Public knowledge of science in Latin America remains dramatically limited

Public-perception surveys conducted in Brazil and Argentina show that very few people have an understanding of science or are aware of scientific research institutions in their country.

By Elton Alisson, in Buenos Aires

Agência FAPESP – Despite growing dissemination of scientific information in Latin America in recent years, knowledge of science among the inhabitants of the region’s countries, including Brazil and Argentina, remains dramatically limited.

This was the assessment of experts who attended a session on public perceptions of science during FAPESP Week Buenos Aires. Held on April 7-10 in the Argentinian capital, the event was co-hosted by FAPESP and Argentina’s National Scientific & Technological Research Council (CONICET).

“We’re clearly failing in our efforts to communicate to society in general the results of research supported by public funding and to foster interest in science on the part of future generations,” said Marcelo Knobel, a full professor at the University of Campinas’s Gleb Wataghin Physics Institute (IFGW-UNICAMP) in São Paulo State, Brazil, and one of the coordinators of the event in Buenos Aires.

“Most Latin Americans don’t even know science is being done, much less which institutions are doing it in their respective countries,” said Knobel, who is a member of FAPESP’s Research Collaboration Committee.

His view is corroborated by public-perception surveys conducted in recent years in Brazil by such institutions as the Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovation (MCTI) and FAPESP and in Argentina and other Ibero-American countries by the Ibero-American Network for Science & Technology Indicators (RICYT).

In the latest survey of public perceptions of science in Brazil, which was based on a nationwide sample and conducted by MCTI, only 14% of interviewees could name even one Brazilian research institution.

According to a survey conducted by RICYT in several Latin American countries, awareness of research institutions in an interviewee’s country varies with the level of his or her education.

In Argentina, for example, only 20% of the total sample could name a research institution in that country, but among interviewees with a higher level of education, the proportion was 70%.

“Public-perception surveys carried out in recent years in Latin America show that most people in these countries have a very low level of scientific knowledge,” said Carmelo Polino, a senior researcher at Argentina’s Centro REDES (the Center for Research on Science, Development & Higher Education), which runs RICYT.

“Only 2%-5% of people in Latin American countries regularly read scientific content in books, newspaper reports or the Internet, or visit museums and science centers, for example,” Polino said.

In São Paulo State, only a third of interviewees in a survey commissioned by FAPESP and conducted in 2014 by Instituto Datafolha said that they often sought information about science from the Internet, television, magazines and newspapers.

No less than 79% said they never read about science because they considered it too complicated and hard to understand.

“The public isn’t to blame for this problem. It’s the fault of researchers and communicators, who haven’t found the right way to popularize science so as to be properly understood by the general public,” said Carlos Eduardo Lins da Silva, a professor of journalism at the São Paulo College of Advertising & Marketing (ESPM) and a communication consultant to FAPESP.

For Lins da Silva, however, there are other hindrances to science dissemination beyond the failings of communication professionals and scientists in this regard. When the 79% of interviewees in the São Paulo State public-perception survey who never read about science were asked why they found it difficult to understand scientific information, a quarter replied that they had lost interest in science at school.

“When we think about science diffusion and popularization, we mustn’t forget the key role of teachers in primary and secondary schools, who are just as capable of encouraging as they are of discouraging young people to take an interest in science,” Lins da Silva said.

Training science communicators

In Knobel’s opinion, despite this disturbing situation, research-funding institutions in Latin American countries have begun taking steps to narrow the gap between the general public and science.

In Brazil, for example, FAPESP now requires the new Research, Innovation & Diffusion Centers (RIDCs) that it funds to actively engage in science dissemination. According to Knobel, this endeavor cannot be performed effectively and adequately unless science communicators are properly trained, which means making science dissemination a research field in its own right. The objective of this discipline should be to understand how scientific knowledge affects the general public or a particular interest group.

“This is no trivial task,” Knobel said. “It requires hard work and training of specialized professionals. That brings us to another problem, which is the dearth of courses or programs to train science communicators.”

In Brazil, the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) has been a trailblazer in this regard. In the late 1990s, it set up the Laboratory of Advanced Studies in Journalism (Labjor) to conduct surveys related to public perception of science as well as to train science journalists.

Within the past few years, Knobel noted, Labjor has also begun offering a master’s degree program in scientific and cultural communication.

“The course is open to people from any knowledge area,” he said. “We expect this to have beneficial consequences for science diffusion in Brazil.”

Argentina’s Río Negro National University has adopted a similar strategy. A few years ago, it began offering a course of specialization in the communication of science, technology and innovation (ST&I) as well as a master’s degree program in ST&I, said Sandra Muriello, who teaches at the institution.

“Science diffusion activity has intensified in the past decade,” she added. “Public perception of science is an emerging research field, but it’s still underdeveloped.”

Polino agreed. “Public perception of science is an increasingly important subject,” he said, “and it’s arousing more interest on the part of public policy makers.” “Latin America’s science, technology and higher-education institutions have clearly grasped the fact that society needs to appropriate S&T [science and technology] as a strategic resource for economic growth, to enhance countries’ competitiveness throughout the region, and to augment social and cultural well-being,” Polino said.

For more information about FAPESP Week Buenos Aires and to download the presentations delivered there, go to: www.fapesp.br/week2015/buenosaires.