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Chapter one: Education

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Recommendation 1

Governments (footnote 27) should provide an education that equips all young people with the understanding and experience of how scientific knowledge is generated and refined through observation, experimentation and direct engagement in scientific enquiry. In doing so, this education lays the foundation for lifelong scientific literacy, enabling future citizens to evaluate evidence, identify trustworthy sources, use data confidently and respond to scientific and environmental challenges in everyday life.

• Strengthen the focus in science education on understanding of scientific processes, the nature of evidence, and the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Support high-quality science education by ensuring practical work remains integral to learning, supported by the essential expertise of science technicians. This should include foundational practical skills and exposure to real research, derived through project- and enquiry-based initiatives.
• Embed sustainability as a topic throughout the school experience so that students are equipped to live well, within the planet’s available resources.
• Ensure that mathematics and technology-focused education provide students with the numeracy and data interpretation skills essential for everyday life and the workplace.

Recommendation 2

Governments should create conditions for a high-status, confident and adaptable teaching workforce equipped for future educational, scientific and technological change.

• Strengthen teachers’ professional agency and provide improved support for workload management and wellbeing.
• Enhance the attractiveness of teaching through increased professional recognition alongside consideration of flexible, innovative ways of working and reforms to school timetabling.
• Accelerate the effective use of digital tools (including AI) where appropriate to improve teaching and learning and to complement the professional skills of teachers.
• Prioritise sustained investment in high-quality professional development in subject areas where the workforce keeps pace with scientific, technological, and educational change.

Recommendation 3

Governments should adopt a broader education system to age 18 that develops adaptable learners, balances academic and technical pathways, sustains core subjects, and expands chances for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds.

• Ensure that greater breadth helps to develop adaptable learners who can respond to rapidly changing jobs, technologies and industries.
• Sustain engagement with STEM alongside the humanities, arts and languages to prepare all young people to navigate the complex social, ethical and scientific issues they may face.
• Ensure that a broader post-16 offer keeps pathways open for all learners, reducing the early specialisation that disproportionately disadvantages students from less advantaged backgrounds.

Chapter two: Informal engagement with science

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Recommendation 4

The UK government should improve funding opportunities to ensure a diverse network of engagement activities.

• Research funders (including UKRI and the Royal Society) should promote and fund diverse engagement methods that
  recognise STEM engagement opportunities as a core part of the UK’s social and cultural infrastructure.
• Organisations such as the Association for Science and Discovery Centres should work with HM Treasury and government departments to ensure that informal science activities, such as science festivals and science and discovery centres, are able to benefit from the same financial incentives as the cultural sector.
• National academies should establish a national framework with government and philanthropic foundations to encourage a culture of giving towards science engagement.
• Central government should integrate science outreach as an option for demonstrating social value into procurement processes to encourage investment in informal science engagement institutions and initiatives.
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Recommendation 5

Build the evidence base for engagement practices, to optimise the impact of informal public engagement with STEM activities.

• ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø should convene a working group of major stakeholders (including funders, science engagement organisations and practitioners) to design and secure funding for a long-term cohort study on the enduring effects of informal science engagement alongside formal education.
• Scientific employers and funders should create opportunities for professional development and the dissemination of best practices and common tools between adjacent sectors, such as science, the arts and community engagement, to improve overall engagement quality.

Chapter three: Mass media and misinformation

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Recommendation 6

·¬ÇÑÉçÇø and others in the scientific community should convene a working group, collaborating with experts in media monitoring to analyse and respond to current trends in science media consumption across traditional and social media platforms.

• These audits of changing media consumption should be used by scientists and science communicators to support a better understanding of how to identify audiences and connect with them effectively.
• ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø and others in the science community should work to ensure media platforms provide reasonable, privacy-respecting access to their data for researchers, to support public understanding of how platforms work and how their design decisions may be affecting people’s engagement with online information.Ìý

Recommendation 7

Universities, funders and research organisations should value communications skills as a vital component of research culture to help counter mis- and disinformation. They should embed training and support for scientists to capitalise on opportunities to connect with audiences via social media.

