A Harvard study conducted in 68 countries around the world, including Greece, finds that the public trusts scientists and wants them to be more involved in society and policy-making.

The survey, which involved 71,922 people, provides the largest global collection of data on trust in scientists since the Covid-19 pandemic.

As it turns out, the majority of the public has relatively high trust in scientists: the average level of trust across all countries is 3.62 (on a scale of 1 being very low trust and 5 being very high trust).

Greece is only in 56th place

Interestingly, in the survey, no country shows low trust in scientists. However, there are notable variations between countries and regions.

In top of the list is Egypt (4,30) followed by n Indiah Nigeriah Kenya and the Australia.

OR Greece is located in 56th placewith the confidence level being lower than average, at 3.39.

In a slightly higher position than Greece (52nd) is Cyprus (3.42).

Her less trust to the scientists the citizens show in the Ethiopiathe Russiathe Boliviathe Kazakhstan and lastly her Albania (3.05).

Citizens demand more scientific information

Respondents believe that scientists are capable of conducting high-impact research (78%), are honest (57%) and care about people’s well-being (56%).

52% of respondents believe that scientists should be more involved in the policy-making process.

Also, 75% believe that scientific research methods are the best way to find out if something is true or false.

However, less than half of respondents (42%) believe that scientists pay attention to the opinions of others. Besides, 83% want scientists to communicate science to the public.

The findings even show that many people in many countries feel that the priorities of science do not always align with their own priorities. Respondents would like high priority to be given to research related to improving public healthsolving energy problems and poverty reduction.

Instead, they do not prioritize research for the development of defense and military technology and believe that science prioritizes these two areas more than they wish.

It is noted that the research was conducted by TISP, a consortium based at Harvard University, which includes 241 researchers from 169 institutes around the world.

The study was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviours.