Eurobarometer 95.2 (2021)

Since the early 1970s the European Commission´s Standard & Special Eurobarometer are regularly monitoring the public opinion in the European Union member countries. Principal investigators are the Directorate-General Communication and on occasion other departments of the European Commission or the European Parliament. Over time, candidate and accession countries were included in the Standard Eurobarometer Series. Selected questions or modules may not have been surveyed in each sample. Please consult the basic questionnaire for more information on country filter instructions or other questionnaire routing filters. In this study the following module is included: European citizens’ knowledge and attitudes towards science and technology.<br>Topics: most influential factors in determining the status of a country or group of countries in the world: military and defence capabilities, export of cultural works, scientific and technological advancement, economic strength, availability of natural resources, living and working conditions and well-being, social services (incl. health and welfare), environmental protection, rule of law, other; personal interest in each of the following issues: new medical discoveries, new scientific discoveries and technological developments, sports news, culture and the arts, politics, environmental problems and climate change; self-rated knowledge with regard to each of the aforementioned issues; preferred sources of information on developments in science and technology; least used source of information on developments in science and technology; best qualified actors to explain the impact of scientific and technological developments on society: scientists working at a university or government-funded research organisation, scientists working in an industrial or privately funded research organisation, journalists, politicians, consumer organisations, environmental protection associations, industry and private companies, people active on online social networks and bloggers, religious leaders or representatives, national government, military, general practitioners and specialist doctors, writers and intellectuals, family and friends, European Union, other; assessment of the influence of science and technology on society as positive; appropriate level of public involvement with regard to decisions about science and technology: public does not need to be involved, decisions should be made by experts but the public should always be informed, public should be consulted and public opinion should be seriously considered, public opinion should be main concern, other; assessment of the impact of the development of each of the following technologies on the way of life in the next 20 years as positive: solar energy, wind energy, information and communication technology, brain and cognitive enhancement, vaccines and combatting infectious diseases, biotechnology and genetic engineering, space exploration, nanotechnology, nuclear energy for energy production, artificial intelligence; most affected areas by research and innovation in the coming years: fight against climate change, environmental protection, security of citizens, job creation, energy supply, health and medical care, protection of personal data, reduction of inequalities, adaptation of society to an ageing population, availability and quality of food, transport and transport infrastructure, education and skills, quality of housing, other; approval of the following statements: respondent does not understand much about science, knowledge about science is not important in personal daily life, sufficient extent of scientists explaining their work to citizens, interest in additional information about scientific developments in public places, free online availability of publicly funded research results, young people’s interest in science is essential for future prosperity, science and technology can sort out any problem, no limits to what science is allowed to investigate, new inventions will always be found to counteract any harmful consequences of scientific and technological development; approval of the following statements about the impact of science and technology: make lives easier and healthier and more comfortable, make lives healthier, prepare younger generation to act as well-informed citizen, makes earth’s natural resources become inexhaustible, more opportunities for future generations, artificial intelligence and automation will create more jobs than they will eliminate, we depend too much on science and not enough on faith, applications of science and technology can threaten human rights, make way of life change too fast, scientists have due to their knowledge a power that makes them dangerous; attitude towards selected statements on today’s scientists: depend increasingly on money from industry and cannot be trusted no longer, do not consider problems from a wider perspective, problems are too complex for scientists to understand them, should not intervene in political debate when decisions ignore scientific evidence, should intervene in political debate to ensure that decisions take into account scientific evidence, should be held accountable for misuse of their discoveries by other people; suitability of the following characteristics to describe scientists: reliable, collaborative, narrow minded, bad at communicating, honest, arrogant, altruistic, immoral, intelligent, know best what is good for people; most important qualities scientists should have; preferred statement with regard to selected subjects: preferred base for decisions about science and technology (expert advice vs people), regulation of science and technology (tight regulation by the government vs free operation in the marketplace), preferred base for decisions about science and technology (moral / ethical issues vs innovation potential), responsibility for technology benefits (government vs up to people), responsibility for climate change (government vs private companies), openness (co-operation with the rest of the world vs being threatened by organized crime and terrorism); personal engagement with science and technology issues: talk with family or friends, watch documentaries or read publications, visit science and technology museums, study science and technology-related issues in free time, sign petitions or join demonstrations, attend public meetings or debates, take part in NGO activities, contact public authorities or political leaders, provide personal data for scientific research, take part in clinical trials, lend own computer´s processing power to contribute to research on complex scientific questions, actively take part in scientific projects by developing research questions or collecting data etc.; considerations to increase personal engagement in the aforementioned areas; main barriers for not engaging with science and technology; attitude towards the following statements on science and technology: do not really benefit people like respondent, mostly improve the lives of people who are already better off, mostly improve living conditions in well-off countries, mostly help companies make money and not tackle climate change, pay sufficient attention to differences between women´s and men´s needs, should consider the needs of all groups of people when developing new solutions and products, involving non-scientists in research and technological development ensures that science and technology respond to the needs and values of society, no option but to trust those governing science and technology; attitude towards selected statements on gender equality in science and technology workforce: promoting gender equality is important for respondent personally, would improve outcomes of science and technology, would improve business profits and the economy, would help ensure living in a fairer and more equal society; level of researchers in the European Union with regard to making new discoveries compared to the level of researchers in the following countries: United States, China, Japan, South Korea, India, own country; knowledge test: earliest humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs, continents on which we live have been moving for millions of years and will continue to move in the future, antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria, oxygen we breathe comes from plants, lasers work by focusing sound waves, world´s human population is currently more than 10 billion, methods used by natural sciences and social sciences are equally scientific, human beings developed from earlier species of animals, climate change is for the most part caused by natural cycles rather than human activities, cure for cancer exists but is hidden from the public by commercial interests, viruses have been produced in government laboratories to control our freedom.

Demography: age; nationality; self-rated extent of religious belief and spirituality; religious denomination; country of birth of respondent and his / her parents; mother’s highest completed level of full time education; father’s highest completed level of full time education; working experience in research, science, or innovative technology development; left-right self-placement; marital status; age at end of education; highest completed level of full time education; sex; occupation; professional position; type of community; household composition and household size; own a mobile phone and fixed (landline) phone; financial difficulties during the last year; internet use (at home, at work, at school); self-reported belonging to the working class, the middle class or the upper class of society; life satisfaction; frequency of discussions about political matters on national, European, and local level; EU image; own voice counts in the own country and in the EU (political influence); own country’s voice counts in the EU; general direction things are going in: own country, EU, USA, personal life; satisfaction with democracy in the own country and in the EU.

Additionally coded was: respondent ID; country; nation group; questionnaire split; mode of interview; date of interview; time of the beginning of the interview; duration of the interview; number of persons present during the interview; respondent cooperation; size of locality; language of the interview; region; weighting factor.