My research interests are to do with how members of the public become engaged with science, and how that relates to formal learning at HE level. A major area of concern is the role, responsibility and experience of different scientists in public engagement, where research interests can have very practical application in the development of ‘science and society’ discussion courses for scientists of the type recently developed by the OU, with Royal Society support (see http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=3474. I have a special interest in the experiences and perceptions of different publics and scientists to the life sciences, and in particular the relationship between attitudes to contentious issues (such as genetic manipulation) and levels of factual knowledge.
Jeff Thomas
