Trust in science and researchers has fallen following the COVID-19 pandemic, the largest survey of public confidence in science shows. Led by the global biomedical funder Wellcome in London and published on 10 October, it explores how people feel about science and health ' including vaccines, pandemic preparedness, clean energy and, for the first time, artificial intelligence (see 'Trust in decline'). 'We should be paying attention to, and thinking about, what needs to be done to earn that trust,' says Philippa Michael, head of public initiatives at Wellcome, who led the project. This is the third survey of its kind conducted by Wellcome, following editions in 2018 and 2020. The analysis points to a 'mixed' picture that varies between countries and regions, says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a specialist in science communication at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (see 'Regional differences'). 'If people feel economically insecure, then they're going to feel a greater...
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