 A warm welcome to this session on improving science literacy and thank you for joining us. My name is Fabiola Gianotti. I'm a particle physicist and currently I'm the head of CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics based in Geneva in Switzerland. Over the past year science has been in the spotlight as never before and it's rassuring to see science center stage with governments listening to scientists before taking decision and before implementing measures and distinguish scientists, virologists, immunologists, epidemiologists on the front pages. But a sustainable world requires science to remain center stage at all times also outside periods of crisis and public understanding and engagement and cities and stress play an essential role to achieve this goal. So how can we improve science literacy? How can we empower citizens to navigate the huge amount of information they are bombarded with and make sense of what they hear and read? How should we scientists improve on communicating science? And what is the responsibility of research institutions, science communicators, publishers, academia and education? So we will try to address this another question with our distinguished panelists list. Let me introduce them. Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, you are a mathematician and currently the president of the European Research Council. Good morning Jean-Pierre. Magdalena Skipper, you are a geneticist and the editor-in-chief of Nature. Good morning, Magdalena. Good morning. Shoul Tsuji, you are a psychologist and an assistant professor and principal investigator at the University of Tokyo. You are also a WEF young scientist 2020. You are currently in Paris, so it's morning also for you. Good morning, Shoul. So welcome to all of you. Let me start with you, Magdalena. Can you please tell us? Can you please help clarify what do you mean by science literacy? Thank you, Fabiola. Thank you for this opportunity. So let me say first that for me as editor-in-chief of a 150-year-old multidisciplinary science journal with a mission to communicate science to the research community but also to a wider public, this is a very important issue. I think it's helpful to think about science literacy as encompassing three aspects. Perhaps the most obvious one, the one that most will think of first is the knowledge or familiarity of the basic science facts. This is about understanding the world we live in, how we interact with it, and understanding our bodies and physiology, etc. Second, equally important, is the understanding of the scientific method that science is progressive, that scientists change their position, their opinion as new information comes to light. And of course the current pandemic has been a great illustration of it, especially in its early days when modeling of the pandemic was evolving based on real-world data. And some uninformed commentators inappropriately dismissed scientific advice because of this and therefore doubting the experts and their expertise. And of course understanding how scientists draw the conclusion equips everyone with the ability to do the same. For example assess if information they're receiving is likely to be true or not. And then the third aspect of science literacy is the appreciation how science influences every walk of real life, how relevant it is, regardless of who or where we are. And this week at this virtual Davos meeting, we've had so many examples regarding sustainable energy, food systems, and many others, and you yourself referred to sustainability in the opening remarks. And none of these approaches in my view will work without the buy-in from the wider society. And for that we require science literacy with all these three elements. Thank you very much. That was very clear and also very comprehensive. So the next point and I would like to ask Jean-Pierre to start a discussion on this. Why is science literacy important? Particularly in the COVID context but not only. And what would a future of improved science literacy look like? Well thank you for bringing this up. I'm very pleased to speak after Magdalena because she very clearly eloquently showed that there is not just the scientific results which are important but also the scientific method. And I think in particular at this very moment some of the features of the scientific methods really make the need for science literacy even higher. Just one thing which is very important for science to work is really the method used in for example checking facts, in challenging facts but in a way in which you just provide the tools to really establish the facts very safely. And to do that of course requires time and therefore a time like a COVID where you want things to happen as quickly as possible because the challenge is huge. Actually it's for scientists a very difficult time because we need time to check things and the tendency to jump on results is of course something which could actually affect the solidity of the scientific facts. So this is one element. The other element which also has to do with our way of absorbing new things is that the number of achievements of science are absorbed by people at a fantastic speed and from that point of view for example we are talking about viruses. Viruses operate at the nanoscale which wins one billionth of a meter. So you imagine it's like going from one individual to the whole population of the world. So that's the scale and so really people have absorbed the idea of going to the nanoscale as something obvious. Of course it's not obvious. It requires huge new developments in science, huge new developments in technology and making this technology available worldwide. So for the future if we want to make progress on this that is having people really appreciating the fantastic achievements of science really we need the education everywhere to confront people not just with scientific facts but at the same time with the scientific method so that they can appropriate and really value how much all these things are all the things which have been achieved and