Citizens identified social anxieties, including fake news and cyberattacks, and concerns over health issues related to legislative conflicts as the national challenges they feel are more serious than last year.
On the 25th, the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI) published a report titled '2025 National Challenge Public Awareness Survey Analysis and Implications,' containing these findings.
STEPI defines a national challenge as 'a national challenge that significantly affects citizens' lives' and conducted a survey with 105 experts and 1,000 general citizens to select the top 10 national challenges.
The survey results indicate that the changing population structure was identified as the most urgent national challenge for the second consecutive year. Social anxiety ranked second, having risen four places from fifth last year, indicating the area with the most significant change in public perception.
The third challenge was regional imbalance, including the crisis of population extinction, followed by livelihood insecurity due to housing and price instability. Notably, the threat to public health from legislative conflicts and new infectious diseases made its debut in the rankings at fifth place. Additionally, the geopolitical crisis recorded an increase of two places from last year, ranking eighth.
Meanwhile, a survey conducted among 29 young people about their feelings towards each challenge revealed a tendency to feel 'powerlessness' regarding population structure changes and livelihood insecurity, while they were more likely to feel 'anger' towards social anxiety.
The report noted, 'Policies from the perspective of national challenges should start from a thorough understanding of the public, emphasizing the need for citizen-centered policy innovation that values public empathy and participation.' It further suggested, 'We need to move beyond viewing citizens merely as targets for policy publicity and understand them as participants in policy-making.'