Read more about the report below, and reach out to myself or @bekihill.bsky.social (who brilliantly led this work) for a chat about what it means for your work.

www.sciencecampaign.org.uk/analysis-and...

I encourage you to explore the study's findings, and join our efforts at @sciencecampaign.bsky.social to make the footprint of R&D feel more local and personal, and turn the public's passive interest in R&D into the active participation that will ultimately benefit us all.

The data reinforces the huge appetite for opportunities to engage. Opening up the R&D process, and the places it occurs, is the best way to make R&D matter to more people. But to achieve that we must better value the parts of our sector that are inviting the public into our world.

R&D advocates must use this time to reinforce that R&D is not another cost competing for public money, but a tool - perhaps our best one - for fixing the issues that are leaving the public frustrated and dispirited.

While the breadth of support could open the door to ambitious cross-party political action in this area, the shallowness leaves R&D vulnerable to narratives of elitism, regional inequality and waste. The 3-4 years ahead will likely have a disproportionate impact on which direction things turn.

Drawing on large-scale polling, focus groups and interviews, our data confirms that the majority of the public are instinctively positive about R&D as a concept, but this support is passive and disconnected from personal experience.

Fundamentally, public support for R&D is broad but shallow.