Research on the public understanding of science has measured knowledge as acquaintance with scientific facts and methods and attitudes as evaluations of societal consequences of science and technology. The authors propose alternative concepts and measures: knowledge of the workings of scientific institutions and attitudes to the nature of science. The viability, reliability, and validity of the new measures are demonstrated on British and Bulgarian data. The instrument consists of twenty items and takes ten to fifteen minutes to apply. Differences in the representation of science are reported between the British and Bulgarian young elite, between the elite and the public in Bulgaria, between natural and social science students, and between beginners and advanced students in Britain. The use of these measures will extend the scope of science indicator measures used by the European Commission and the National Science Foundation, help the assessment of the socialization in university training, and may even contribute to the peace process in the "science wars."Over the past 25 years, various instruments have been developed to measure public understanding of science and scientific literacy. For this purpose, the concepts are usually divided into three parts: interest in science, knowledge of science, and attitudes to science. Most studies followed the initial proposals of Withey (1959) and Miller (1983) that culminated in the National

This paper compares changing patterns of science news over a period of 50 years. The study analyses a biannual corpus of 2800 news articles in Britain (the Daily Telegraph) and 5800 in Bulgaria ( Rabotnichesko Delo), and shows divergent and convergent trends. Britain carries considerably more science news than Bulgaria all through the period, while the coverage shows parallel swings: increasing intensity during the 1950s, a turning point in the early 1960s, declining into the 1970s, and rising again in the 1980s and 1990s. Media coverage in both countries shows similar swings in public appeal. The trends in the medicalization of science news, the reporting of controversy and the evaluation of science diverge in the two contexts. The paper concludes with speculative explanations of these results. Similarities and differences in these long-term trends point to common factors and specific differences at work on either side of the (former) ‘Iron Curtain’.

The starting point of this study is the argument that not only rankings of higher education institutions (HEIs) are inescapable, but so is the constant criticism to which they are subjected. Against this background, the paper discusses how HEIs from Central and Eastern Europe countries (CEECs) are (non)represented in the main global university rankings. The analysis adopts two perspectives: 1) From the point of view of higher education in CEECs – what are the specificity, basic problems and perspectives of higher education in CEECs as seen through the prism of the global ranking systems? 2) From the point of view of the ranking systems – what strengths and weaknesses of the global ranking systems can be identified through the prism of higher education in CEECs? The study shows that most of the HEIs from CEECs remain invisible in the international and European academic world and tries to identify the main reasons for their (non)appearance in global rankings. It is argued that although global rankings are an important instrument for measuring and comparing the achievements of HEIs by certain indicators, they are only one of the mechanisms – and not a perfect one – for assessing the quality of higher education.

No abstract