In 2008, the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA) and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) collaborated on shaping a research agenda related to public and science surveys in South Africa.1 The first step in shaping the agenda was to conduct a scoping exercise by reviewing the Public and Science field, both internationally and in South Africa. The review culminated in the report, Science and the publics: a review of public understanding of science studies (Reddy, Juan, Gastrow and Bantwini, 2009).2 The starting point for our Public and Science Survey Review was that South Africa is a highly diverse country with a diverse population, hence there are many publics. The research in past surveys has provided information related to a single public. In order to interpret the meaning of the measurement statistics it is important to provide a comprehensive description of the diversity that exists i.e. the different publics. We recognized that a single ‘national’ statistic in a highly stratified society like South Africa could be misleading, and that disaggregated statistics by particular demographic groupings would provide a more nuanced and meaningful description for the different publics.