Science Out of the Box: Exploring Pathways to Relevance for the Millennial Generation

The National Academy of Sciences’ LabX program came into existence in 2017 with a directive to develop programming meant to engage with a young-adult (18-37 years old) target audience who are active decision-makers and whose actions impact current and future policies. While conducting preliminary research, the LabX staff and advisory board discovered that available research on young adults’ relationship with science was sadly lacking in detail, beyond obvious conclusions about high levels of interest in technology and social experiences.

To fill these knowledge gaps, gain a deeper understanding of the young adult population in the U.S., and identify potential engagement mechanisms, LabX partnered with Slover Linett Audience Research Inc. to design and implement a national survey of the target age group. Undertaken in 2018, the survey investigated the interests, actions, and perceptions of young adults, both in general and in relation to science, to determine how (if at all) science fits, and could fit, in their world.

We’re very pleased to share the results from the survey in this report. The findings point toward several high-potential opportunities for programming that we feel will benefit the entire public science engagement community. There are several intriguing potential threads to pursue, as well as paths to avoid.

LabX intends to use the survey results as a starting point from which to investigate different potential topic areas and experiment with approaches to engagement. Consistent with achieving LabX’s vision of “a world in which young adults actively use the relevant products and processes of science to inform their problem solving and decision making,” we have decided to focus our efforts on the moderate science affinity group identified by the survey as our target audience. We hope that all organizations are similarly able to utilize the information contained within this report for their own purposes.

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