We need to foster trust in social scienceThese insights are not new. But unfortunately they run against the grain of current systems and incentives for academic impact, which focus on identifying outcomes produced by individual research groups or pieces of research.This means that social scientists are not sufficiently recognised or rewarded by their institutions or research communities for media engagement, relationship-building, or for joining up and communicating bodies of research (beyond their own). This implies the need for a rethink of how we value and reward engagement: we need to adjust models and incentives to encourage practices that foster trust in social science.