Two sides of the same coin: Public trust in science and scientists‘ trust in the public

在像新冠肺炎（COVID 19，即2019冠状病毒病）大流行这样的特殊情况下，很明显，西方社会越来越多地面临着一种转变，即从不言而喻的对科学的接受转变为将科学视为风险的看法。由于基于科学研究和科学家建议的政治决策遭到了批评，部分受到了社会抵制，科学也被卷入了这些冲突。但是，当科学专门知识本身受到威胁时，公众辩论的焦点就从知识本身转向知识生产者的可信度。在这种背景下，公众参与科学在建立和维持信任方面发挥着至关重要的作用。如果由于媒体和公众辩论的负面经验，科学家对公众沟通的合理性失去信任，并避免公众参与，那么公众对科学的信任就会失去一个重要的资源。一方面是公众认识到风险依赖的视角在高度不确定的时期取得（初步）科学成果，因此，他们会寻找一些指标来建立信任。另一方面，科学家们可能会质疑公众讨论的合理性他们认为这对他们的声誉，甚至对他们的安全是危险的。因此，本研究与来自伦敦的LSE的Martin Bauer教授共同奋进的项目旨在同时阐明这两种观点。第一个子项目的目标是理解并模拟公众对科学的信任结构，包括风险感知、信任期望、信任原因和信任或不信任的后果，特别关注对科学家沟通行为的感知。该计划遵循混合方法，将详细的探索阶段与标准化调查工具的开发和应用相结合。第二个子项目关注科学家对2020年新冠肺炎大流行第一阶段期间科学的公共角色的看法。其目的是澄清这些经验如何改变了科学家与公众、媒体和利益集团对话的态度，以及由此产生了什么样的沟通行为。该计划将科学家标准化调查与一系列针对知名和不知名科学家的指导性调查相结合，综合两个子项目，全面评估科学与公众之间的互信关系。我们的目标是从这一全面的分析中得出建议，以指导科学传播，特别是科学家在新冠肺炎大流行之后的传播行为，以稳定和改善科学与公众之间的信任关系。

In exceptional situations like the Covid 19 pandemic it becomes clear that Western societies are increasingly dealing with a transition from a self-evident acceptance of science to a perception of science as risk. Since political decisions based on scientific research and advice from scientists have met with criticism and, in part, social resistance, science has also been drawn into these conflicts. But when the scientific expertise itself is at stake, the focus of public debates switches from knowledge itself to the trustworthiness of the knowledge producers. Against this background, the Public Engagement (PE) with science plays a crucial role in building and maintaining trust. If, due to negative experiences with the media and public debates, scientists were to lose trust in the rationality of public communication and refrain from public engagement, an important resource for public trust in science would be lost.Public trust in science thus appears as a coin with two sides: One side is the perspective of the public realizing the risk to rely on (preliminary) scientific results in times of high uncertainty, therefore looking for indicators to base their trust on. The other side is the perspective of the scientists who might question the rationality of public discussion processes regarding them as risky for their reputation and even for their safety. The project presented here— which is as a joint endeavor together with Prof. Martin Bauer from the LSE, London —therefore aims to shed light on both per-spectives at the same time.The goal of the first subproject is to understand and to model the architecture of public trust in science, consisting of risk perceptions, expectations of trust, reasons for trust and consequences of trust—or distrust, with a special focus on the perception of the communication behavior of scientists. The program follows a mixed-methods approach by combining a detailed exploratory phase with the development and application of a standardized survey instrument. The second subproject focus on scientists’ perception of the public role of science during the first phase of the Covid 19 pandemic in 2020. The aim is to clarify how these experiences may have changed the attitude of scientists towards dialogue with the public, the media and interest groups, and what kind of communication behavior results from this. The program combines a standardized survey of scientists with a series of guideline surveys with particularly visible and largely invisible scientists.The synthesis of both subprojects allows a comprehensive stocktaking of the mutual trust relation between science and the public. Our goal is to derive recommendations from this comprehensive analysis that can guide science communication and in particular the communication behavior of scientists beyond the Covid 19 pandemic in order to stabilize and improve the relationship of trust between science and the public.