Building equitable and reciprocal relationships between science and society

The Trinity Science & Society Research Centre brings together researchers, educators, artists, and communities to ask not just how science is communicated, but how knowledge is made, learned, lived, and shared, and by whom. Rooted in the School of Education and spanning all three of Trinity's faculties, we take an expansive view of science: as one powerful way of knowing among many. Our transdisciplinary work draws together the arts and humanities, social sciences, and STEM disciplines, studying how science shapes everyday lives, how we engage with it across challenges such as climate, health, and technology, and the legal, ethical, and social questions these raise. We research public engagement with science and research; science communication; citizen and community science; and science-related teaching and learning across higher education, schools, and informal settings. Our work is grounded in a commitment to social and epistemic justice: we believe that evidence-based, inclusive approaches to science engagement are a democratic necessity.

Building on more than a decade of work by the Science & Society Research Group at Trinity, the Centre brings together more than 100 affiliated members from across all three Trinity faculties, over €10 million in research funding from the European Commission, Wellcome, Research Ireland, and other national and international funders, and more than 70 peer-reviewed publications. The Centre is the Irish hub of the Horizon Europe COALESCE project, developing the European Competence Centre for Science Communication.