Matters relating to the public understanding and perception of science have been of increasing concern to ESF and its Member Organisations in recent years. For example, major incidents of scientific misconduct have exposed the need to develop consistent positions and policies for their management, which ESF has addressed and which is published as ESF Science Policy Briefing 10 - "Good Scientific practice in research and scholarship".

The high level of general interest in the ethics of science prompted ESF to organise a Panel Discussion at the General Assembly in 1997 on "Science and Society: Perils and Promises". Other ESF activities bearing on such topics include: "Bioethics", an exploratory workshop initiated and led by the Standing Committee for the Humanities (SCH) in Strasbourg on 21-22 February 1997; Environment and Health (ENHE), a Programme initiated by the European Medical Research Councils (EMRC) in association with the European Commission and WHO Europe; "Human Reasoning and Decision Making", an ESF Network in the Social Sciences which will be completed in 2001; "Science and Human Values", a new network in Humanities which aims is to serve the interests of contemporary scientists by creating multidisciplinary methods and perspectives for the understanding of those values which, historically, have been conducive to scientific and technological innovation and those which have proved obstructive; "Assessment of the Impacts of Genetically Modified Plants", a Programme initiated by LESC (1999-2003); the work of the ESF High Level Expert Group on Biology and Society, dealing with the use of animals in research, genetically modified plants and research involving human stem cells. In reviewing these activities, ESF has concluded that there was relatively little current research on the psychological, social, and philosophical aspects of public perceptions and beliefs about science. The topic of risk perception was identified as a good starting point, although it was recognised that this was only one example of the important influences on public opinion. An Exploratory Workshop on Report from the ESF Workshop Science of Risk - Risk of Science was held in Malahide, near Dublin, Ireland on 11 and 12 July 1999. Follow-ups to this meeting have included an EMRC Workshop on "Mental models and the public understanding of science", also held in Dublin, on 29 January 2001.

A symposium on "Perils and Prospects of the New Brain Sciences " will be held at the Wenner-Gren Centre, Stockholm, Sweden, 15-18 September 2001 as the first in a series of symposia on the topic of "Science and Human Values" jointly sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundations and the ESF.