Science Communications

As schools let out and the days grow longer and hotter in the Northern Hemisphere, the busy buzz of the summer field season is often punctuated by a flurry of scientific conferences. Conferences are great places to work on your communication, share your science, and connect with new people.

At this year’s AAAS annual meeting, the volume of sessions and workshops about science communications clearly reflected the community’s growing appetite and interest. We’re notably moving past conversations about why scientists need to engage, and into conversations around how we can best support scientists to do so. Research shows that scientists do want to engage, but that they don’t have the time or resources to do it.

John Besley (Michigan State) and Anthony Dudo (University of Texas at Austin) are social scientists interested in the intersection of science, public engagement and communications. Their recent PLOS One paper described how scientists prioritize their communications objectives for public engagement.

On September 29, Rush Holt, the Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and former U.S. Representative, spoke during an interview about the state of science in the U.S., how to communicate science to the public and policymakers, and how scientists and others can engage effectively with policymakers to be better advocates for science. Holt’s main theme, to which he returned repeatedly, was the need to empower the public and policymakers with the idea that they are capable of understanding and evaluating scientific evidence on their own.

Sarah Moffitt recently published two research papers on climate change in ocean systems, both with a significant media splash. On the other side of that experience, she has some hard-won perspective about what worked for her — and what she still needs to practice.

You don’t need to have thousands or even hundreds of connections for social media to pay off for you, and finding your flock will very likely not mean surrounding yourself only with others in your discipline.

There is widespread acceptance among the scientific community that human activities are the primary cause of present day climate change. But, how a changing climate impacts ecosystems is still a source of confusion to the public. Some of this confusion is associated with a lack of clear communication among journalists and scientists, particularly when it comes to addressing variability and uncertainty in ecological datasets.

Expressing perspectives, opinions or even recommendations about the implications of your science can be a bit uncomfortable, even scary. But if you want your science to be relevant and useful, you need to make sure it gets out of pages of peer-reviewed journals and into real-world discussions. Connecting with policymakers and having an ask is one way to do this. Writing an op-ed is another great way to start to get your science, and ideas, into the public discourse.