Programme / MCAA Forum on Research and Democracy

The pursuit of truth and knowledge has helped shape modern human social and political history. Despite hundreds of years of progress towards a society where facts and evidence form the basis of our laws, customs and policies, we continue to face threats from political forces who rely on demagoguery, misinformation, and suppression of scientific findings to erode democratic institutions, consolidate power and secure financial and political supremacy.
Scientists and researchers have always played a crucial role in defending knowledge, and the right to pursue it, in democratic societies. In this forum, we aim to highlight the historical role of research in democratic societies and extract lessons from that history to shape how our community responds to the challenges we face today.
Those challenges include not only the global rise of political threats to democratic values, but also the broader societal challenges best described by the UN Development Agency’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We hope that a wider recognition of SDGs amongst the research community, and the public at large, can be a catalyst for a stronger role of research and scientific knowledge in policy and politics.