Science as a global public good: responding to challenges of the modern era

Abstract Science has been crucial to the creation of the modern world and is essential in navigating its complexities. Well-informed citizens, willing to change perspectives in the face of new evidence, are essential to democracy. Recognizing science as a global public good, free at the point of use, is a perspective that contributes to this objective, it is a means of realizing the human right to science. The digital revolution of the last 2–3 decades, and the evolution of AI that it has enabled, have fundamentally changed the landscape of information and re-wired the networks of social inter-connection. A major effort from science is required if it is to play its optimal roles in human affairs. It must direct a voice towards society, where it is currently rarely heard or heeded. The science community can best address these challenges by re-adapting the universities and their academics to engage with society, with support from national academies and national and international learned societies, with science as a public good as an organizing principle. A series of radical proposals are made for ways in which public engagement by scientific institutions could be strengthened.