Science, culture and policy in Portugal: a triangle of changing relationships?

The main objective of this paper is to analyse scientific culture as a new policy issue in Portugal, against the background of recent trends in the area of studies called Public Understanding of Science (PUS). We begin by drawing a brief historical overview of the PUS area, and of the Portuguese case in particular. We proceed to examine the relationships that the public at large, the political institutions and the mass media have maintained with science during the last decades in Portugal. These relationships show a trend from isolation to integration. We conclude that the current situation in Portugal is one of coexistence of contradictory and sometimes paradoxical discourses and practices in what concerns the public of understanding science, science-policy relations and science-public interactions.