Most scientists feel that they have a responsibility to society that goes beyond their duties to their profession, but they don't always agree on which types of responsibilities are most important, a new pilot study by AAAS suggests.

Taken together, the 2,153 responses from scientists, engineers, and health professionals around the world revealed a 13 percentage-point range in which types of social responsibilities scientists prioritized most widely: Taking steps to minimize anticipated risks associated with their work was considered important by 96 percent of the respondents, while 83 percent felt it was important to engage in public service activities.

AAAS developed the questionnaire because serving society is part of the mandate for many professional societies and funding programs, and its importance is often cited in public statements and international conventions — but few agree on what those social responsibilities are or ought to be, said Mark Frankel, director of the AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law program, which conducted the study along with the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition.

"Because of the changing nature of the relationship between science and society, there are increasing calls for scientists to become more engaged and to realize responsibilities beyond what they do in the lab," Frankel said. "But, we have virtually no education courses, no teaching materials, no consensus in the United States, let alone globally, about what this really means."

The questionnaire presented scientists, engineers, and health professionals with a battery of possible responsibilities to society. It then asked them to categorize each type of responsibility, from "critically important" to "not at all important."

More than 80 percent of the respondents considered all of the proposed responsibilities important, but "they did suggest some differences we should be looking into, relating to age group, discipline, and geographical region. There didn't appear to be differences by gender, which was interesting," said Jessica Wyndham, the program's associate director. "These are very preliminary outcomes that we want to explore further."

Frankel and Wyndham both stressed that this was a pilot study that reflects the views of a relatively small group of respondents who were already associated with the various channels that AAAS used to disseminate the questionnaire. They now plan a large-scale survey that will reach a broader, more international audience and probe some of the findings from the questionnaire more deeply.

Highlights from the pilot study's findings: