Trust in science ‘under pressure,’ global survey finds
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Trust in science ‘under pressure,’ global survey finds
Trust in science ‘under pressure,’ global survey finds
Chris Dall, MAToday at 2:08 p.m.
Public Health
COVID-19
The results from a large global survey show that trust in science has declined overall since 2020 but varies both between and within countries.
Among more than 140,000 adults in 140 countries who responded to the Wellcome Global Monitor 2026 survey, 72% reported “some” (45%) or “a lot” (27%) of trust in science, down from 80% in a 2020 survey and 77% in 2018. The proportion of people who said they trust science “a lot” fell in 14 regions of the world from 2020 to 2025. Around one in five respondents (19%) said they trusted science either “not much” or “not at all,” up from 13% in 2018 and 2020.
The findings were similar for trust in scientists; while respondents had higher levels of trust in those professionals than in members of government or journalists, there were significant declines compared with 2020. Just 32% of respondents said they trusted scientists “a lot,” down from 43% in 2020.
A heat map of the results shows the highest levels of trust in science were in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and lowest levels in sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia.
The comparisons are based on responses from people in 108 countries that participated in all three surveys. In addition to questions about levels of trust in science, respondents were asked specific questions about vaccines, climate change, and artificial intelligence.
Wellcome CEO John-Arne Rottingen says in a foreword to the report that the findings suggest that trust in science is “under pressure,” and that understanding why this is happening is critical for an organization looking to build a healthier future.
“When trust is strong, science can help people make informed decisions, use science-based solutions and support collective action,” he wrote. “When trust is under pressure, even well-established evidence can struggle to find its footing.”
Trust is lower in people struggling to get by
The survey also showed that people’s personal conditions and experiences, and whether they feel the system is working for them, can shape their level of trust in science and scientists.For example, among people who said they were struggling to get by on their present income, the percentage who trust science “a lot” fell by 8 percentage points from the 2018 to 2025 surveys. Among people who were comfortable with their current level of income, trust in science was at a similar level (40%).
In addition, people with less confidence in national institutions, lower trust in government, and higher perceptions of corruption were less likely to trust science. And while 26% of respondents overall said they had “a lot” of trust in science, that share rose to 43% among those who said they had confidence in their country’s healthcare services.
These findings, Rottingen said, “should caution us against treating low trust simply as limited knowledge or understanding.”
The survey also found that, while 81% think science benefits them personally, the share of people who believe “most people” in their country benefit from science fell from 42% in 2018 to 37% in 2025. Those who had greater trust in science were significantly more likely to view science as beneficial, by 23 percentage points.
Notably, US respondents were an outlier on this issue: The share of Americans who said science benefits most people in their country rose from 48% in 2018 to 57% in 2025.
“While positive attitudes to science have declined globally since 2018, the United States of America has moved in the opposite direction,” the survey noted.
Despite an erosion, trust in science remains high
Tim Weninger, PhD, a professor of engineering and computer science at Notre Dame and an expert in disinformation, says that while the drop in trust in science is concerning, it should be kept in perspective. He characterizes it more as an “erosion” of trust than a crisis of trust.“An 8pp [percentage point] decline in trust is meaningful, but the fact that 72% of people still express trust in science is also encouraging,” Weninger said in an email to CIDRAP News.
Though he was not involved with this survey, Weninger was one of 241 contributors to a survey on global trust in science that was published last year in Nature Human Behavior. That survey, conducted in 68 countries, found that most respondents had a relatively high level of trust in scientists—3.62 on a scale that ranged from very low (1) to very high (5)—and that scientists should engage more in society and policymaking.
Weninger said those results, which surprised him, along with the findings from the Wellcome survey, suggest that trust in science is rather high, “even though public discourse often suggests a much more widespread crisis of confidence.”
Weninger also noted that the 2020 Wellcome Survey, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, showed an increase in trust from 2018.
“In 2020, scientists were highly visible, and the public was looking to scientific expertise for answers to an immediate global threat,” he said. “The subsequent decline might therefore partly reflect a return from an unusually elevated period of trust.”