The POIESIS NTUA Team conducted 16 interviews with 11 science communicators and 5 Researchers on COVID-19 and Climate Change over the course of the summer. Those were part of the total of 119 Expert Interviews that were conducted in the 7 European countries that participate in the project and explored how scientific information is transferred from the laboratory to the general public through ‘chains of mediation’.

Both mediators and researchers called for more action by Institutions, or even the creation of new ones to oversee the way science is communicated. Even though some of the interviewees advocated for the Reformation of some Institutions such as the Greek educational system, the trust in Institutions shown by them to enhance both science communication and science integration differs from results of previous POIESIS engagement events in Greece. More notably, the Public Deliberative Workshops produced at best mixed results regarding people’s trust in Institutions. This might probably relate to the fact that in this previous study the participants were lay people, while in the present study the participants were researchers and communicators.

Greek interviewees are also sensitised to Research Integrity-related issues, despite the fact that some of them often seem to lack the knowledge that they fall under the umbrella term of Research Integrity. That was exceptionally profound among others, on how they evaluate their sources of information and their own work.

Another result that was somehow unexpected is the awareness and acceptance by most of the interviewees of social integration. This specific aspect was a bit controversial at the Focus Group study of POIESIS, in the sense that social integration in the form of citizen science received both positive and negative response. In this study the responses were more homogeneous and more towards the positive side.

Other recommendations included: a) a wider dialogue between science and society regarding the conduct of research and the use of its outputs. Some mentioned basically informative and science integration events, others expressed the opinion that the public must have a say on the way the science outputs are used, b) more transparency in conducting research. This is meant to be used both on communicating and on conducting science as well, c) the creation of participatory and informative events.

You can read the Expert Interviews Findings and the Greek National Report by downloading "D2.3: Expert Interviews Findings" here.