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Science Oversight and Protection Actors

As Stewards of Trust (SOT), Science Oversight and Protection Actors ensure that scientific research adheres to ethical, legal, and safety standards, such as research ethics and integrity committees, compliance and auditing bodies.

Examples: Science oversight and protection actors include research ethics and integrity committees, compliance and auditing bodies, technology and impact assessment organisations, and science funding institutions with monitoring roles.

Why trust in science matters for Science Oversight and Protection

Science oversight and protection actors are central to ensuring scientific integrity and public trust, but many existing frameworks remain outdated, fragmented, or under-resourced. Traditional oversight mechanisms are ill-equipped to keep pace with the complexity and speed of modern, interdisciplinary research (Lawrence et al., 2022), particularly in emerging areas like artificial intelligence (AI), synthetic biology, and data-intensive science (Cockburn & Cundill, 2018). Ethical guidance is often non-binding and inconsistently applied, while institutional incentives for researchers continue to prioritise output over quality and responsibility. Monitoring compliance remains difficult, especially where ethical risks are ambiguous and transparency is lacking.

Intensifying these issues are gaps in training and capacity-building, especially in fast-moving fields where ethical, legal, and societal implications often lag behind technological advancement. Organisational and cultural resistance within institutions, uneven global standards, and a lack of coordination across research ecosystems regarding research ethics and integrity create further challenges. Meanwhile, critical components of public accountability, such as independent science journalism, open access platforms, and quality peer review, remain underfunded and undervalued. These structural weaknesses are further exacerbated by the rise of predatory publishing, disparities in infrastructure access, and the narrow focus of trust-related research on health sciences at the expense of other fields like climate, energy, and digital technologies.

How can Science Oversight and Protection Actors foster trust in science?

To foster trust, oversight and protection actors must modernise and harmonise frameworks for ethical review, quality assurance, and integrity across sectors and borders. This includes developing binding, implementable standards; expanding ethics training; and adapting oversight mechanisms to interdisciplinary, AI-driven, and cross-sector research contexts. Transparent disclosure of funding and conflicts of interest, open access to findings, and multilingual, jargon-free communication must be reinforced through regulation and incentives. Institutionalising inclusive engagement practices, ensuring citizens have meaningful input in high-impact research, and strengthening collaboration with media, educators, and civil society will be key to making oversight more credible, participatory, and responsive to societal needs.

