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Dataset · Wellcome Trust

Trust in Scientists

2 years, 2018–2020 · 113 countries · 2 measures

This is the share of people who say they trust the scientists in their own country 'a lot', from the Wellcome Global Monitor — a survey of about a thousand people in each country carried out by Gallup for the Wellcome Trust in 2018 and again in 2020. It is the widest cross-country measure of public trust in science.

This site holds every year from 2018 to 2020, read from Wellcome Trust’s own data and stored exactly as published.

Open Trust in Scientists, 2020Download all 2 · CSVSee it charted by country →
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Trust in Scientists · the file

Newest
Trust in Scientists, 2020
Held
2 years · 257 rows
Licence
CC BY 4.0

012 years

Every year

Newest first. Each opens the full table for that year, and each downloads as a CSV.

2018bar height: countries covered, up to 1442020
Every year of Trust in Scientists held on this site, newest first, with its download files.
YearCountriesChangeReadDownload
Trust in Scientists, 2020Newest113+2 −33October 3, 2026CSV
Trust in Scientists, 2018144—October 3, 2026CSV

Every year in one file, one row per country per year: trust-in-scientists-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv

024 columns

What’s in the file

Every column, what it holds, how it is stored and what its values look like — what a reader needs before opening the file.

Every column in the newest file of Trust in Scientists: what it holds, how it is stored, and its range.
ColumnWhat it holdsStored asRange, 2020DistinctEmptySpread
CountrycountryNameThe country’s name, as this file spells it.Text—1130
ISO Codecountry_codeIdentifierThe ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, added by this site. Every table here joins on it.Text · 3 letters—1130
Trust scientists in this country a lot (%)trust_scientists_a_lotHeadlineThe headline figure: People aged 15+ who trust scientists in their country 'a lot' (%).Number · up to 15 decimals9.335Nigeria72.354Belgiummiddle 34.3541130
Trust scientists in this country some (%)trust_scientists_someMeasureWellcome’s published share who trust scientists in their country “some” — the answer below “a lot” — as a percentage.Number · up to 15 decimals14.58Tajikistan64.40Hong Kongmiddle 33.951130

Profiled from the newest file. Range: the lowest and highest value, with the country holding it when only one does. Spread: countries in ten equal steps from lowest to highest. Neither end is better. The values describe a shape, not a score.

03146 countries across every year

Who is covered

How many countries each year holds, continent by continent, who joined and who left, and which places this site covers that the dataset never has.

All regions
Countries in each year of Trust in Scientists, by continent.
20182020
Africa4024
Americas2117
Asia4133
Europe4037
Oceania22
All144113

Who joined and who left

  • 2020
    + Bahrain+ Hong Kong− Afghanistan− Armenia− Azerbaijan− Burundi− Belarus− Botswana− Comoros− Gambia− Guatemala− Honduras− Haiti− Iceland− Kuwait− Liberia− Libya− Luxembourg− Madagascar− Mozambique− Mauritania− Malawi− Niger− Pakistan− Panama− Palestine− Rwanda− Singapore− Sierra Leone− Eswatini− Chad− Togo− Turkmenistan− Northern Cyprus− Yemen

Not in this dataset · 79 places this site covers

Wellcome Trust gives no figure for these in any year held here. It is the publisher’s choice of scope, and each place’s profile shows what is measured.

American SamoaAndorraAngolaAnguillaAntigua and BarbudaArubaBahamasBarbadosBelizeBermudaBhutanBritish Virgin IslandsBruneiCabo VerdeCayman IslandsCentral African RepublicChannel IslandsCook IslandsCubaCuraçaoDjiboutiDominicaDR CongoEquatorial GuineaEritreaFaroe IslandsFijiFrench PolynesiaGibraltarGreenlandGrenadaGuamGuinea-BissauGuyanaIsle of ManJamaicaKiribatiLesothoLiechtensteinMacauMaldivesMarshall IslandsMicronesiaMonacoMontserratNauruNew CaledoniaNiueNorth KoreaNorthern Mariana IslandsOmanPalauPapua New GuineaPuerto RicoQatarSaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSaint MartinSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesSamoaSan MarinoSão Tomé and PríncipeSeychellesSint MaartenSolomon IslandsSomaliaSomalilandSouth SudanSudanSurinameSyriaTimor-LesteTongaTrinidad and TobagoTurks and Caicos IslandsTuvaluUnited States Virgin IslandsVanuatuVatican City

04Provenance

Where it comes from

The path from the publisher to this page, and what was checked and changed on the way.

The site’s method

  1. 1 · Publisher

    Wellcome Trust

    wellcome.org

  2. 2 · Their file

    Wellcome Global Monitor 2020 — trust in scientists in this country

    wgm-public-file-covid-crosstabs.xlsx

  3. 3 · Read by this site

    October 3, 2026

    Imported by a script that parses each figure and writes it down unrounded.

  4. 4 · Stored as

    2 files, one per year

    Each downloads as a CSV, or every year together as trust-in-scientists-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv

  5. 5 · Used on

    Its statistic page, and every profile it measures

    /statistics/trust-in-scientists

Precision

The headline is stored to 15 decimals, as published.

Rounded by this site

Never. Tables on screen may show fewer decimals; the files never do.

Changed by this site

Reshaped into one row per country: regional and income-group totals are left out, only the columns listed are kept, each row gets its ISO 3166 code, and some country names are brought to one spelling. No value is recalculated, rescaled or rounded.

From Wellcome's own crosstab workbooks for the 2018 and 2020 rounds: the weighted share answering 'a lot', with people who did not know or refused to answer included in the base.

05Reuse

Licence and credit

What the publisher’s licence lets you do, what it asks of you, and a credit line and citation ready to copy.

Every publisher’s terms

Licence · checked October 3, 2026

CC BY 4.0

  • Share and redistribute it
  • Adapt it and build on it
  • Use it commercially
  • Credit the publisher
  • Say what you changed

Share, adapt and use commercially. Credit the publisher and say if you changed anything.

A credit line

Source: Wellcome Trust, Trust in Scientists, via Nations Inquiry.

Cite this dataset

Wellcome Trust. Trust in Scientists, 2018–2020 [data set]. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/trust-in-scientists

The publisher’s own citation: Wellcome Trust. Wellcome Global Monitor 2020: Covid-19. London: Wellcome, 2021; and Wellcome Global Monitor 2018: How does the world feel about science and health? London: Wellcome, 2019.

Plain-language summary, not legal advice. The licence text is what binds.

06Where it is used

Around the site

Where these numbers appear on this site, and the datasets nearest to it.

07Questions

Trust in Scientists: questions and answers

What is the Trust in Scientists?

This is the share of people who say they trust the scientists in their own country 'a lot', from the Wellcome Global Monitor — a survey of about a thousand people in each country carried out by Gallup for the Wellcome Trust in 2018 and again in 2020. It is the widest cross-country measure of public trust in science.

Which years of the Trust in Scientists can I download?

All 2, from 2018 to 2020, each as a CSV file, or every year together in one CSV.

Does Wellcome Trust rank countries on it?

No, and this site does not order it either. The files hold values only.

Can I use it commercially?

Yes, under CC BY 4.0, with credit to Wellcome Trust. The licence text is linked on this page.

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