Public Understanding of Science Blog

 By Brian Park. Image generated by ChatGPT. In today’s world, where science and technology are deeply woven into our daily lives, you would expect science education to keep pace. Yet, for some college students, their high school science classes didn’t quite do the job. As part of my doctoral research , I interviewed ten college students in the U.S. with STEM backgrounds to find out just how prepared they felt for postsecondary education and what they wished had been different. Their insights weren’t just thoughtful, but also a call to action. The problem: A disconnect between American high school and college STEM The transition from high school to college is already challenging. But for students pursuing STEM majors, that leap can feel more like a chasm. Despite taking science classes in high school, many students reported feeling unprepared for the academic rigor and conceptual depth of their college courses. One recurring theme from the interviews was a sense of insufficient know...

By Declan Fahy. Michel Claessens,  former head of communication for the ITER project. What happens when an organisation’s science communication becomes replaced by politically-motivated public deception?   Michel Claessens was in such a situation as part of his work as head of communication between April 2011 and March 2015 for the ITER project, a massive energy project located in the south of France. At the facility, some 33 nations are collaborating to build a nuclear fusion device. It is one of the world’s largest scientific projects, but one, Claessens argues, that has a definite political dimension, including its promotion of nuclear power. Claessens, who was also a former head of communication in the Directorate-General Research and Innovation of the European Commission, details in the May 2025 issue of Public Understanding of Science his concerns over hype, research integrity and the merging of science communication and marketing in publicly funded big science pr...

 By Massimiano Bucchi. Photo Credit: Flickr A spacious meeting room in a prestigious university.  Vice-Chancellor - Good afternoon everybody and thanks for being here. I am the Vice-Chancellor for Public Engagement. We are here today to discuss how to improve our university public communication and public engagement strategy. Let me briefly introduce the participants: Professor Orange, Department of Physics; Professor Green, Department of Environmental Sciences; Professor Mustard, Department of Computer Science; Professor Turquoise, Department of Political Science; Professor Brown, Department of Statistics; Professor Blue, Department of Philosophy. And of course, Mrs. Black, who heads our communication office.  Mrs. Black - Thank you, Vice-Chancellor. I have asked also Mr. Mellow Yellow to be here with us today. Mr Mellow Yellow is a highly successful influencer and renowned specialist of social media and he is going to help us with his advice. He is a great expert...

 By Elisa Lello and Niccolò Bertuzzi. Scientific knowledge and traditional epistemic authorities are the object of growing skepticism in Western societies. Scholars contextualized such a phenomenon into a wider coming to light of an anti-science or post-truth era, in a debate centred on the concepts of epistemic populism and, in particular, 'science-related populism '. Our study focused on popular dissent toward compulsory vaccination and pandemic management policies during the Covid-19 pandemic, a topic which is generally identified, and also by Mede and Schäfer’s work , as a crucial example of science-related populism. We focus on Italy, the first Western country to be hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and one that, according to the Oxford University Stringency Index, has taken particularly stringent measures to tackle the health crisis. Our work We started from a paradox that has been little studied. While the association of these protests with the right, even the extreme righ...