Key recommendations on science communication in Europe relating to health and food safety

In the autumn of 2018, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, consulted EvoKE on several science communication issues important to social wellbeing and sustainable development in Europe. These included how to change people’s attitudes toward science, scientific knowledge, and how to communicate about risk, with a special emphasis on food-related issues. Our response, based on research in education and science communication was that simply providing access to information and facts (the so-called deficit model of science communication) is not sufficient. People build their positions and attitudes based on emotional factors and then engage in motivated reasoning, looking for and/or attaching greater value to evidence and experts that support their initial attitudes. Although more studies are needed, research already provides avenues to address this problem. In this document we use the most important lessons of the research to recommend solutions that can be applied, illustrated by case studies.