“Trust is the key currency between science and society,” said Alexandra-Gwyn Paetz, Managing Director of the Berlin University Alliance, in her opening remarks. She added that meta-level issues such as trust in science, responsible teaching, and knowledge transfer are tasks for which the BUA feels responsible and which it would like to stimulate debate about: “We really want to get to the heart of the matter in this discussion.”
56 percent of people in Germany trust science and research
When asked about the state of trust in science in Germany, researcher Anne-Sophie Behm-Bahtat replied that, according to the 2023 Science Barometer, trust had indeed declined compared to the previous year, but that this was not yet cause for alarm: "During the coronavirus pandemic, trust rose to 73 percent, but now it has settled at around 56 percent, roughly the same level as before the pandemic. And only 10 percent of respondents have no trust in science at all, while the rest are undecided." Of the four dimensions that are particularly relevant to trust in science—scientific expertise, integrity, focus on the common good, and openness of the system to feedback—conflicts of interest, i.e., questions of integrity, were the main reason for mistrust among respondents.
Key aspect: Scientific integrity
Part of the Open Space salon series is the active participation of the audience, for whom a free chair is provided on stage. On this evening, too, several guests took their seats there to ask their questions. “What causes researchers to falsify their results?” was one of them, and it brought the discussion to structural problems in the scientific system: The pressure to publish is high, the search for third-party funding leaves little time for further loops in the research process, voluntary peer review work is not rewarded, and the evaluation system for researchers is no longer up to date.
From his perspective as a journalist, Sascha Karberg identified another problem: “Researchers must also make their own research results transparent in press releases and include not only the positive aspects, but also the problematic ones. Publicly funded research should not sound like an industry press release.”