basically all the concepts we are using today as obvious things for example the concept of energy it took centuries to develop it. The concept of microbes the concept of viruses there are things which of course didn't exist a century and a half ago and so you had to create them develop tools to explore them. So this is where science literacy makes a difference because people put both value but also have the personal experience if they are confronted early enough with the scientific method to really all these things. Thank you Jean-Pierre. So we see now this element emerging that scientific literacy not just facts and results outcome of science but also involving the citizens earlier on also in the development of the process and in the scientific method and understanding what doing science really means. So let me let me continue with you show because cities have a different level of engagement with science so where do we want to get to in terms of science literacy do we have a kind of target goal what or just as much as possible. Yes so Amatelina and Jean-Pierre have very well pointed out the importance of science literacy and that education might be the the way to to get there and I guess in order to answer your question it's important to think about where do these different levels of engagement actually come from and I guess two main factors are the the the importance of relevant assigned to science by people right so you can say the effective domain some people actually are not interested at all in science or even have negative attitudes towards science that we have observed a lot during this pandemic and the other domain would be the cognitive domain so even if you're interested in science you might perceive that you don't have the tools to actually understand science and I guess I guess education should address these two factors so for first elucidate a positive interest into science and then the tools in order to actually be able to engage with it and I guess there's a few things we need to keep in mind when we want to implement these things there are factors that can influence how much people or what attitude people have on these two domains so one could be intercultural or within society differences for instance we have seen that countries have different engagements different levels of trust maybe in what the government says and so if you have a very trusty society you might actually that might lead to less interest in in science literacy right on the other hand there might be religious belief etc that that that yeah that serve a negative attitude towards science and on the cognitive domain so how much do you think you can understand about science when we teach it we should be aware of some general cognitive biases that people might have I think one thing that we have seen a lot is for instance the confirmation bias people like to search for the information that they already like or know so this is why for instance if someone says oh 100 people have died from the vaccine then people like this information if they're against vaccines and do not consider the control group that 100 people might have died in general during this time etc so I guess yeah I would say where we want to get of course as much science literacy as possible and I guess we have to raise interest and a positive attitude give people the tools to evaluate science yeah this is what you might answer thank you so and thank you also for mentioning trust which is a very important component actually I would like to mention that Jean-Pierre Magdalena and I are members of the Global Future Council of the WEF on scientific collaboration and trust is one of the main topics that we are addressing now how we are going to increase improved trust and increase trust among citizens and therefore also the support to the science so because I yes yes good one point since we are discussing specifically citizens in the context of science literacy and so show already alluded to this I think one way to increase or dovetails with scientific literacy is that engagement of citizens members of the general public in science itself I think sometimes and certainly in the past we talked about science as something being apart from the general society and only benefiting the fruits of the scientific endeavor would benefit the society I think it's instructive and and constructive to think about it as science being very much part and parcel of society and so the more literacy we have the easier it will be to engage the widest possible public in the scientific activity and therefore that engagement will also feedback to increase scientific literacy I think it's useful to think about it in that context as well absolutely and there are initiatives like folding at home where the citizen can the young people or also the senior people can offer their computing resources to scientists for instance doing research on the on the vaccine and so they are part of the adventure they are part of the of the fight against the pandemic on the front line and I obviously all of you are important players in your respective fields you are you are reference people in what more to do so can we can we see how your respective fields can contribute to boosting scientific literacy so for instance Jean-Pierre what is the role of of science founders like the ERC in this context well thank you for raising this because I'm actually this is something on which the European Research Council the ERC has really been working in a sense the way we function is we try to empower scientists we trust them we ask them to submit their most ambitious project but one thing we wanted to also help them is to share what they have been doing and with the wider public so one project for example we have financed is what we call ERC comics which means web comics which tell the stories of some research work done by the the scientists what I really find amazing about this project is that the people who designed the comics and the scientists continued to work even after the end of the project it shows that there was really also