Science is not a luxury; it is the engine that drives our daily lives forward A call to action from scientific director Guillén Fernández, directeur Wetenschap

Science deserves to be celebrated. We should become more aware of how deeply science is woven into our everyday lives. A call to action from scientific director Guillén Fernández.

This weekend, the Netherlands celebrates science. During the Weekend of Science, institutes and laboratories will open their doors to demonstrate how knowledge impacts our daily lives. In times of doubt, overwhelming information, and growing distrust, this weekend serves as a reminder that science is good news. Sometimes it is big and spectacular, but more often it is quiet. It is slow progress that grows step by step from research and ultimately impacts our health.

Take a step back, and you’ll see how significant this progress truly is. On average, we live ten years longer than the previous generation, and we increasingly spend those extra years in good health. Research on aging shows that today's seventy-year-olds function cognitively like fifty-year-olds did twenty years ago.

Even diseases that still deeply affect us, like cancer, are changing. People still receive life-altering cancer diagnoses every day, and patients still die from the disease. However, since the early 1990s, the likelihood of dying from cancer has decreased substantially. Early detection, new medications, and immunotherapies have extended millions of lives. Consider leukemia, for example. In the Netherlands, the risk of a child dying from it has dropped by nearly ninety percent since the 1970s. Thanks to the HPV vaccine, cervical cancer among young women has decreased by ninety percent in some countries. What was once a story of fear is increasingly becoming a story of progress and hope.

Here at Radboud university medical center in Nijmegen, we work hard every day to drive this progress. Our researchers are developing promising AI technology that detects tumors earlier, providing patients with faster clarity. By unraveling diseases at the molecular level, we discover therapies that better match each patient's needs. With new models that simulate disease processes, we discover treatments that can be directly applied in clinical settings. However, there is still much to be done. Progress in persistent diseases is slow and requires perseverance. This is only possible with continued support for research that is independent of political choices and limited budgets. With this support, we can help more people live longer, healthier lives.

Does everyone see science as good news, and is there no cause for concern? Certainly not. Trust in science is under pressure, and fake news, misinformation, and fraudulent science pose real challenges. That’s precisely why we must continue to tell the other side of the story. Not to cover up criticism, but to bring balance. The quiet progress in treatment, health, and life expectancy deserves as much attention as the critical voices.

Let this Weekend of Science be a call to make our collective progress more visible. Science gains strength when we highlight not only the problems, but also the positive developments. Science gains strength when researchers explain their work in plain language and when people notice that science is all around them. They notice it in the care they receive, the medicines that work, and the technology that makes their lives easier. Science is not a luxury; it is the engine that drives our daily lives forward. We should say that more often and louder—it's good news, after all.

More information on the Weekend of Science.

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