Progress
2020
The group has started work on a video project on “Science ∞ Society: Video tutorials on science ethics and science communication” in collaboration with the German National Institute for Science Communication (NaWik). The project is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation for the period 2020-2022. It will look into threats faced by scientists in terms of declining levels of public trust in science,and aims to address trust in science, by creating easily accessible
content in the form of freely available video tutorials, that enable scientists to reflect about the role of science in society, and to communicate with broader audiences.
2019
In December, the group offered a two-hour webinar on “Science communication through blogs and video blogs”, organised by the group’s co-lead Lisa Herzog (Netherlands). GYA members and alumni, as well as members from a number of National Young Academies participated.
Working group member Koen Vermeir (France) argued for the importance of historical research for policy making at Oxford University in February 2019. He focused on past stratagems and discussions around fake science and showed that such epistemic considerations have to be understood in their proper context (including social and religious considerations). Historical analysis and contextualization will help to find more nuanced strategies for increasing public trust in science.
2018
This GYA working group, which started as an Incubator in January 2018, intends to help build confidence and trust in science. This will be achieved by creating a series of video clips (3-5 minutes each) that show the “human faces” of science, and provide reasons for understanding why science is trustworthy. Given that a lot of misinformation takes place in the internet, and many discussions are conducted online, the world wide web is an important space for providing more nuanced information and better communication.
The group’s co-lead Lisa Herzog (Germany) participated in the meeting of the ALLEA (All European Academies) working group on “Truth, Trust and Expertise” in August 2018 in Amsterdam, NL.
Outcomes
2019
Members of this group published a paper on “Academic incentives need to change if we are to build trust in science” in Times Higher Education in February 2019.
2018
Following a call by the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA), group members Lisa Herzog (Germany) and Robert Lepenies (Germany) and GYA alumnus Martin Dominik (UK) participated in a video competition on “Trust in science”. See here for more details and to watch the videos.
During the 2018 GYA Annual General Meeting, a number of GYA members responded to the group’s call and answered questions on the topic of trust in science and others regarding their research activities for filmmaker Nerina Finetto of www.tracesdreams.com. Watch the video on the GYA YouTube channel here.
