Foreword
The pursuit of knowledge about our world – the essence of the scientific endeavour – lies at the very heart of human civilisation. Science is not the preserve of a small group of accredited scientists; it belongs to all of humanity. Access to scientific principles and facts, and their implications, should be available to everyone. Yet even today, when virtually instantaneous communication is taken for granted and information on almost anything is readily accessible to so many, an appreciation of basic scientific realities, even those that affect everyday life and the future of our planet, such as climate change, is too often missing.
It is the responsibility of scientists and the institutions that support them to ensure that scientific knowledge is shared. The practice of public engagement with science is deeply rooted. The UK’s pre-eminent scientific institution, the Royal Society, may even owe its existence to this idea since it was founded at Gresham College, the Elizabethan establishment charged with delivering free lectures to Londoners from 1597. The Royal Institution, created in 1799, took up the mantle by hosting its first public lecture in 1800. However, the notion that participation in public engagement is a desirable and legitimate concern for all practising scientists is relatively modern. The 1985 Royal Society report on The public understanding of science, written by a group appointed by the Royal Society Council and chaired by Sir Walter Bodmer (colloquially known as the ‘Bodmer report’), marked a turning point in the general acceptance by the scientific community and others of the extensive benefits of public engagement. The Bodmer report led to public engagement becoming embedded in the Royal Society’s mission and an integral component of scientists’ activities in higher education institutions.
If science was key to society in 1985, it is imperative in 2026. As the Bodmer report so eloquently put it: “Science pervades our society. Most of our industry and much of our national prosperity are based on science … Science affects many, if not most, policy issues of national and international importance. It also affects a wide range of personal activities, from health and diet to holidays and sport.” (footnote 1)
The world has changed since 1985. Today, science and technology underpin the dissemination of information. It is critical not only to everyone’s health and comfort, but to safety and security, indeed to the future of our planet. The ability to engage with the subjects, structures, methods and outcomes of science should be a public right. With that ability to engage comes the power to make informed choices about how to live and to influence how society can and should use the tremendous capability of science for the common good.
The Bodmer report was published just before the invention that brought about the biggest societal change of recent times: the internet. The internet was introduced in the early 1980s and became user-friendly with the deployment of the World Wide Web in 1989. The internet profoundly changed society across the world: in the space of a few years, enormous amounts of information (virtually all human knowledge) became available to anyone with access to a computer, initially large mainframes, then compact laptops, and today mobile phones.
The internet created the opportunity for interested organisations, including the media, to make scientific advances accessible to non-specialists. Naturally, this has had an enormous effect on the public’s engagement with science, enabling them not just to be informed and inspired but also to make their voices heard on scientific matters of public concern, a central plank of effective public engagement. But not all things internet have been beneficial. The internet also exposed serious vulnerabilities, such as cyber attacks on essential infrastructure and internet fraud. The internet has provided a vehicle for self-interested parties to spread mis- and disinformation, as demonstrated, for example, by unscientific attacks on the efficacy and safety of vaccines.
The volume of scientific research has increased dramatically since 1985. According to an analysis of Web of Science data, approximately 500,000 scientific papers were published in 1981 (footnote 2), whereas, according to the National Science Foundation, approximately 3.3 million papers were published in 2023 (footnote 3). This increase reflects a commensurate increase in the number of professional science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) researchers. Although accurate numbers are difficult to come by, an indication of the trend is provided by a survey that showed that the number of doctorates awarded in STEM in the UK approximately doubled between 1994 and 2008 (footnote 4).
There are many more active researchers and STEM engagement professionals who participate in public engagement in science today than there were in 1985.
An area of great prominence in the 1985 report in which there has been some success in the past 40 years is in science education in schools. The Bodmer report stressed the need “to provide a broadly based science education at school for all to the age of 16”, and compulsory science to age 16 was implemented in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland within a few years of the report’s publication. However, the report also recommended that post-16 education should be broader and explicitly stated that students should not drop science subjects entirely after the age of 16. Despite multiple recommendations, including by the Royal Society (footnote 5), this has not yet come to pass. A welcome development is the inclusion of computing and data science in the school curriculum. The inadequate supply of qualified science teachers in schools, particularly in physics and mathematics, was already highlighted as a major problem in the Bodmer report. Sadly, this is another area where there has been no progress in 40 years (footnote 6).
By contrast, the informal science education sector has flourished. In 1985, this sector was essentially limited to a few science museums (mostly in London) and a handful of science festivals. Today, there is a welcome proliferation of science and ‘science and discovery’ centres spread around the country, and many new science festivals.
The Millennium Commission, set up at the turn of the century, created over a dozen new science centres, botanic gardens and aquaria across the UK. Now the challenge is to renew the 25-year-old infrastructure of these facilities and to place the entire informal education sector on a financially sustainable footing.
The central scientific and technological concerns that dominate today’s attention are different from those in 1985. The Bodmer report mentions ‘acid rain’, nuclear waste, in vitro fertilisation, fluoridation of the water supply and environmental pollution. Although some current topical subjects, such as the energy supply, the ageing population and vaccines, were mentioned in the Bodmer report, the central concerns of today – climate change, the decline of biodiversity, ecological collapse, pandemics, uncontrolled artificial general intelligence – have only emerged in the past 40 years.
In recognition of the profound changes over the past 40 years and our conviction that public engagement is a critical aspect of our role as scientists, we were delighted to co-chair a group tasked with updating Sir Walter’s original report. We hope that this Science for society report will help set the scene for public engagement with science for years to come.
Professor Carlos Frenk CBE FRS and Professor Sheila Rowan CBE FRS, Co-Chairs of the Science for society report Steering Committee