• Training and support must be well-developed and well-resourced.
• The importance of engaging with the wide range of media platforms should be recognised as a valuable part of a scientist’s role, with time allocated accordingly.
• Training should cover a range of skills such as an understanding of the social media environment, content production and content moderation.
• This training should include specific support for scientists to anticipate and manage the potential pitfalls of engagement – especially online harassment, trolling and encountering hostile and polarised debates.
• Guidelines and harassment policies need to be put in place, but also individuals in organisations should be assigned responsibility for supporting scientists affected by online harassment and abuse.

Recommendation 8

The science community should recommit to working with science journalists and editors to support and champion quality science journalism, and to help ensure that credible and trustworthy reporting is reaching the widest number of people across traditional and social media channels.

• The science community should press news outlets to monitor the success of science news stories and ensure they feature prominently in editorial priorities, given the evidence of audience desire for reporting on how science can help solve some of the problems society faces.
• The scientific community should send a strong message to the news media that the way to compete most effectively on social media and win audiences back to professional journalism is not to join a race to the bottom, but to deliver the high-quality news that the British public repeatedly say they want.Ìý

Recommendation 9

·¬ÇÑÉçÇø should draw up and urge the scientific community to adopt a code of practice for scientists and research communications professionals engaging with the media to help ensure high standards are maintained.

• Modelled and adapted from the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics, this code would lay down minimum standards for communicating science in a measured, accurate and transparent way with a focus on the principles of trustworthiness, quality and value.
• The science community is currently trying to improve the standards of scientific literature, with increasing focus on research integrity and reproducibility, but these efforts often take place separately from science communication – the two endeavours should be merged.

Recommendation 10

·¬ÇÑÉçÇø should set up a working group to explore the possibility, design and implementation of a new initiative that provides a stimulus to achieve more high-quality science programming content.

• ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø is in a unique position to act as a convener, bringing together novel sources of funding with scientists and content producers and platforms.
• The new initiative could also develop a collective voice for more and better science programming from the science and science production communities – something that is noticeable in the arts and noticeably absent in science.

Chapter four: Industry and business sector

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Recommendation 11

The UK government should support R&D businesses to continue to develop strong links with their local and national communities, through incentives that reward those that create auditable and costed public engagement activities.

• Engagement with schools should include engagement with the teachers. Most teachers have never worked in industry and so are unaware of some careers that are potentially available to their students. Help schools to engage their students with online career platforms providing work experience opportunities to larger student audiences.
• Reassess the potential for visitor centres and work with local governments to create innovation zones in public spaces; for example, collaborations with local informal engagement providers, to provide opportunities for employers to engage with local communities. This type of engagement could be included as a requirement for those companies that receive R&D grants from public funds.

Recommendation 12

R&D businesses working in fields of emerging science or technology should engage with the public to demystify these technologies, particularly where they might be transformative, to understand public perceptions and address concerns, and to build trusting relationships that will improve social acceptance. Currently, this is particularly important for businesses working in data-enabled technologies including AI.

• Focus on schools to habituate technology: fund schools to create access to technology such as digital technologies and AI, augmented reality, modern manufacturing (including three-dimensional printing).
• Seek opportunities to engage those outside the main cities and university towns. Engagement should not be viewed as a one-size-fits-all activity; attention should be put on tailoring messages to facilitate access to all demographics.

Recommendation 13

Employers should ensure that industry scientists are encouraged, supported and trained to speak openly about the important role of industry science, and are recognised for these efforts.

• Embed training for public engagement in the career pathways for new staff and incentives offered to the employees to encourage them to take up engagement opportunities; for example, by presenting at school open days.
• Ensure that trade bodies and industry association groups have public engagement on their agenda and take the lead on promoting best practice to their members.
• Encourage local, regional and national government to support R&D businesses in engaging with the public via their targeted inquiries and reports (developed in consultation with industry).
• Encourage scientific and business media to cover and engage with industrial R&D and innovation as part of their reporting and analysis.
• Encourage trade associations and industry representation bodies representing R&D intensive businesses to continue to build public engagement activities into their programmes.

Chapter five: Policy

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Recommendation 14

The UK government should set the ambition to be the global leader in public transparency and systematic use of scientific evidence in policymaking. To support transparency, the UK government should publish a ‘scientific evidence statement’ alongside policies, which sets out explicitly how scientific evidence from research has been used in draft legislation, papers, policy strategy and consultations.

