Global Trust in Science Remains High Despite Political Polarization, Landmark 68-Country Survey Reveals

A comprehensive international survey spanning 68 countries and nearly 72,000 people has found that public trust in science and scientists remains "moderately high" globally, challenging the pervasive narrative that confidence in scientific institutions has collapsed. The study, conducted in 2022–23 by the Trust in Science and Science-Related Populism (TISP) project, reported an average trust score of 3.6 out of 5, with researchers concluding that the idea of a generalized crisis of trust is largely unfounded.

"The idea that there's a generalized, pervasive lack of trust in science and experts is just completely unfounded in my mind," said David Bersoff, head of research at the Edelman Trust Institute in New York City.

The TISP survey, co-led by Niels Mede, now at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, and Viktoria Cologna, now at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology in Dübendorf, asked 12 questions about scientists' competence, integrity, openness, and benevolence—different dimensions of trust designed to address criticism that surveys about trust in science are overly simplistic.

Trust in Scientists Outpaces Other Professions

Data from a separate 28-country survey conducted by the Edelman Trust Institute in 2025 found that 76% of respondents trusted scientists, a proportion comparable to teachers at 73% and substantially higher than journalists at 54% and government leaders at 49%. "Probably a lot of other sectors and professions would like to be in science's shoes," said Gideon Skinner, head of political research at market-research firm Ipsos in London.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a specialist in science communication at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, argues that there is "a rhetoric of science in crisis" rather than an actual one. She traces this narrative back to the widening recognition in the 2010s that many results in biomedicine and psychology could not be reproduced, a situation often portrayed as a "reproducibility crisis."

Fractures and Political Polarization

Despite the overall positive picture, researchers have identified emerging fractures in trust. A UK survey published in April found that while 84% of respondents said they had at least some trust in science, the proportion who trusted science "a lot" dropped from 63% in 2020 to 34%.

The most prominent shift is occurring in the United States, where data from the General Social Survey (GSS) spanning 1973 to 2024 show that the proportion of people with a great deal of confidence in the scientific community declined sharply in 2022, even as overall confidence remained above 80% over five decades.

A Pew Research Center survey showed that the proportion of people with confidence in scientists to act in the public's interest fell from 87% in 2020 to 73% in 2023. However, confidence in police officers, business leaders, and elected officials similarly fell over this period. "There are trend lines down in science, but those look very much like the trend lines in other institutions," Jamieson said. "There's an institutional crisis that is being reflected in science."

The political divide is stark: Pew Research figures show that the proportion of people who self-identify as Republicans or Republican-leaning and who have confidence in scientists fell from 85% in 2020 to 65% in 2025, while Democrats' confidence barely changed, from 91% to 90%. GSS data suggest this political divide emerged around 2005–10.

James Druckman, a political scientist at the University of Rochester in New York, argues that this split is partly explained by demographic resorting—people in groups with historically lower trust in science, particularly religious people, moving toward the Republican party, while higher trusters, especially those with university degrees, moved toward the Democrats.

Sociologist Gordon Gauchat at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee adds that starting in the mid-1990s, some politicians "realized they could mobilize groups of people" who were becoming critical of higher education, helping to power a populist view that scientists and academics are part of an intellectual elite "making them the villains."

The Pandemic Effect and Communication Failures

The COVID-19 (搜索)搜索该疾病 pandemic accelerated and amplified partisan divergence, as some people grew skeptical of regulations on vaccines, face masks, and lockdowns. Researchers emphasize that communication failures have contributed to distrust. A UK survey published in January found that only 40% of people think that science information they hear is "generally true," while another global poll showed that 70% of people believe at least one false or unproven claim.

"When science rejection leads to loss of life, that's concerning," said Natalia Zarzeczna, who studies people's beliefs at the University of Essex in Colchester, UK.

The TISP analysis also revealed regional variation: trust was relatively high in some African countries, including Nigeria and Kenya, and low in Russia and some former Soviet Union nations such as Kazakhstan. Mede suggested that high trust in certain African nations might be because people view scientists more favorably than governments perceived as corrupt. The United States ranked in the top third, and China near the middle.

Implications for Policy and Public Health

Researchers warn that declining trust in certain segments has real consequences, undermining support for urgent policies such as climate action and leading to personal health decisions that cause harm, including vaccine hesitancy. The Trump administration has cited science skepticism as justification for cutting research budgets and exerting political control over research.

"Over the last 5 years, confidence that scientists act in the best interests of the public has fallen significantly," President Donald Trump stated in an executive order last year.

Jamieson argues that often people object to policies stemming from science rather than the science itself. "If your ideology says we shouldn't be regulated, and the implication of the science is [that] politicians put regulation on the table, it's going to be easy for people to say, 'I don't like that,'" she said.

Druckman summarized the current threat: "They're saying, we're going to destroy these things, because this whole institution is not trustworthy."

The findings underscore that while trust in science remains robust at a global level, targeted efforts to address political polarization, improve science communication in plain language, and engage communities directly will be essential to maintaining and rebuilding confidence where it has eroded.