The science barometer shows: Slightly wobbly trends in Switzerland

The University of Zurich provided information on Wednesday about the results of the Science Barometer 2022. There is good news and bad news, as our report shows.

The majority of the Swiss believe that scientific research, including basic research, is necessary and improves their lives.

Confidence in science has fallen somewhat after the peak during the corona pandemic. However, it is still at a high level, according to the Swiss Science Barometer 2022.

At the start of the corona pandemic, the science barometer rose sharply, according to a statement from the University of Zurich on Wednesday. While in 2019 56 percent of respondents said they have a lot or very much confidence in science and research, by the end of 2020, when the pandemic was at its peak, that figure was almost 67 percent.

That number has now fallen to 59 percent. “On the one hand, this underlines that most Swiss people have a positive attitude towards scientific research,” says Mike Schäfer, professor of science communication at the University of Zurich and co-head of the Swiss Science Barometer.

The results also made clear what the sometimes fierce discussions of the past months had shown, there were also critical voices.

A majority of the population still believes that researchers should inform the public about their work. However, by 2022, significantly fewer people agreed to this demand at 69 percent than before the pandemic (79 percent).

According to the announcement, opinions are divided on the questions over-reliance on science in general (36% rejection vs. 30% agreement) or whether science is allowed to investigate everything without limits (43% rejection vs. 26 percent).

The Science Barometer shows that the information sources of the population have changed in recent years. “Online First” is (also here) the motto.

The most used internet sources were websites and apps of established news media (such as watson), followed by Wikipedia, government websites and video platforms such as YouTube.

Messenger services such as WhatsApp or Telegram have gained importance as a source of information during the pandemic. Personal and live formats such as exhibitions, lectures or public discussions, on the other hand, were less visited.

According to the report, most Swiss people “at least occasionally” come across content on scientific topics that they consider to be disinformation – that is, information that they themselves consider to be false and a deliberate deception (by the distributors).

The good news according to the study: “Most people are wary of content they perceive as disinformation”. The majority of those who encountered disinformation subsequently became more skeptical about the source of that content (53 percent) and never or rarely shared it with others (51 percent).

According to the press release, the Swiss Science Barometer “investigates what attitudes the Swiss people have towards science and research and where they get information on such topics”.

The methodological basis of the long-running research project is a representative telephone survey among Swiss people aged 15 and over, which takes place every 3 years.

(dsc/sda)