The intrinsic virtues of innovation are recognizable. Not so its marketing attribution to initiatives, projects and companies labeled as innovative. It is up to perception to arbitrate, or it can be a good indicator. The communication agency Edelman has included innovation in its 2024 trust barometer and has concluded that the index in Spain has risen two points in twelve months, but still remains at 46%, the same as in the US. USA and one point less than in Germany. That is to say, the balance leans slightly towards the side of distrust.
As a general premise, Edelman's annual barometer considers that the key to acceptance of any phenomenon or institution is trust, a criterion that forms tandem with the quality of its management. When presenting the 2024 edition, the co-general director of Edelman in Spain, Lucía Carballeda, stressed that companies are the institution that arouses the most trust, above rulers and journalists.
In the global x-ray, perhaps it is surprising that China leads the ranking for another year, despite dropping the percentage by four points (from 83 to 79). At the bottom – and this is less surprising after Brexit – is the United Kingdom, with 39% confidence. If the sectors are analyzed by confidence in their innovative capacity, the most cited is health, with 69%. In the section of distrust, two classics stand out: banking and social networks. However, we must not confuse the trust that a sector deserves with trust in its innovations. It happens with technologies: the media noise around artificial intelligence could be counterproductive and provokes more doubts than enthusiasm, according to the 2024 barometer (with responses from 2023).
In this, as in other fields, the 24th edition of the barometer attempts to identify which groups enjoy the most trust: companies or governments. In the innovation chapter, more is expected from the former (55%) than from the latter (37%) while the media does not fare well, in penultimate position (38%).
Adjusting the focus, when looking at companies, CEOs are the figure that produces the most distrust; only political leaders fare worse. Something curious is that, generically, the highest managerial scale only deserves a trust of 39%, but whoever occupies that position in the respondent's company ("my CEO" in the study's terminology) rises to 59%.
It is easy to explain why scientists receive a high score: 84%. 51% of those interviewed consider that science is very politicized and the proportion of those who think that there is too much political influence in the actions of the scientific community reaches up to 61%. 43% of those surveyed in the 26 countries believe that innovation is poorly managed, compared to 22% who think the opposite. This average global perception agrees that innovation is evolving rapidly, which only less than a third values positively. In light of the cocktail of responses, Edelman concludes that public-private collaboration is essential for half of those interviewed, which is a substantial change compared to 2015, when only 28% thought this way.
