950s in response to the impact of Sputnik on public opinion. The Sputnik 1 spacecraft, an unmanned research and communications satellite, stunned the world when it was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union in 1957, triggering what became known as the space race.

The event led to a hefty budgetary boost for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the largest public science funding agency in the US, to support science education and conduct surveys of public opinion on science and technology (S&T).

In 1979, the NSF sponsored the first national survey on public attitudes toward S&T and on the understanding of S&T. Since then, the survey has been repeated every few years.

The European Union has been conducting surveys on public perceptions of S&T, as well as specific topics such as information technology and biotechnology, since the early 1990s.

Similar initiatives have been launched more recently by major Asian countries, including India, China and Japan.

Brazil has performed five nationwide surveys on public perceptions of S&T – with results published in 1987, 2006, 2010, 2015 and 2019. The surveys are conducted by the Center for Strategy Management and Research (CGEE), a nonprofit organization overseen by the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications (MCTIC).

Regional surveys have been conducted in recent years by FAPESP, its Minas Gerais counterpart FAPEMIG, the Butantan Institute, and the National Science and Technology Institute for Public Communication of S&T (INCT-CPCT).

“Currently, there are no publications that compile the results of all these surveys. Lack of harmonization among their methodologies and timing is another problem,” said Martin Bauer, a professor at the London School of Economics (LSE) and one of the coordinators of the project.

According to the leaders of the initiative, a global survey of scientific culture would surmount these problems.

* Elton Alisson was a guest of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) and Beijing Science Center.