Under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, combined with the connotation of the times and practical requirements of the science popularization in China, and according to the principle of “law and law cohesion”, the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology needs to be further revised and improved from three aspects: legislative basis, effectiveness of content, and legal responsibility. In terms of legislative basis, we should follow the theory of “legal rank”, closely connect the superior law, and strive to realize that the legal basis and factual basis for the revision of the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology is accurate and strict. In the aspect of effectiveness of content, it is necessary to reasonably connect with relevant science and technology laws, education laws, communication laws and social laws, and the effectiveness of the applicable laws should be divided and accurately. As for legal responsibility, we use appropriate legislative technology to align the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology highly with the Law on Administrative Penalty, Civil Code, and Criminal Law. Only by ensuring that the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology and other relevant laws are profoundly coordinated, organically unified, and have complementary functions, can we fully play its guarantee role and leading value in the development of science popularization in China.

Science popularization social collaboration has brought new ideas to the science popularization development path. This paper systematically describes the subject, mechanism and “translation” process of science popularization, analyzes the shackles of laws and regulations when subjects of science popularization carry out collaborative science popularization work, and proposes ideas of revising the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology, by clarifying the subjects’ responsibility of science popularization, sharing science popularization resources, and carrying out science popularization evaluation.

Law on Popularization of Science and Technology should take into account its dual attributes of “soft law” and “hard law”, “incentive law” and “regulatory law”. The responsibility of science popularization is not only a social responsibility but also a legal one. The revision of Law on Popularization of Science and Technology should complete the legislative task of materializing the legal system of promoting and protecting the national interests, public interests as well as individual rights and interests related to science popularization. Simultaneously, establishing specific rules and guidelines for evaluating science popularization activities with standardized governance of science popularization is essential to carry out “soft law” attribute.

In the new era, understanding scientists’ science popularization responsibility from the perspective of science popularization and rule of law and how to effectively practice science popularization responsibility in the scientific community has attracted more and more attention from the scientific community, and the government and even the whole society. This paper summarizes the concept and characteristics of science popularization responsibility of scientific community, traces the emergence and evolution of science popularization responsibility of the scientific community in history, constructs the system and connotation of science popularization responsibility of the scientific community, studies and judges the situation and challenges faced by science popularization of the scientific community under the background of science popularization rule of law in the new era, and puts forward relevant suggestions on strengthening the construction of science popularization responsibility of the scientific community.

Emergency science popularization is an essential work of emergency management, the subject of emergency science popularization mainly includes the government, scientist, and media agency. At present, there are some problems such as inaccurate information, untimely communication and non-standard management in the work of emergency science popularization, which are related to unclear definition of emergency science popularization responsibility. From the legal perspective, it is mainly due to fuzzy division of legal responsibility, improper responsibility engagement, and unstrict responsibility supervision. Strengthening official emergency science popularization should define the responsibility of the government, the scientist and the media agency with emergency governance authority, the right of content production, and the responsibility of information transmission. Under the legal framework for constructing a tripartite cooperation mechanism, it is suggested to complete the system of responsibility identification, responsibility supervision, responsibility recogonization and responsibility relief to provide necessary legal support for emergency science popularization activities.

Under the background of new media, significant changes have taken place in the subjects, channels and models of science popularization, which brings about vigor and vitality into science popularization work, and raises new problems in communication practice. With the opportunity of the revision of the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology, it is of great significance to study the new development of science popularization brought about by new media based on the principle of “adhering to problem-oriented”, and to discuss how to ensure healthy development through the improvement of law revision. Under the background of new media, this paper studies and analyzes the development trend and emerging problems of core elements such as channels, creative subjects and dissemination modes of science popularization. On this basis, the paper provides a top-level design of the legal guarantee system for new media science popularization and makes specific suggestions on the encouragement and restraint measures of science popularization for the related creative subjects.

Legislative push with innovative characteristics around national legislation is an important work for the popularization of science and technology, which leads to improving the working mechanism, building the ecosystem and strengthening the rule of law. Based on combing the local legislation all over the country and the field investigation, the main problems existing in the implementation of the law are found out, and the paper attempts to analyze not only the overall trend and development space of local legislation but also the inventive countermeasures to supplement and refine the superior law. After that, the local legislation of Guangdong Province is taken as an example for empirical research, and its innovations, highlights and values is fully explored. Finally, this paper puts forward the beneficial experience and institutional path of promoting the breakthrough and development of local legislation in a new era, based on the national deployments and requirements, such as the “Two-Wings Theory” and the “comprehensive strategy on science popularization”. It provides scientific and practical references for the central and local to promote the legislative works.

In the new era, China’s science popularization work has entered a new stage of development. In order to deepen the reform of science popularization comprehensively, it is necessary to provide an institutional guarantee for a “science and technology popularization law” that meets the requirements of the new era. Although Korea, Japan, the United States and the European Union have no special laws on science popularization, they have mature experience promoting popularizing science according to relevant legal systems. From a comparative perspective and China’s national conditions of science popularization, the revision of Law on Popularization of Science and Technology should adopt an inclusive model to integrate social science and natural science. In terms of the target position, the national innovation strategy is taken as a new goal, and the active scientific quality factors such as digital literacy and information literacy that reflect citizens are added. From the perspective of paradigm transformation, we should construct the adjustment of promoting legislative structure and give full play to the useful function of association for science and technology in collaborative science popularization.

This study adopts the literature research method to systematically sort out and summarize the literature related to the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology from the aspects of the implement countermeasures, problems existing in the implementation, social value, and achieved concrete results of the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology, in order to have a deep understanding of the implementation of the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology, and to clarify the impact of the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology on the development of science popularization in China. With the development of the times and the emergence of new situations, the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology gradually shows its lag. Its amendment has become a hot topic of research in recent years. This paper analyzes the literature related to the amendment of the law and clarifies the necessity of the amendment of the Law on Popularization of Science and Technology and how to amend the law. On this basis, it points out the prospect of future research.