PERITIA Conferences & Events


From 2020 to 2023, the PERITIA team held research conferences and events toward further investigating the complex nature of trust in expertise within the sphere of policymaking.

  • Closing Event: ‘Research Insights for European Policymaking’

4–5 May 2023
Brussels, Belgium

Co-hosted by the European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) and the European Science Media Hub, experts on trust from the spheres of research and policy gathered to discuss the project’s results with an audience of European policymakers and other stakeholders in the field of science-driven policy.

Keynotes: MEP Christian Ehler and Sir Peter Gluckman

  • Final Academic Conference: ‘Rethinking Policy, Expertise and Trust’

23–25 March 2023
Dublin, Ireland

The UCD O’Brien Centre for Science hosted the project’s final academic conference ‘Rethinking Policy, Expertise and Trust’. A breadth of topics encompassed by PERITIA’s investigation of public trust in expertise were examined by scholars from a wide range of disciplines. Researchers from the fields of philosophy, sociology, political science, media studies, public policy and science communication presented their most recent findings on questions related to key themes of the project.

Keynote: Onora O’Neill

  • Hybrid Conference: The Ethics of Trust and Expertise

31 May–2 June 2022
Yerevan, Armenia

This conference focused on ethics and normative issues relevant to public trust, the nature of expertise, and the role of experts in public life and politics.

Keynotes: Åsa Wikforss, Lynne Tirrell, and Paul Boghossian

  • PERITIA Workshop: ‘How to Address an Infodemic: Experiments on (Dis)Information’

28 April 2022
London, England

This workshop comprised speakers who collectively provided measures and strategies to address disinformation.

  • PERITIA Webinars: ‘Who to trust on Covid-19?’ and ‘Creating a Climate of Trust in Science’

November 2021
Online

PERITIA webinars brought together lead investigators and project partners to discuss topics of high societal relevance and present their research to the public – in this case, the politicization of science and cultivating trust in science experts.

  • Lecture Series: [Un]truths: Trust in an Age of Disinformation

April–November 2021
Online

The PERITIA Lectures delved into current phenomena to explore the concept of trust and truth in light of the social and political upheaval wrought by the pandemic. Prominent philosophers and academics from Europe and the United States came together to present their latest research on trust in science, disinformation, vaccine hesitancy, conspiracy theories, trustworthy science, truth and democracy, and trust and cognitive science.

  • Virtual Conference: Trust in Expertise in a Changing Media Landscape

18–19 March 2021
Online

This multidisciplinary conference brought together outstanding researchers from all over the world to discuss how best to assess, establish and maintain the credibility and trustworthiness of expertise in a rapidly changing media environment. Scholars presented their latest findings on questions of trust and trustworthiness, expertise, science and technology, policy, and the media. 

  • Virtual Workshop: Social Indicators of Trust

1–2 October 2020
Online

A two-day workshop presented research that finally led to a special issue of Social Epistemology on ‘Social Indicators of Trust in the Age of Informational Chaos‘, guest edited by PERITIA investigators T.Y. Branch and Gloria Origgi. Held virtually because of the pandemic, it exmained the nature, acquisition and application of social indicators of trust for scientific experts and institutions.

  • PERITIA Inaugural Symposium: ‘Trust in a Changing World’

2 March 2020
Dublin, Ireland

David Farrell, José van Dijck, Bobby Duffy, Susan Owens and Judith Simon spoke at the project’s kickoff event held in UCD’s Newman House on various aspects of the conditions under which people trust expert opinion that shapes public policy.

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