this linkage between science and art which also was meaningful but another thing we have also created are special awards for the public engagement with research which really means again that we encourage and actually we value then we awarded some distinctions to some of the scientists who really showed the remarkable capacity in in doing this engagement and we did that in various ways I mean the awards have a various dimension one has to do with the media another one has to do really with the events organized with the public and others have to do with the kind of documents of all kinds that people produce so in a sense we felt our responsibility was again in the spirit of bottom-up approach that is really initiative left to the scientists to encourage them to really do these efforts because we really consider that this sharing and the as broad as possible is absolutely necessary but we still feel in the in in our case that the scientists should be the actors and sometimes they have to join forces with people who are more professional of communication like artists but in some cases we know they also mobilized many many young people in connection with schools in connection with various activities involving younger people also with in mind the need to motivate the next generation to really be find the science a possible life for them in the sense that is they it's also we see this as a good way of preparing the next generation that is having more people considering like doing research and dedicating their life to science is worthwhile so speaking of younger generation so you are a young scientist but also so you are you are you are familiar with science and also with with social media and modern ways of communicating so what role do scientists play in improving improving science literacy and and and how do a social media platform like twitter many others help in this endeavor yeah i'm so glad that john tia mentioned comics because indeed during the pandemic a group of young researchers including me has launched a comic website to tell people how they can increase language acquisition success during the lockdown etc we also thought that comics are really really accessible format for that and yeah i think as he also pointed out i think scientists should perceive themselves as actors who have the responsibility to to disseminate and communicate science and i think it's a really good thing that that agencies and institutions push for this a little bit and also give us more and more tools because i think one big problem is often not the willingness but our capacity to do so because indeed it is very hard to communicate complex relationships and science in an understandable and not misleading way so i think we definitely need this support to be trained on science communication to indeed work together with artists or science communicators to do that well but yeah i'm really happy that this is happening more and more and i think on our side we need to be very aware of our responsibility to do so and really actively involve with these opportunities and as a social media i guess as with many other things it's both an opportunity and a threat right so it is a great way to disseminate content because we can circumvent hierarchy in a sense right so if we create fun content then even if we're not nature people might read it because it's fun it's engaging but of course this also means that the quality mark is not stamped on it so that means that people can also disseminate content that is not true not accurate so i guess and another flip side is of course that you might be preaching to the choir which we also have seen a lot with this bigger divide in the information flow you get through social media that we can't really control ourselves right what we get in our feed so i do think that it is a great way to create good content where you can reach people with but that other players have to help society in order to make social media a more equal and informed platform high quality journalism has to be supported of course because people get more and more used to free content online and maybe less and less critical of where this is actually coming from very good so last but not least science publishers and news outlets mandelina can you tell us a bit about how those stakeholders can help us improve science literacy mandelina you are muted we can't hear you great thank you very much um so indeed actually it's it's really interesting to hear Jean Pierre and show talk about this from from their perspective and i think you know all too often we can fall into this trap of thinking that somehow what we're discussing now is the domain of education and then this in turn is the domain of the education systems or schools and universities and so on but i think we have to look beyond and consider that we have a collective responsibility when it comes to education and science literacy and and Jean Pierre for example talked about the responsibility that researchers have which which i also very strongly support but of course this responsibility most emphatically extends to to publishers and general news outlets and so so nature the the journal i edit from its very outset back in um 1869 has had a dual mission first to serve and work with the scientific community and of course to disseminate their research but also and equally importantly to bring these findings before the wider general public and so we take full advantage of our journalism in its many forms um our accessible overviews and other types of content in which scientific findings are then placed in a wider context and therefore made more accessible and importantly we continuously think about different formats with which to engage different audiences and you know show for example specifically spoke about social media which we also use to this end but we also have podcasts and videos on our youtube channel and we know that we reach different audiences that what we would otherwise not reach through our written content and you know let me give you a very current example so a while ago