Science needs saving, Commission says

The ways that science is conducted, communicated and used in policymaking must change to prevent the public’s trust in it being undermined in the ‘post-fact’ age, top European Commission officials have said.

Increased public scepticism about evidence has placed the reputation of science in danger, research commissioner Carlos Moedas said at an event in Brussels on 26 September. “After decades of public trust in science, we now face a crisis of confidence,” he said.

Moedas was speaking at the annual conference of the Joint Research Centre, the Commission’s science service. The event theme was “evidence for policy in a post-fact world”, inspired by the rise of so-called ‘fake news’, the misleading use of evidence by politicians around the world and the ineffectiveness of robust evidence at swaying public opinion.