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
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!
Artists + Scientists = Innovation
KiiCS is a project funded under the European Commission (Science in Society programme) which started in 2012. One of its prime aims is to “incubate” art, science and technology through multidisciplinary actions.
Artists and scientists are brought together to produce new innovative ideas, providing the evidence of the positive impact of art and science interaction on creativity and innovation.
To lean more, I encourage you to check out the very well designed website. To enter into more details, you can also listen to Valentina Montalto that I had the chance to interview, she is in charge of the communication of the KiiCS project.
Source: kiics.eu
EU Badbuzz : “Science it’s a girl thing!”
Brussels, 21 June 2012, European Commission press release announces the launch of the so-called “Science : it’s a girl thing” campaign, aiming to attract young women to scientific careers. Watch the highly controversial trailer-video.
Although intentions of the EU are good, boost and balance presence of women in labs (Have a look on EU Commission graph, fore instance women are underepresented in PhDs), the trailer campaign was considered an offense, insulting women and scientists at once. The schocking video was very fast and widely badbuzzing all around social media.
The European Commission wanted this video to go viral, I think the goal was achieved, maybe not in the right way though. Many people responded to this video, widely claimed a sexist, stereotyped, stupid, insulting video.
Here are some tweets picked up and storified by by Maryn McKenna for instance which witness how bad the feedbacks are. Just like here too in CBC News Community storify as well about the same topic. Here for French readers is a very good storify by Marine Soichot who seems to be very pissed.
In addition, read yourself media coverage of the outrage by Wired UK, the Telegraph, Nature, The Washington Post, New Stateman, The Huffington Post UK…
At least, so that this all viral thing was not for all nothing, please go and check out the youtube channel campaign. The controversial video was of course erased. Here are however some videos which show some real women in real science. Let’s hope the sexist video was only a desperate attempt to attract attention on real topic. I really hope so. And still!
Let’s finish this post with the reaction in video of the Astronomer Dr Meghan Gray, giving her view on the all “Science it’s a girl thing” gate. An d yet, make no mistakes, she is a girl AND a scientist!
Dissemination and Science comics
SOA4All is a research project funded by the European Commission which deals with the “Future of Internet”. To get to know more about this project, watch the video. I hope it inspires you. As you can see, educational animation video can be a very successful way to tell to a wide audience what your research is about.
SOA4All in the Future Internet of Services (par semantictechnology)
Source: youtube.com
Dissemination & EU Commission Guidelines
Before applying to a FP7 call, no one should ignore the European Guidelines in communication and dissemination of research results. And yet, when you look at some FP7 projet material, you might feel like some researchers are not totally aware they should be more properly communicating about their findings…
There exists an all range of guides published by the European Commission about science communication and dissemination. Please find here some of them.
I believe the most interesting booklets, webpages, tips presentations are here, as they are practical. Even though most of them were published a couple of years ago (don’t go into details with social media), I am sure there are alreading plenty of good advices for the science communication layman.
- Here is a guide which is not focused on which tasks should be implemented to accomplish successful communication, but more into the reasons behind why ressearch project’s results should be disseminated, why the policy makers are a relevant target group. This guide is also Social and Humanities oriented.
- Here is a EC webpage devoted to science communication. I suggest to have a look, essential to read for those who are not sure what the European Commission expects from you.
- Here is the “Communicating Science : A scientist’s survival kit” booklet. Please read it, if you do not have much time, and you are still concerned by what good science communication and dissemination should be in your project.
- Here is a powerpoint presentation “Communiating EU research”, made by the EC Research DG Communication Unit, which is very fast to read, which sums the most essential tips en guideline to follow. A very good work here. Should you read only on guide, read this one :
