“Democratic Remedies for Disinformation and Distrust: Can Open Science Help?“

Workshop in Munich, 26-27 November 2025

Augustenstraße 40, 80333 Munich, 1. Floor, Room: F 1.11

Organizers: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Technical Unversity of Munich, PHIL_OS ERC Project, and SCIROS Project

Trust in science is under threat. On the one hand, there is widespread public distrust in trustworthy scientific information. On the other hand, there is widespread public trust in untrustworthy anti-scientific information, such as misinformation and disinformation. This has significant social and political consequences. In response, researchers have a social responsibility to help restore trust in science. From a theoretical standpoint, we aim to explore the ways in which the information ecosystem facilitates the various ways in which scientific knowledge is used and produced to better understand the various threats to trust in science. In particular, we aim to clarify the complex relationships between trust/distrust and good/bad science. What exactly is not trusted in science? What motivates such distrust? What type of trust should science aspire to restore? From a practical standpoint, we aim to better understand what individual skills and institutional reforms might be critical to help restore trust in science. Ideally, the public should trust good science and distrust bad science. However, are both goals mutually feasible? Or do the two goals push against each other? A general trust in science risks trust in bad science with uncritical acceptance of fallible expert opinions. Conversely, distrust in bad science risks a wider distrust in science, with merchants of doubt using strategic science scepticism in bad faith.

Thinking about the various public (mis)uses of scientific information, we will explore how scientific literacy can help various publics become more willing and able to resist misinformation (and disinformation as its intentional variety). In particular, we will explore how OS might help support scientific literacy among various publics and how might it hinder scientific literacy efforts. The OS movement is committed to the view that a more open type of science allows for a more informed type of public with easier access to research findings and processes for democratic citizens and knowledge intermediaries. However, does a more open type of science always result in a more informed type of public?

Thinking about the expert production of scientific knowledge, we will explore how the research practices of scientific communities may fuel distrust in scientific information and facilitate trust in misinformation. As Isabelle Stengers and others argue, a neoliberal tendency in academia for “fast science” may be making science literacy harder. When fast science repeatedly floods the information ecosystem with new research, scientific information becomes less transparent to various publics and science literacy is harder for various publics to achieve. Conversely, “fast science” may make distrust in science easier. When scientists are under pressure to work in ever shorter research cycles, while still producing scientific breakthroughs, a predictable outcome is a tendency to release results as soon as possible and exaggerate their significance.

We will explore the nuanced relationship between fast science and open science; how open science may contribute to fast science, and how open science may help to counteract it. The more accessible scientific findings and processes become and the more open scientific research becomes to a diversity of research practices, the more complicated and therefore opaque science becomes to lay publics.

In response, we will explore how the OS research practices at various levels of knowledge production may better help to produce more trusted information and, in return, help displace trust in untrustworthy misinformation. For instance, we will explore how OS can help different stakeholders navigate the diversity of scientific information that OS makes accessible. This has both theoretical and practical significance. From an individual standpoint, we will explore what tools stakeholders might need to better navigate the sea of scientific evidence. From an institutional standpoint, we will explore if and when (open) research infrastructures could better support scientific literacy. We will explore if and when we can prototype practical solutions that build on the achievements of the OS movement. Maybe more and better Open Science is critical to finding a way forward after all.

Day 1 – Wednesday, 26 November
Theme: Disinformation in Science
12:00- 13:00 – Welcome lunch
13:00-13:45 Round of introductions
13:45-15:45 Keynotes on the relation between misinformation and open science
1. Openness and Misinformation: False Promises and Real Opportunities [Sabina Leonelli]
2. When is Science Bad? [Marcel Boumans]
3. [Piotr Wcislik]
4. [Richard Williams]
15:45-16:00 – Break
16.00-17:00 Breakout groups on key concerns around misinformation and openness Materials and hands-on activities: https://openpracticelibrary.com/
17:00-17:30 Reports back to plenary, whole group feedback
17:15-17:30 Break
17:30-18:30 Concluding discussion on main topics of the workshop
19:00 – Dinner

Day 2 – Thursday, 27 November
9:00-11:00 Defining the concerns
9:00-10:15 Breakout groups on definitions of key problems we seek solutions for
10:15-11:00 Reports back to plenary and wrap-up of definitions
11:00-11:30 Break
11:30-13:00 Prototyping solutions
11:30-12:30 Breakout rooms – 1 problem per group, seeking solutions
12:30-13:00 Plenary feedback
13:00–14:00 – Lunch Break
14.00-15:30 Final discussion on prototyping
15:30-16:00 Break
16:00-17:00 Wrap–up