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Jesús Rey-Rocha graduated in Biology from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and holds and MsC in Electronic Information Management from the University of Sheffield. He also holds a Doctorate in Sciences from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He is Principal Researcher at the Research Group on Scientific Evaluation and Transfer, Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). His current research interests center on scientific knowledge communication and transfer, and on scientific culture and perception of science in the business sector. Ana Muñoz van den Eynde holds a Bachelor in Psychology degree and a Master of Advanced Studies in Methodology degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She also holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Universidad de Oviedo. She is head of the Research Unit on Scientific Culture at the Research Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology (CIEMAT), and her current research interests center on the study and analysis of environmental awareness, scientific culture and the image of science. She is a specialist in methodology and provides expertise to the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology in the design and analysis of the results of the Spanish Survey on Public Perception of Science.

In spite of the efforts devoted to understand the relationship of society with science, the results have not been satisfactory. The aim of this study is to test the PIKA model, developed to contribute to a better understanding of the perspective of citizens in the relationship of society with science. Our hypothesis is that the interaction of citizens with science generates an image that determines how they react to it. We conceive this image as a mental map, and according to contributions from neurology, we consider that it is grounded on a neural net. The PIKA model postulates that there is a section of the image of science that accounts for the interaction of Perception, Interest, Knowledge, and willingness to Act. We used Structural Equation Modelling to obtain evidence to support this model. We used data from three Spanish samples: the 2006 and 2014 editions of the Survey on Social Perception of Science and Technology by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, and the answers to the PIKA Questionnaire of a sample of students from several Spanish universities. The sample of the 2006 edition of the survey of FECYT is comprised by 7.056 subjects from 18 years of age, while the 2014 edition includes 6.136 people. The sample that has Original Research Article

Technical University of Madrid, within the Spanish context, has profited of the introduction of a System of Internal Quality Assurance to build a road on the grounds of previous work on the culture of ethics in engineering. This way may drive the students training to incorporate in their curricula instruments leading to the recognition and acquisition of social responsibility. The road is paved with various educational elements, either mandatory such as the Mentoring project (aiming to minimize the gap in the transit between high school and university from a logistical point of view), or optional such a set of three: Monitoring (a system of academic support for improving the performance of in the students in their learning outcomes when face difficulties), Service Learning and Social Entrepreneurship, Ethics and Values in Engineering. This strategy combined with the convergence to the European Higher Education Area allows the selection of students able to integrate in their professional assets the idea and the commitment of making the human development more sustainable.

Technical University of Madrid, within the Spanish context, has profited of the introduction of a System of Internal Quality Assurance to build a road on the grounds of previous work on the culture of ethics in engineering. This way may drive the students training to incorporate in their curricula instruments leading to the recognition and acquisition of social responsibility. The road is paved with various educational elements, either mandatory such as the Mentoring project (aiming to minimize the gap in the transit between high school and university from a logistical point of view), or optional such a set of three: Monitoring (a system of academic support for improving the performance of in the students in their learning outcomes when face difficulties), Service Learning and Social Entrepreneurship, Ethics and Values in Engineering. This strategy combined with the convergence to the European Higher Education Area allows the selection of students able to integrate in their professional assets the idea and the commitment of making the human development more sustainable.