we set up a daily newsletter called nature briefing which is designed to deliver a basic science update on a daily basis delivered by email and this has really come into its own during the pandemic in fact we dedicated specific section of the newsletter to covered 19 and the latest information and we've seen the subscribers to this completely free newsletter grow enormously and a large constituency in this subscriber poll is what we would hear in the context of this discussion uh described as the general public and so um and importantly in everything we do and now I'm going back to that definition I gave at the very beginning um we continue to highlight these three aspects of science literacy so the knowledge itself the method and then the relevance of science um in in general and so I guess in in a broader context now now looking to um other publishers other other news media um I would like to take this opportunity to to put out a plea um if I may to all these information outlets um to report responsibly in in a balanced manner and to offer the platform to researchers themselves and so I'm now I'm really echoing what John Pierre said earlier we know from from various surveys that scientists the profession of a scientist is among the most trusted professions actually despite all the doubts and and all the um concerns we have about uh fake news but since scientists as a profession is most trusted or very highly trusted it makes therefore every sense to allow them to communicate directly to the wider public and therefore engage with them thank you Madeline you mentioned education and I would like to conclude the session with with asking all of you very quickly we don't have much time so please one minute for answer how do we need to improve the education system to improve science literacy I believe that every human being should receive some level of scientific education regardless of what people are going to do in their professional lives so how do we do that Jean Pierre I think for me you know that the key people are of course the teachers and it's extremely important in society that teachers are well trained and we say even well retrained because things are changing very quickly these days they are aware and using the most efficient tools but also their consideration in society is extremely important because they are the ones who can really transmit the information but also give people the confidence that what they have been receiving is really solid and because I think the main challenge of fake news to if we want to challenge fake news is really to make train people to recognize what is an established fact from just a fantasy and from this point of view the school should prepare the children for that and the people who do that are the teachers so value the teachers and train them properly very well Magdalena do you want to add anything on the on the science education so I would build on this and actually say that we need all of us we need to support the teachers and the formal education system so education doesn't end the minute us our younger selves and our children leave the school building but I think what I would also add is to be really effective in education we need to think how we educate so it has to be sensitive to the culture to the social setting in which we're teaching especially when we teach science sometimes as I say we may think that science is somehow apart from society we're much more effective if we are more sensitive and and appropriately target our teaching with respect to societal and cultural circumstances sure do you want to add on on this topic yeah maybe I'll add on to the the content indeed of the science education and I guess I would perceive that we learn much more about facts about science than about the process and about the critical thinking so I guess this is something that might need to change a little bit in curriculums and yeah I guess just to to critically evaluate the the methods behind the statistics how we actually do statistics I think there is not a lot of space in curricula for that and I think also students if I talk to them they really would profit from practically relevant examples and actually practical exercises go into your city and count if you count 10 people or if you count 100 people which one is more representative right like things like that I guess could could could could could help towards this goal thank you very much so we are approaching the the end of the session and it's time to me to to wrap up we had a very interesting discussion and several important points were raised starting with the the fact that science literacy and communication are not just about the scientific results the facts the data but also about the scientific method and process and the relevance of science also it was pointed out that too often we tend to forget how much our life has changed thanks to the extraordinary accomplishment of science and the giant step forward that science makes from decade to decade we take this for granted but it's actually the results of great ingenuity huge efforts and and and painstaking work and we also we also heard that we should not rush science requires requires patience and of course when we are in the middle of a crisis like the the current pandemic we have to strike the right balance between of course producing results vaccines or other other drugs as soon as possible but on the other hand also going through the solid and sound scientific method we we we heard about trust it's very important that citizens improve increase their trust in in in science we also heard that the difference stakeholders from from science research institutions to publish have really taken many steps have taken many steps during the pandemic to approach the citizens to to science we we heard about educations and the importance of education in particular starting with teachers so support the teachers and empower the teachers and value their work and we heard also that that the information that outlets publish out there should report in a responsible responsible way