The POIESIS research team produced an analytical aide memoire towards recommendations about how institutions can promote responsible research to enhance trust in science.
This comes as a result of elaborated research that was both qualitative and participatory, and included 22 Focus Groups, at least 3 in each POIESIS consortium country which involved 130 institutional stakeholders. Those were followed by 7 Roundtable Workshop (one in each country) with 84 participants in total which were fed on institutional priorities that were recognised by the aforementioned Focus Groups.
While results differed quite significantly from one context to another, there were some key priorities recognised through this research:
Regarding Research Integrity to: a) implement clear guidelines, codes of conduct and promote shared research integrity standards across institutions and countries, b) implement continuous, career-long training and education programmes for students, scientists, but also other professionals working in the institution, and c) to ensure a culture of transparency regarding the institutional handling of misconduct.
On the topic of Organisation of Science: a) to increase administrative support throughout the research process, covering areas such as budget management, external collaboration and relations, and data management, b) to encourage scientific institutions to address the organizational tensions, conflicting imperatives they contribute to generate, c) an in-depth revision of the performance evaluation system towards more qualitative measures, d) to ensure science independence and to develop public conversation about the private funding of universities and research organisations, and d) to protect own members, and particularly scientists, from external attacks.
On the field of Social Integration on Science to: a) provide scientists with the necessary knowledge and resources to engage in a sustainable and meaningful process of social integration, b) promote collaborative spaces and buildings: buildings should be designed and built to favour openness, c) develop and consider new ways of consulting citizens at local and regional level, d) implement the inclusion of scientific knowledge in school curricula – the only moment in life when all societal groups can be reached simultaneously – but also foster life-long learning opportunities in this regard.
Concerning Science Communication, key priorities are: a) to act both at global and local levels combining comprehensive participation with mass dissemination, b) to use institutional communicators to make citizens aware of research in the early stages, c) to avoid assuming a “crisis of trust”, it is a strong and problematic term: talk of crisis can be self-fulfilling and is best avoided.
This aide memoire, along with the findings of the secondary data analysis on public trust in science provided on POIESIS D1.5: Integrity, Integration, and Institutions for Trust: Reflections Based on Secondary Data Sources, and the recommendations provided from the rest of the projects’ engagement activities on POIESIS D2.5: Cultivating chains of mediation to foster trust in science will be used as an input for the POIESIS Scenario Workshop (mid-May 2025, Brussels) which will co-create with stakeholders, with a focus on policy makers, the final POIESIS policy recommendations for tackling societal mistrust in science and for strengthening the co-creation of R&I contents by society. You can easily download all those documents here!