Smallman, ML; Lock, S; Miller, S; (2020) United Kingdom: The developing relationship between science and society. In: Gasgoine, T and Lewenstein, B and Masserati, L and Schiele, B and Broks, P and Riedlinger, M and Leach, J, (eds.) Communicating Science : A Global Perspective. (pp. 931-958). ANU (Australian National University) Press: Canberra, Australia.

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Abstract

The 1950s British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is reported to have replied to a journalist’s question as to what was likely to blow his government off course with the words ‘events, dear boy, events’. The development of science communication in the UK from the mid-1980s onwards is one of the best-documented stories in this field, punctuated by a series of reports from both the scientific community and the government itself—and by a number of ‘Macmillian events’ that blew science’s relationship with the wider world hither and thither. Here we offer a series of episodes that changed how we think about the relationship between science and society. We describe these largely chronologically and imply that they heralded new eras of science communication. This does not mean, however, that previous approaches simply disappeared: many old ideas were buried momentarily or continued as an undercurrent, less visible but ready to resurface as and when conditions allowed and required them to do so.

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