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Science in the service of citizens and consumers

Nature Nanotechnology volume 6, pages 3–4 (2011)Cite this article

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A new approach to public knowledge of science focuses on what the public want to know rather than what scientists think they should know. Chris Toumey reports.

Every two years the US National Science Foundation (NSF) publishes a report, Science and Engineering Indicators, which contains a wealth of information, data, graphs and charts about the state of science and engineering in the United States. Chapter seven of this report is usually called 'Science and technology: Public attitudes and understanding', and it is valuable for two reasons. First, it is useful for longitudinal analysis: that is, it shows how knowledge and attitudes change over time. Second, it is useful for comparative analysis, making it possible to compare phenomena in the USA with the same phenomena in other industrialized nations. The conceptual framework that guides the measuring of phenomena reported in chapter seven was established in 1985, and after the 2010 edition of the Indicators had been published, the NSF organized a workshop (which I chaired) to re-evaluate this framework1.

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Acknowledgements

This article (and the workshop described in it) benefitted from the expertise and the professionalism of John Besley, Meg Blanchard, Mark Brown, Michael Cobb, Elaine Howard Ecklund, Margaret Glass, Tom Guterbock, A. Eamonn Kelly and Bruce Lewenstein.

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  1. Chris Toumey is at the University of South Carolina NanoCenter. Toumey@mailbox.sc.edu,

    Chris Toumey

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  1. Chris Toumey
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Toumey, C. Science in the service of citizens and consumers. Nature Nanotech 6, 3–4 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.263

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