Comics : a tool for science communication?

Are science comics a relevant tool to disseminate science? May science communication and education use efficiently comics as a mean, a tool, a media? It seems like it is worth a try. Enjoy the research work of M. Tatalovic.

The new EU guide

The European Commission has now published a brand new guide for EU  research project participants to properly communicate about EU Research & Innovation. 

Here it is : 

Source: ec.europa.eu

Designing science culture city partnerships

The PLACES project aims to define and set up cities of scientific culture. To do so, it requires to meet some local agreement at city levels which involve different types of actors. They were all represented at the 2nd PLACES conference, held in Tartu, Estonia. Let’s listen to their impressions about the conference, and hear about the connection between the conference and their local expectations.

Local Policy Makers. They are the “city” persons, and contribute a lot in making possible cities of scientific culture. Here are some impressions of two of them. 

Listen to the interview of Jon Rea from Nottingham City Council (UK)

Listen to the interview of Martin Price Chair of the Birmingham Science city (UK) (to be uploaded)

Science centres. 

Listen to the interview of Nathalie Caplet from Bordeaux science centre Cap Sciences (France)

Universities

Litsen to the interview of Bart Van Den Laar from Groningen University (The Netherlands)

Litsen to the interview of Ulrike Reinmann, from the European University Association (Belgium)

Companies

Litsen to the interview of Ari Huczkovski, CEO of Otaniemi Marketing Ltd (Finland)

Science communication researchers

Litsen to the interview of Gemma Revuelta, from the Science communication observatory (Spain)

Engaging with multi-stakeholders

At the 2nd PLACES conference in Tartu, Estonia, Bob Bloomfield from the Natural History Museum in London, made a great presentation about science engagement through multi-stakeholders programs.

Here you can find : the presentation

 

And here is an interview you can listen by Gayané Adourian about engagement

In this interview, Bob Bloomfield highlights a IHDC project for Integrated Inhabitats Design Competition. You can learn more about it right here 

Does responsible innovation really MATTER?

Hilary Sutcliffe made a very good impression this morning in Tartu, Estonia, at the 2nd PLACES conference. She is director of the project MATTER that she presented through its main topic : what she calls “responsible innovation”. I have to say she made a really lively and amazing presentation!

Here you can find : her presentation and here is a blog post by Emma Wadland about the main points during her presentation : 

Here is an audio interview by Gayane Adourian about what it is responsible research to Hilary Sutcliffe, co-creation and cogitation

Here is video interview by Emma Wadland of Hilary Sutcliffe answering the question : what would help the project PLACES achieve his goals in the next two years?

Finally, I believe this report should be of interest for all of you researchers and innovators. Some really good points are made about responsible research. Should become every researcher’s bible in a perfect world!

Here it is : 

PLACES Conference #2 : Sharing Experience

Tartu, Estonia. From the 10th to the 12th of October 2012, the city of Tartu holds the second conference of the European funded project PLACES. This project aims to gather together : science communicators, scientists but also policy makers, private sector representatives and local stakeholders to ultimately design the European City of Scientific Culture.

For this 2nd year, the PLACES conference will be all about sharing each other experiences.

If you are concerned by science communication in general, and that you can’t make it, we are all EU citizens, but Europe is big, please read more here or listen to interview of Antonio Gomes Da Costa who coordinates the project. 

In addition, you can follow the live-tweet here under the hashtag #placesproject

Source: openplaces.eu

Linking water research to policy & industry

At JHC2012, I also attended to a talk about the FP7 STREAM project which aims to :

“reduce the gap between research on water, policy making and industry by bringing together actors from these three most relevant stakeholders in knowledge exchange dedicated events but also through target knowledge sharing experiences such as e-learning addressed especially to researchers and industry/SME”

Part of the declined objectives is therefore to improve the dissemination of results of water-related research among all stakeholders and to facilitate their uptake, just like the video above.

Here is an interview of Tugce Tagmat from the STREAM project

Source: stream-project.eu

Training researchers to reach the media

#JHC2012. Again someone interesting I have met at the Journée Hubert Curien in Nancy, gathering science communication professionals and researchers. Michela Pichereddu works for minerva communication and in particuliar for the MAITRE FP7 project.

Maitre from European Journalism Centre on Vimeo.

The MAITRE FP7 project aims to make citizens aware of the current innovations and discoveries in the food research “the key element is for researchers to learn how to get their messages through the media, in a way that is understandable to the larger public.” Researchers are therofore trained to better communicate about their work. 

To learn more about this project, listen to the interview right below