• All relevant policy statements should make explicit reference to a supporting scientific summary or synthesis (‘Scientific evidence statement’) in plain English. The UK government should ensure that all scientific advice for policymaking and Scientific Evidence Statements clearly identify areas of scientific uncertainty, in accordance with civil service policymaking guidelines in the Treasury Green Book.Ìý

Recommendation 15

The national academies should play an active role in holding the UK government to account on the quality and use of scientific evidence in policy decisions.

• As organisations independent of the UK government, the national academies should actively and publicly scrutinise the scientific evidence that is used for significant policy decisions by government, Parliament and the political parties. This is critical to ensure that the scientific facts are presented clearly and objectively, without political bias.
• National academies should work with organisations such as the Institute for Government and Sense about Science, which also play a critical role in evaluating the extent to which the government is effectively incorporating scientific evidence into its policymaking and the transparency with which it is communicated to the public.

Recommendation 16

The scientific community must proactively promote public dialogue on emerging technologies and scientific research so that ethical and policy implications are considered early.

• There is an onus on the scientific community, including the national academies, to feed into continuing, evolving dialogue with the public, politicians and the policy community and to create a receptive and supportive environment in which this can happen. This is an essential element for maintaining trust in science.
• Organisations such as the national academies, Sciencewise, Sense about Science and other expert independent facilitators are well-positioned to convene scientific expertise, public voice and government interests to coordinate such dialogues.
• Sufficient resources and support for skills among researchers must be allocated from science budgets (and other funders of research) to deliver this function. Alongside this, provision should be made to improve STEM research and analysis skills across the whole policy community, including within government and Parliament. Investing in this aspect is likely to pay back many times over in the long term through greater public trust, allowing for smoother adoption of new technologies.

Chapter six: Academic scientific community

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Recommendation 17

Vice-chancellors and other academic leaders should strengthen the long-term institutional commitment to public engagement.

• Review how effectively their institution is supporting public engagement. Use the results to develop an action plan, with designated responsibility in the senior leadership team, based on an investment case that recognises the value of public engagement in local communities and beyond.
• Ensure that public engagement activities are recognised in promotions processes, reward and recognition measures, workload allocation, hiring criteria and institutional award programmes.
• Invest in staffing and infrastructure for public engagement, to enable time-constrained researchers to conduct engagement activities.
• Develop programmes that build competencies in engagement at all stages of research careers.
• Explore opportunities for regional partnering with other institutions to develop core infrastructure for public engagement.
• Develop stronger links with philanthropic bodies and local employers, schools and cultural venues to ensure support for public engagement activities.Ìý

Recommendation 18

National funding councils and responsible government departments should ensure that mechanisms of research evaluation recognise the importance of public engagement.

• Ensure all national evaluations for research and knowledge exchange facilitate benchmarking of university public engagement infrastructure, resource and strategic alignment and provide financial incentives to institutions which meet these benchmarks.
• Ensure that recognition of engagement is sustained in future national research assessment exercises.

Recommendation 19

Research funders (including the Royal Society) should ensure that public engagement is seen as core to scientific research and maximise researchers’ opportunities to undertake engagement activities; they should also monitor and set annually published targets for spend on engagement as a proportion of their research-funding budgets.

• Create additional training opportunities that reflect current knowledge gaps and areas of interest (for example, policy engagement, social media engagement, ethical/inclusive research practice, design of participatory or citizen science research).
• In addition to providing public engagement funding for individual researchers through normal research grant mechanisms, provide competitively awarded ring-fenced multi-year funding for strategic public engagement projects with teams/networks of researchers and public engagement professionals rather than individuals, in order for HEIs to plan long-term engagement strategies more effectively.
• Support the sharing of best practice in public engagement, science communication and evaluation methods, capitalising on the NCCPE’s Research Excellence Framework impact case study work and other independent reviews.
• Commit to repeating the Factors affecting public engagement by UK researchers survey on a five-year cycle.Ìý

Recommendation 20

The research community should advocate for increased institutional and funding support for public engagement, particularly early upstream engagement.

• Advocate for the importance of engagement within host institutions and externally.
• Build on the increasing emphasis on two-way engagement by embedding engagement earlier in the research cycle.