Royal Society: Science as a public enterprise
From the Royal Society page:
The Royal Society is beginning a new, major policy study on the use of scientific information as it affects scientists and society. It will ask how scientific information should be managed to support innovative and productive research that reflects public values…
Scientific research has an enormous impact on our world and the lives of citizens. It is therefore important that science is not, and is not seen to be, a private enterprise, conducted behind the closed doors of laboratories, but a public enterprise to understand better the world we live in and our place in it. Effective dialogue about the priorities and insights of science and its relation to public values is vital. Scientists can no longer assume an unquestioning public trust. Ubiquitous digital media offer a powerful means for the public to interrogate, question and re-analyse scientific priorities, evidence and conclusions. While some such interventions can distort debates involving science, others generate tough and illuminating questions, and expose important errors and omissions. Though it has difficulties, such public dialogue is something to which the scientific enterprise must adapt.
