Awareness of Sri Lankans on scientific research findings extremely low

By Huzefa Aliasger  

The Chairman National Science Foundation, Professor Saman Seneweera at the launch of the Objective Science Reporting Programme mentioned that Sri Lanka lacks in adapting scientific research due to the communication gap in delivering scientific reports to the public by media organizations.  Professor Seneweera said that “only 1.1 percent of the research carried out in labs that are published are being shared to the public, and the lack of awareness is high”. The Chairman also said that in order to develop Sri Lanka further, the public need to be literate in science.  

The NSF in their website mentioned “Science reporting to the general public through media in Sri Lanka is not at a satisfactory level. We experienced that much disinformation (knowingly developing and disseminating incorrect information intended to deceive), misinformation (unintentionally distributing incorrect information), and mal information (disturbing information such as personal information intended to harm) based on science passed through some media channels to the public. Objective science reporting has also been ignored by many media organizations. This is due to lack of trained science journalists / reporters in the country, and / or decision-making bodies of the media organizations pay more attention and interest on other popular topics and political issues, rather than scientific issues, and lack of proper platform to media personnel to obtain authentic information and facts on science and scientific developments.”  

The National Science Foundation in order to improve communications between media and scientific research inaugurated the Objective Science Reporting Programme (OSR) which is “aimed at minimizing the dissemination of misinformation, disinformation and mal information on scientific findings to the public through print and electronic media (including social media)”.  

The OSR programme which is established by the NSF is to report only accurate facts and authentic information relevant to scientific findings, innovation, or any other scientific development as a news story, feature article, documentary, or radio programme through establishing a Science Base and a Media Base. The Science Base will provide authentic scientific information and facts to the Media Base upon request received from them.