Sense About Science

Sense about Science is a UK charity that promotes the public understanding of science. Sense about Science was founded in 2002 by Lord Taverne, Bridget Ogilvie and others to promote respect for scientific evidence and good science.

Since 2006, Elsevier has partnered with Sense About Science (SAS), an independent charitable trust, championing evidence, scientific reasoning and a public discussion of scientific issues. For the past six years this unique program of events and publications has worked to promote  an understanding of peer review among journalists, policymakers and the public as well as to engage and inspire early career researchers to stand up for science in public debates around the world.

The work on peer review has reached hundreds of thousands – from new authors to journalists, policymakers and students – through debates, publications, and an international peer review survey of 4,000 researchers in 2009. Colleagues across Elsevier have been involved in Sense About Science's outreach projects. Through collaboration on many of these activities, we continue to make clear Elsevier's commitment to quality research and peer review internationally. Learn more about the 2009 Sense About Science Peer Review Survey.

Since launch, SAS' growing Voice of Young Science (VoYS) network attracted over thousands early career researchers to workshops around the world, a programme that has been partnered by Elsevier and over 30 learned societies and institutions
around the world. The VoYS ethos of standing up for science, pursued through myth busting publications and promoting scientific scrutiny and peer review, receives a lot of media attention, which has helped it become a network with its own momentum, attracting new members every day.

Engaging early-career Researchers

The AllTrials campaign, launched in 2013, calls for all clinical trials to be registered and their results reported. Elsevier has pledged to support the development of the AllTrials campaign to drive greater clinical transparency.

Supporting Greater Clinical Transparancy

We envision this as both a strategic advisory role on how publishers can contribute, and a technical and operational one exploring how we can embed clinical trial registration in our peer review processes, in ScienceDirect and Scopus, in new rules for authors, and in collaborating with fellow publishers.