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Research interests 
Warren’s research is engaged with ‘science in public’: how science is organised, presented and reported by government, experts and media. His research is currently located within three areas:

1. How is science used by publics and policymakers?

Starting from his PhD work on climate policy, Warren has a long-standing interest in how science, and other types of evidence, is put to use in the pursuit of the ‘public good’. He has worked with a wide range of collaborators to interrogate the many public faces of climate change, including , , , and (IPCC). Warren led , an Environmental Communication article challenging the centrality of consensus in public-facing climate communication programmes. The article is in the journal’s top 10-most read articles of all time and prompted an . 

Beyond climate change, Warren has researched a wide range of scientific controversies including , , , , and . In 2022, he co-edited a book with colleagues in iHuman, Being Human During Covid-19, which distilled cutting-edge academic thinking on the pandemic into short chapters aimed at a broader public audience. 

Warren’s research in this area is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council as part of an international project investigating why governments in the UK, Germany and Australia do not follow their own ethical advice in times of crisis. The research focuses on how issues become ‘ethical’ in public discourse, including on social media, and how ethics advice is used by policymakers. 

2. How are digital platforms changing expertise?

Digital platforms such as search engines and social media have disrupted established hierarchies of knowledge and communication, facilitating fast and frictionless access to a seemingly infinite supply of knowledge and expertise. This has led to increasing concerns regarding public exposure to misinformation on topics such as climate change and Covid-19, prompting a huge volume of research defending against such content, such as debunking methods, but relatively little on where, why and how experts are building trust with publics on social media platforms. 

Warren’s research addresses this gap, with a particular focus on how a new generation of experts are harnessing social media platforms to curate and communicate both scientifically verified and ‘lay’ knowledge, and what this means for the future production and consumption of expertise in digital societies. Previously he has focused on climate change, with highly cited research on , the , and what . In a project supported by the , Warren’s research in this theme has expanded to cover new issues, studying TikTok as a site for the circulation of evidence related to three policy controversies: monkeypox, low traffic neighbourhoods and gene editing. 

3. What role do images play in online science communication?

As the technical capabilities of digital platforms increase, so images and visuals play an ever-increasing role in online communication. In this area of work, Warren has worked with a cross-disciplinary range of experts on and, with Carlo De Gaetano, produced a range of posters on climate change visuals which combine empirical research, digital methods ‘recipes’ and innovative data visualisations. Warren and Carlo developed this research further with an exploration of how , an area that is being expanded upon in a new cross-country comparative project on the .  

This work is being developed within , a three-year interdisciplinary project supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, investigating how cultural forms model climate change. Warren’s work on the project, in conjunction with Yuting Yao  and  (University of Cologne) focuses on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram to show how images and texts work together to articulate ethics and values, moving between ostensibly neutral climate facts (‘models of’) and normative social values (‘models for’).