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.

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 : 

A webdocumentary to communicate science

Rewalk is a webdocumentary which was created to introduce and promote the FP7 project NEWWALK, which developped successfully new therapy for paralysed rate to walk again with repairing their spinal cord.

The webdocumentary is an innovative way to communicate science with a great focus on visual materials. One advantage is one can follow up new findings along the projects ; it gives an insight of researchers works and lives in time.

The different video episods can be shared on social media platforms and circulate by themselves. A partnership with the online version of the famous French newspaper Liberation provided a wide visibility to this specific project. Being innovative can also be an asset to attract journalists attention, and interest!

Here is an interview of Jean-François Desmarcheliers who was in charge of the webdocu.

I really encourage you to produce this type of communication material which have been lately evolving a lot, and should become more and more adapted to communicate science-related topics to different kinds of audience, including laymen. I will probably write more about webdocu and try to share with you a list of the top 10 scientific webdocu.

Source: rewalk.liberation.fr

Between science and “mediascience”

#JHC2012. If there were science communication VIPs or rockstars, Michel Claessens would probably be among them. I had the chance to meet him at the “Journées Hubert Curien” in Nancy, France, gathering researchers and professionals to talk about science communication.

After managing together a research and a freelance science journalist career for ten years, he joined in 1994 the European Commission where his activities revolved around “Science and society” for the General Directorate for Research, including : management of the communication unit, editor of the research*eu magazine, coordinator of the Eurobarometer surveys on science & technology, spokesman of the European Commissioner for research… Now, he is the director of ITER’s communication and outreach. (read more about his career)

Back to my post… Michel Claessens made a great keynote talk about :”What direction for mediascience? Present challenges and future stakes in science communication”. Listen to the interviews to grasp what it was all about.

First M. Claessens made a clear distinction between “science” and “mediascience”

After which, he explained the communication office or ITER nuclear reactor (which is being built and attracting a lot of attention from the media for several reasons) is a great observatory to study public communication of science and technology.

Finally, I could not help asking him about today’s European Commission Science communication. 

InsideScience : renewing sci-citizen dialogue

#JHC2012. Last week, I attended the “Journées Hubert Curien” in Nancy, France. This event gathered researchers, PhDs and professionals from 67 different countries to discuss about science communication. I really enjoyed it and now I want to share with you some of what may be of your interest as well.

The project InsideScience, carried out by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology different departments, sponsored by the German Research Foundation, aims to foster a dialogue between science and society. Indeed, on the one hand, laypeople have only a little understanding of current research and on the other hand researchers often lack skills to share with less educated people than themselves in their field.

Here is an interview of Klaus Rummele who took part in the project, he gives an overview of the project. 

Some scientists performed on stage about their research together with pupils. Several films were realised as well, with animation incrustations while scientists could at the same time learn about new media (workshops in front of a camera and behind the scenes). Films are all available easily, like this one on youtube for instance.

In the end of the presentation that you can find here, Klaus Rummele spent some time describing the results of the evaluation of the communication processes he went trough. Very interesting to measure the impact!

As you can distinguish on the graph, it’s hard to beat the CERN and its Higgs but it’s definitely possible to lead the “visibility-game”. With some innovation, you leave behind other universities. I think it would be even easier to do it in France and in some other EU countries.

Credits :

- Picture : Gilles Grenot

- Graph : it is taken from the presentation of Klaus Rummele that I found publicly available at this address : http://inside-science.forschung.kit.edu/img/cosci_IS_120802_ele.pdf

Here is again a nice animation video of an FP7 project. ACTIVE is a research project which aims to increase productivity of knowledge workers. The video explains how ACTIVE’s solution can reduce information overload, establish effective knowledge management, and improve the overall performance of entreprises.

(video posted on Youtube by Eurescom)

Source: youtube.com

CommNet : communication of Bioeconomy

While being at the European Science Open Forum (#ESOF2012) and touring around from a booth to another in the “Forum” area, I have met Helga Treiber, a great person to talk to when it deals to science communication and European Research. 

Indeed she works at Youris.com which is an “independant non-profit media agency promoting the leading-edge European innovation via TV media and the web.” However, she was not at ESOF to promote youris.com services…

Youris.com is part of a European funded project - CommNet - which provides a variety of services free of charge to enable wider and more effective communication of EU research results related to BioEconomy to the general public and to key target groups including young people, the media, industry and policy makers. Here is a short interview of Helga telling us more about this project. It started early 2012, I am eager to read or watch about some productions within the next two years. I am wondering if there are some other similar projects running related to other fields. Do you know of any like that?

Source: commnet.eu