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Trust in experts and scientific findings has grown increasingly polarized. Populists across the political spectrum and around the world insist that mainstream institutions do not represent or serve the public to the extent that they should. Their message resonates, in part, because there actually have been significant shifts in how scientific knowledge is produced and put to use. Technological and scientific changes have significantly transformed how people work and communicate with one another. The benefits and costs of these shifts have been unevenly distributed. Many of these changes were implemented top-down, with little consultation with or buy-in from those facing the highest levels of risk, cost, or disruption. In short, the growing social distance between experts, policymakers, and the public is not imagined, it’s real. It’s also highly consequential.

Leaders on every continent have exploited growing public suspicion of experts and institutions to justify circumventing checks and balances, streamlining decision-making processes, and consolidating power into their own hands. Scientific institutions across the globe are facing budget cuts, increased government scrutiny, and censorship attempts.

However, times of crisis and disruption can also be moments of opportunity. Scholars, practitioners, and institutions around the world are responding to these challenges by piloting long-overdue reforms. There is a growing consensus that it may be possible to increase the quality, impact, and long-term viability of science and policy by more rigorously integrating the public at every stage.

To explore the challenges and opportunities of communicating science for policy in a populist world, Chris Tyler, an associate professor of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy at University College London, and KL Akerlof, an associate professor of Science Communication for Public Policy at George Mason University, convened a working group that included 23 other researchers and practitioners from across fields and around the globe. The University of ÌÇÐÄTV’s own Carla Washbourne, Reader in Environmental Science and Policy in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM), was one of the stakeholders who took part in this initiative.

The group gathered together in-person for the first time on September 8th in Arlington, VA to exchange ideas and foster collaborations. Drawing from these conversations, their diverse scholarship and experience, and successful documented initiatives from around the world, they produced evidence-based recommendations for constructively responding to the challenges of growing mistrust, alienation, and social distance. These suggestions were then vetted and refined by external peer-reviewers and have now been published in the latest issue of the flagship science journal Nature.

There is a demonstrated hunger among scholars, practitioners, and institutions for practical guidance on how to bridge divides between experts, institutions, and the communities they ostensibly serve. The lead authors note that more than a thousand signed up for their summer training in communicating science for policy over the span of just a few weeks. Many other initiatives and organizations have sprouted up to help meet this unmet demand as well. The commentary’s recommendations can inform how these stakeholders choose to engage as well.

A non-paywalled PDF of the article has been provided by Nature . The full citation follows below:

Tyler, C., Akerlof, K. L., al-Gharbi, M., Bedsted, B., Boeira, L., Brown, T., Christopherson, E., Scheufele, D. A., Farooque, M., Head, B. W., Piquado, T., Pedersen, D. B., Allegra, A., Allen, K., Cristancho, S., Galloway, A., Hernández Mondragón, A. C., Tennøe, T., Levine, A. S., Motala-Timol, S., Mulazadeh, A., Munatsi, R., Quiroz-Valenzuela, S., Washbourne, C.-L. & Wee Hoe, T. (2026) Six ways to put the public at the heart of science and policy. Nature 655, 34–37