Science Making sense As director of Sense about Science, Tracey Brown is focused on improving the understanding of evidence and finding the right questions to ask. By Liam Kay F rom genetically modified foods and the vaccine to more recent conspiracy theories about ovid and masts, it can be difficult to communicate legitimate scientific evidence to the public. n a world where misinformation and misinterpretation of evidence can easily proliferate, how do you help the public scrutinise and interpret the outcomes of scientific study accurately ense about cience aims to make science and evidence more generally more accessible to the public, politicians and ournalists, and correct some of the misconceptions that arise. ince its creation in , the organisation has spearheaded several successful strategies to improve understanding of evidence, from evidence week, which has run in the parliament since , to the llTrials campaign to publish the results of all clinical trials. ver the past two decades, we have become more focused on system change, and thinking about the capacity within particular systems whether that is parliament, the media or community organisations to engage critically with evidence, and looking at how well e uipped they are with the right uestions and insights they need, says Tracey rown, director of ense about cience. hat has stayed with us from those early days is that we always started with the real uestions people had, rather than the story researchers want to tell. hereas researchers might think about how they want to put their work across to society, we have always started with uestions such as should be worried about the phone mast at the end of my garden , and unpacking that. ur term for it is public led, expert fed. ense about cience works with organisations, including the government, parliamentarians, the media and researchers, to help them ask the right uestions or present findings in ways that ease interpretation. or example, evidence week emerged from a desire to help Ps analyse the impact of technical legislation, while recognising the range of other issues they have to deal with on a daily basis, rown explains. Ps can be dealing with problems a day in parliament and constituencies, and you need to turn from discussions about innovation to, perhaps, one on drone noise its the same with ournalists, she says. ow does the insight community e uip them better with the research, knowledge and resources they need to ask the right uestions and scrutinise the evidence The pandemic has heightened the importance of communicating accurate information, with the relative lack of knowledge about the virus meaning conspiracy theories have circulated, and speculation about the disease has been reported in the media and discussed online. owever, rown feels it has also opened up opportunities to educate people on research and evidence, offering a real time demonstration of how the research gathering process works. or those of us looking to e uip people with a better understanding of evidence and the right uestions to ask, that has opened up enormously. am very glad it has opened up around modelling and data science, as this is a field that has had little public, policy and media scrutiny, and yet is advancing rapidly in areas of ma or decision making in society. owever, she is critical of how some of the policies implemented to stop the spread of coronavirus have been communicated to the public, with a lack of discussion about their context leaving people to read between the lines when interpreting official guidance. There was a lack of understanding of ust how much communication there needed to be about the way that evidence is used in decisions, rown says. The crisis isnt ust the disease spreading the crisis is also how people are reacting to and understanding it. he is also sceptical that measures to remove conspiracy stories from social media platforms will have the desired effect. fcom research on news consumption found that, in early pril, half of people were seeing misleading information about the virus on a weekly basis. rown warns that simply removing misinformation does not ade uately solve the issue. 46 Impact ISSUE 31 20_pp46-47_science.indd 46 18/09/2020 11:56