Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries

Viktoria Cologna; Niels G. Mede; Charlotte R. Pennington; James P. Reynolds; et al. (over 100 authors)

doi:10.1038/s41562-024-02090-5

Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries

Viktoria Cologna^*, Niels G. Mede, Charlotte R. Pennington, James P. Reynolds, et al. (over 100 authors)

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries,most people trust scientists and agree that scientists should engage more in society and policymaking. We found variations between and within countries, which we explain with individual- and country-level variables,including political orientation. While there is no widespread lack of trust in scientists, we cannot discount the concern that lack of trust in scientists by even a small minority may affect considerations of scientific evidence in policymaking. These findings have implications for scientists and policy makers seeking to maintain and increase trust in scientists.

Original language	English
Number of pages	22
Journal	Nature Human Behaviour
Early online date	20 Jan 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02090-5
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 20 Jan 2025

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Data Access Statement

The dataset underlying this Article is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/5C3QD. Mede et al.46 provide detailed information on the dataset, including data collection and preprocessing.

The code for replicating the analyses underlying this Article is publicly available at https://osf.io/wj34h/.

Keywords

trust in science
trust
scientists
role of scientists
role of science
many labs
big team science

Access to Document

10.1038/s41562-024-02090-5Licence: CC BY 4.0

Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries
Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .
Final published version, 5.86 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Access Statement

Keywords

Access to Document

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