Examine whether Scientific Social Responsibility can rebuild public trust in science. What are the limits of mandating it?

Scientific Social Responsibility (SSR) is the ethical duty of scientists to "give back" knowledge to the society that funds them. DST's 2019 Draft SSR Policy proposed that every scientist spend at least 10 person-days a year on SSR [1]. SSR can help rebuild trust, but only if it is two-way and not just a compliance target.

How SSR can rebuild trust

• Accountability for public money: the government pays about 64% of India's research spending [3]. SSR shows taxpayers what that money returns.
• Responsiveness: a proposed national digital portal would record society's needs [1] and link laboratories to local problems.
• New interface: DST described SSR as creating a new interface between science and society, with scientists and institutions taking part directly in societal activities [2].
• Global alignment: the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (2021), adopted by 193 countries [5], treats citizen and participatory science as integral to open science [4].

Where it falls short

• The draft is mostly one-way outreach [1]. Citizens get no role in setting research priorities, and trust grows from having a voice, not from being lectured.

Limits of mandating it

• Box-ticking: counting person-days measures time spent, not public understanding gained.
• Thin capacity: India has only about 260 researchers per million people, against 1,602 in China [3]. The Standing Committee on S&T (Report No. 343, 2021) found universities to be mainly teaching centres [3].
• Unfunded duty: DST spent about 18% less than its budget on average in 2018-24. The research foundation's 2023-24 allocation was cut from ₹2,000 crore to ₹259 crore [3].
• Autonomy and authenticity: forced engagement can feel coercive and may take time away from curiosity-driven research.
• Weak enforcement: years after the 2019 draft, its binding status and its proposed implementing body under DST [1] remain unclear.

Way forward

• Incentivise, don't compel: give credit for SSR in performance appraisals, as the draft proposes [1].
• Make it two-way: feed the needs collected on the portal into ANRF research calls. The OECD's 2025 report gives funding agencies a framework for embedding citizen science [6].

SSR can rebuild trust by making science visible and responsive, but a mandate alone produces compliance, not confidence. If it is backed by funds, incentives and a real voice for citizens, SSR can turn science done for society into science done with it. This would further the constitutional duty to develop scientific temper (Article 51A(h)) and SDG 9.