  • Ensure rigorous methods, reproducibility, and methodological transparency, including in the use of AI in science.
  • Promote adherence to standardised protocols and peer review to enhance the credibility and comparability of research findings. 
  • Mandate transparent disclosure of funding sources and potential conflicts of interest to reduce bias and foster credibility.
  • Develop open science guidelines that are field-specific, inclusive, clear, relevant, and accessible to the general public and marginalised groups (including those with lower educational attainment, economically vulnerable individuals, and older adults).  
  • Promote openness in data, publications, and research practices, including the use of AI, to build transparency and enhance credibility.
  • Develop comprehensive policies and training on ethical practices, integrity, and responsible research, including the use of AI in science, that are effective and implementable, and that align with practicalities and needs.
  • Ensure independent research validation, robust quality assurance, and ethical oversight for both publicly and privately funded research and enforce consequences for violations to uphold standards.
  • Adapt the ethical oversight mechanisms to evolving research contexts, including interdisciplinary, use of AI, international, and cross-sector research.
  • Advocate for inclusive authorship policies in academic publishing to credit citizen contributions.
  • Make scientific processes more inclusive by actively involving marginalised and underrepresented groups (particularly those with lower educational attainment, economically vulnerable individuals, and older adults), using approaches tailored to socio-demographic factors, belief profiles, and community-specific needs.
  • Create communities of practice that bring together researchers and citizens to share knowledge, co-develop quality standards, and identify best practices for public engagement, supported by clear guidelines, practical training, and realistic planning tools.
  • Encourage scientists to incorporate local knowledge and address community-specific needs.
  • Implement clear and consistent feedback mechanisms to ensure participants remain informed and engaged throughout and beyond the research process. 
  • Adapt feedback mechanisms to specific challenges of research in fragile contexts (e.g. high-risk regions or socio-economically vulnerable settings).
  • Promote public understanding of the scientific method, including uncertainty, falsifiability, and the iterative process, to counter misconceptions and mistrust.
  • Make complex scientific concepts accessible to the public without compromising accuracy.
  • Offer regular refresher courses for teachers at all educational levels to keep them up to date with current scientific research and responsible research practices to support them in raising informed future citizens.
  • Provide educators and science communicators with tools to address misconceptions and effectively communicate the societal benefits of science.
  • Encourage exposure to diverse, credible information sources to prevent the formation of echo chambers.
  • Develop standardised publishing protocols that promote rigorous peer review and eliminate pay-to-publish models. Ensure consistent evaluation across journals, institutions and regions.
  • Make all scientific findings, including non-confirmatory results, widely accessible through open access, multilingual resources, and jargon-free communication.
  • Train researchers to communicate complex topics clearly and responsibly, highlighting scientific uncertainty, ethical implications, and the self-correcting nature of science.
  • Ensure that research funding prioritises impartiality, scientific freedom and public interest over private or commercial interests. Conduct regular, systematic evaluations of research programs to assess their societal impact.
  • Base policy decisions on robust, aggregated scientific evidence, avoiding selective use to justify political agendas. Communicate transparently about sources, limitations, and the role of science in policy to maintain credibility.
  • Integrate scientific evidence with ethical and societal considerations to ensure socially responsive policy making.
  • Build effective and efficient bureaucratic structures that can account for diverse scientific opinions and deliver timely outputs to meet societal needs.
  • Invest in and empower public institutions to serve as neutral Stewards of Trust in science, e.g. merit-based career development, stable funding without partisan influence.
  • Ensure scientific freedom by protecting the independence of public research funding bodies from partisan and corporate influence. Introduce transparent oversight mechanisms to uphold integrity and autonomy in funding decisions.
  • Strengthen research governance by establishing and regularly revising quality assurance procedures, monitoring research compliance with established rules, mitigating societal risks and supporting institutional reputation through transparent and consistent practices.
  • Strengthen accountability in science journalism by supporting independent media watchdogs, enforcing responsible reporting across traditional and social media, and introducing regulation where appropriate, while safeguarding media freedom.
  • Foster interdisciplinary, international, and cross-sector collaboration by creating multi-level platforms for knowledge exchange, best practice sharing, and policy development that actively involve policymakers, industry, educators, and civil society.
  • Strengthen coordination both within and between policy makers, funders, scientific actors, and other relevant organisations, across departments, levels, and sectors, to overcome institutional silos and enable coherent policy implementation.
  • Build science-for-policy mechanisms that connect research with policy needs, ensuring timely and actionable outputs while safeguarding scientific freedom.
  • Strengthen the culture of research ethics and integrity through inclusive collaboration between academic and non-academic stakeholders.
  • Strengthen ties between all Stewards of Trust and local communities and build effective connections across diverse stakeholder groups.
  • Foster collaboration among Stewards of Trust by creating incentives and mutual benefits that encourage long-term partnerships.

Science Oversight and Protection actors in the ecosystem of trust in science

Science Oversight and Protection safeguards the integrity, accountability, and trustworthiness of the scientific ecosystem. Stewards of Trust in this role establish and uphold ethical, regulatory, and quality standards, ensuring research aligns with societal and ethical values and legal norms. Through independent evaluation and compliance, they reinforce credibility and responsible research and innovation (RRI).

As shown in the figure below, oversight and protection actors support science education by embedding ethics and responsible conduct into training and curricula, preparing students and educators to uphold rigorous standards. They strengthen science communication by clarifying compliance and addressing ethical breaches transparently. In policymaking, they ensure adherence to ethical research guidelines and advise on improvements. Oversight and protection actors also guide ethical funding decisions and verify whether science implementers respect established ethics standards. They also safeguard science production by overseeing research excellence, integrity, and trustworthiness at every stage of the process. Across all domains, from science production to citizen science, they uphold research quality, support public engagement, and protect stakeholders through clear, ethical protocols.

Science Oversight and Protection Actors

References

Cockburn, J., & Cundill, G. (2018). “Ethics in transdisciplinary research: Reflections on the implications of ‘Science with Society’.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Ethics in Critical Research (pp. 81-97). Palgrave Macmillan. 

Lawrence, M. G., Williams, S., Nanz, P., & Renn, O. (2022). “Characteristics, potentials, and challenges of transdisciplinary research.” One Earth, 5(1), 44-61

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