With trust in science significantly weakened due to misinformation and disinformation in social media and other platforms, scientists and thought leaders converged recently in Budapest, Hungary to call for the restoration of science to its rightful place in today’s tech-driven society.
At the 11th World Science Forum held last Nov. 20-23, Dr. Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), encapsulated the urgency of the matter during a plenary session titled “Trust in Science – Conceptualizing Trust in Science”.
“Trust is gained in teaspoons and lost in buckets”, he said, adding that despite science being among the most trusted professions globally, trust levels saw a decline during the Covid-19 pandemic but have since slowly rebounded.
In another roundtable session titled “Policy for Science: Balancing Risk and Reward,” Peter Gluckman, president of the International Science Council, said one of the most pressing issues facing the scientific community is the erosion of public trust.
Gluckman points out that “trust in institutions has been declining in recent years, and if trust falls in other institutions, trust falls in science as well.”
This decline in trust, he said, presents a fundamental challenge to science’s ability to contribute meaningfully to solving global problems. The Covid-19 pandemic, Gluckman noted, serves as a prime example of this complex dynamic.
While science delivered vaccines and treatments at unprecedented speed, he noted that it also delivered distrust and contributed to social cohesion problems and a rise in populism. This was not entirely science’s fault, but rather stemmed from the way “science and policy interacted, and the way politicians said they were following science to achieve other objectives.”
The pandemic exposed several weaknesses in how science interfaces with policy and society. Gluckman was critical of the narrow focus of the scientific response, noting that it focused mainly on epidemiology and virology, and it did not take into account early enough the economic, educational, and social science perspective.
He characterized Covid-19 as “a classic compounding complex cascading crisis, and no one discipline alone could address it from a scientific point of view.”
The session ended by recognizing the role of technology, particularly artificial intelligence, in mitigating and adapting to climate change.
Speakers also emphasized the need for science to remain central to decision-making processes, showcasing its power to address complex global challenges and offer actionable solutions for a sustainable future.
The World Science Forum 2024 concluded with a declaration calling for efficient, trusted, and creative science and policy interfaces, responding to disruptive global transformations.
“Our world is under rapid transformation and facing an uncertain future. Extraordinary scientific and technological advances are at odds with inadequate progress on addressing the challenges of climate change and most of the Sustainable Development Goals, a growing number of conflicts, rising inequalities and the emergence of rapidly evolving and disruptive technologies,” the declaration states.
“We urgently need to broaden scientific understanding and to promote evidence-based, science-informed and long-term-thinking decision-making.”
The World Science Forum was created by three founding organizations, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences – host of the 2024 event – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Science Council (ISC), and partner organizations the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), and the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC).
“Science as a universal language is the evidence-based tool for understanding our world and its future. It should guide society, policymakers, and the economy on risks, opportunities, and choices. […] We recognize the evolving role of science diplomacy in bringing together science and policy to address these challenges and promote science for peace,” the declaration highlights.
With the theme “A Science and Policy Interface and Dialogue at the Time of Global Transformations”, the WSF2024 attracted 1,200 delegates from 122 countries, who joined sessions and roundtable discussions with 100 lectures in 19 plenary and thematic sessions.
The Steering Committee of WSF selected the application by the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia to host the next World Science Forum in Jakarta in 2026, taking the forum for the first time to Asia and the Eastern Hemisphere.
