Trust in Science

This open access book proposes that Europe has something to offer in the current landscape, namely decades of experience when it comes to addressing societal, ethical, and regulatory challenges of technoscientific change. Science is experiencing unprecedented turbulence as US government officials and Big Tech CEOs actively undermine its authority, particularly when scientific findings conflict with economic interests and power dynamics in polarized policy debates. At this time when Europe is closely monitoring what is happening "across the Pond" and struggles to position itself between giant technoscientific superpowers, researchers from three European projects joined forces to examine Science and Society's role and their interrelationship in addressing global challenges. In this Springer Brief, the authors ask core questions about Trust in Science: Are we indeed facing a trust crisis, as some sources suggest? Should science be trusted, or rather: should trust in science be promoted, and if so on what grounds? If fostering trust in science is a worthwhile and valid objective, how can it be achieved?
The authors contend that through participatory research methodologies, "European sciences" have the opportunity to strengthen their responsiveness to societal values, priorities, and concerns."
Hub Zwart (1960) studied philosophy and psychology at Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands) and defended his thesis in 1993. In 2000, he became full professor of Philosophy at the Faculty of Science RU Nijmegen. In 2018, he was appointed as the dean of Erasmus School of Philosophy (Erasmus University Rotterdam). He is an editor-in-chief of the Library for Ethics and Applied Philosophy (Springer). His research develops a philosophical (dialectical) perspective on contemporary technoscience. Special attention is devoted to the dialectical relationship between science and genres of the imagination (drama, poetry, cinema, novels, music). In 2017, he published Tales of Research Misconduct (Springer Nature, open access) and in 2022 Continental Philosophy of Technoscience (Springer Nature, open access).

Kalypso Iordanou is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), Cyprus. She received her PhD in Educational Psychology from Columbia University in New York, after receiving a Fulbright scholarship. Her work focuses on reasoning, argument skills, epistemic cognition, and using technology to promote thinking-skills and learning. Her work has been supported by several research bodies including the European Commission and the Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF). Some of the projects she has been working on are trust in science (VERITY, Horizon-Europe) and extremist reasoning in social media (SMIDGE, Horizon-Europe). Her research achievements have been honored by awards from several bodies, such as the Fulbright Commission – supporting a Visiting Fellowship at Columbia University (US) in 2017- and the Research and Innovation Foundation, awarding her the National Young Researcher Award.

Tine Ravn (TR) is a Senior Researcher at the Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy within the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University. Her work focuses broadly on national and international sociotechnical transformations at the intersection of science and society. Positioned within the field of science, technology, and innovation (STI) studies, her research emphasizes the ethical, political, social, and epistemic implications of research and technology. In particular, her previous and current research examines public trust in science and research integrity, the social and ethical aspects of emerging biomedical technologies, and public engagement with science and society. She has acted as the coordinator of a research project examining public trust in science in relation to research integrity and integration (POIESIS, supported by Horizon Europe). She has published in journals such as Research Ethics, Science and Public Policy and Science and Engineering Ethics. She has also authored and co-authored three books, including Lived Realities of Solo Motherhood, Donor Conception and Medically Assisted Reproduction (Ravn, Bingley: Emerald Publishing, 2021) and Social Theory: A Textbook (Laustsen, Larsen, Nielsen, Ravn, and Sørensen, Routledge, 2017).

Hub Zwart (1960) studied philosophy and psychology at Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands) and defended his thesis in 1993. In 2000 he became full Professor of Philosophy at the Faculty of Science RU Nijmegen. In 2018 he was appointed as Dean of Erasmus School of Philosophy (Erasmus University Rotterdam). He is editor-in-chief of the Library for Ethics and Applied Philosophy (Springer). His research develops a philosophical (dialectical) perspective on contemporary technoscience. Special attention is devoted to the dialectical relationship between science and genres of the imagination (drama, poetry, cinema, novels, music) He published 20 books (7 in English), 150 international peer-reviewed articles as first or single author and presented more than 200 international academic lectures, most of them invited. In 2022, he published his open-access monograph Continental Philosophy of Technoscience (Springer Nature).