Center for Science Communication Beyond Marketing and PR

News | Editors

April 12, 2023 | Money, enthusiasm and effort are wasted in Dutch science communication. This increases the risk of society and science drifting apart and mutual trust diminishing. The National Center of Expertise for Science and Society (NEWS) must change that. However, the center should not become too independent, believes the minister.

Commissioned by the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Ionica Smeets (University of Leiden) and Alex Verkade (Directive Body SIA) wrote a review for a new science communication center. The quartermasters come to the conclusion that there is still much to do and formulate concrete proposals.

Too often still marketing and PR

At the institutional level, science communication is regularly equated with corporate communication, public relations, marketing or student recruitment, depending on the quartermasters. This form of communication quickly talks about good results, addressing potential students or stakeholders as appropriate target groups. Listening to the knowledge of non-scientists, paying attention to the process and method of science, and communicating with people further away from science is sometimes less obvious, Scouts say.

Science communication is also not sufficiently recognized and valued by scientists as part of their scientific work, and is sometimes even implicitly considered a hobby. As a result, science communication becomes a hobby that depends on self-motivation and the ability to do something more and more from work. However, not all scientists have this opportunity, say Smeets and Verkade. An additional problem is the lack of recognition of the professional expertise needed to carry out science communication.

Conversations with very critical citizens

Trust in science is declining, Smeets and Verkade conclude from the conversations they have had. “In conversations with very critical citizens and a member of the Forum for Democracy, it emerges that it is not science as such that they distrust. On the contrary: all the interlocutors feel the champions of a pure and independent science”, write the quartermasters.

“Their distrust, which is certainly there, is of political parties and others outside science that would threaten the independence of science. They fear that partisan science communication will obscure the honest story of science and that only stories that fit a certain political aisle will reach citizens.

Fraud and conflict of interest reports also undermine trust in science. The quartermasters see it as a science communication task. “It is impossible to communicate scientifically against fraud, conflicts of interest, abuse of power and other integrity issues. At the same time, science communication can help show that this kind of excess is not representative of science as a whole.

Trust and reciprocity

There is a great deal of reciprocity in trust, according to the quartermaster. Today, the majority of science communication activities are still one-way. If we want to work on mutual trust, we need more interaction and engage more often in fair dialogue.

The National Center of Expertise for Science and Society (NEWS) must achieve this and strengthen the existing and future field as a catalyst. NEWS will do this by ensuring that existing knowledge on science communication is shared and used, connecting science communication practitioners with experts, and improving the preconditions to stimulate good science communication.

Reflect and stimulate

Quartermasters also signal what the center will not do. For example, it will not organize or finance scientific communication activities specifically aimed at citizens, will not become a training center and will not carry out research in communication. There are enough other parties in the field performing these tasks; the National Center of Expertise for Science and Society should not compete with these parties, or so it is thought.

As a second unequivocal conclusion, the quartermasters write that the center must become an independent organization. This guarantees independence from biased interests and is the only way to ensure broad support across the whole field, they believe.

critical friends

A strong director and a team with diversified skills are crucial for the success of the Center National d’Expertise Science & Société. In addition, the center will have a board of directors with strong support and stature, as well as a steering group in which knowledge actors are represented.

The minister said in a response that he wanted to guard against too much independence. “I approve of the importance of independence, but I also want to ensure that the center becomes too detached from the pitch and therefore may lack impact and future prospects. So I want to find a good balance between commitment of the field with many partial interests and an independent positioning to achieve the overriding objectives.