June 11, 2018 Reflections of a 21st Century researcher: scientists must speak the language of policy to have a lasting impact Towards the end of my masters degree in biology, I came across a disturbing statistic published by the Ontario Science Centre in 2017: 43 percent of Canadians believe scientific findings to be a matter of opinion. Here I am, a freshly minted grad, and the seemingly unshakeable body of knowledge upon which I based my research is seen by nearly half my country as “opinion”. Let’s not even delve into the fact that I studied climate change... I trudged through mountains of evidence, defended a thesis, I was vetted by other profs, yet when I step out of the ivory tower the only thing on my mind is this shrieking wake-up call of how easily I could take for granted the validity and importance of scientific research.
