The night before my flight, I couldn’t sleep. Tossing and turning in bed, I tried in vain to quiet my mind and get a few hours before leaving for the airport at the awful hour of 5 am. Normally, my lovely brain simply wakes me up with a jolt of adrenaline in the middle of the night, convinced that I’ve overslept my alarm and missed my flight. But this time, it was different. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to get on the plane.

Flying for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, for a summer school of all things? What if I got exposed in Germany, and had to quarantine, or even got sick in a country where I didn’t speak the language? The summer school had made meticulous preparations and a robust safety plan, but what if? Was I really risking all this for what might be a few days of stiflingly boring lectures and burned coffee? But the flights had been paid for, suitcases packed, and taxis booked, so now was not the time to get cold feet. 

But sleep still eluded me. Turning these questions over in my mind, I reflected on how I ended up here. This summer school wasn’t even related to my work in human genetics, but for science communication. How had I ended up so involved in this topic?

I remembered being a bright-eyed first-year PhD student in Heidelberg five years before, stepping off the tram in Rohrbach and staring up the vine-covered hills at Boxburg, where the autumn-colored trees were hiding the European Molecular Biology Laboratory buildings. I was attending EMBL’s annual PhD student symposium, where I’d hear a talk seventy-two hours later by Russ Hodge, former head of EMBL’s Office of Information and Public Affairs. 

Listening to Russ’ talk in the spacious auditorium, I had the same questions most researchers have when asked or cajoled or pleaded with to get involved in communicating to the public. Why should I care? Scientists have so many hats to wear already, shouldn’t we leave science communication to the professionals? A career in academia is so competitive, why should I waste time communicating to the public while that other grant applicant spends their time getting more data, more results? 

Russ gave a very convincing answer. Being a better communicator didn’t just get you brownie points and transferable skills, it could make you a better scientist. He described a model of science communication he’d developed working with students and researchers as an educator and professional communicator, where he found ‘ghosts’ in their writing- concepts or relationships that are essential in understanding something in the way the writer intends, but which is not actually discussed or articulated in the work. Ghosts were invisible assumptions and models, lurking below and behind the writing but not explicitly mentioned- because, often, the writers themselves don’t even realize they hold these assumptions. 

The best way to exorcise ghosts? Communication. By communicating about your work, and then getting stuck in a misunderstanding, you can identify ghosts. And identifying this unsaid, underlying concept or assumption doesn’t just expose a problem in your communication, it’s often a profound reflection about the scientific thinking going into the work. By exposing the hidden underlying structure and justifying it, you can make your thinking about the work more rigorous. It’s not that good thinking leads to good writing, it’s that good writing leads to good thinking. 

Anyway, I was convinced. As soon as I stepped foot in my institute back home, I asked around if anyone was interested in getting involved in science communication. The FIMM Communication Club quickly snowballed into something bigger, as excited young scientists across the Helsinki metropolitan area connected, planned, and created- eventually resulting in the organization hosting this very blog (how meta).

And now here I was, sleepless before my flight to the International Summer School: Communicating Science, second-guessing my decisions. Would it be burned coffee and stale lectures? Or worth the risk I was taking?

Five key lessons from the International Summer School: Communicating Science

In the first twenty-four hours at the green and airy Hotel Rossi in Berlin, it did seem like a huge mistake- but not because the food or the lectures were bad. Both the food and the content of the summer school were excellent- but I’d forgotten what it’s like to socialize after over a year of almost exclusively enjoying the company of one other person. Socializing with strangers. Fifty talkative, excited, gregarious strangers. I’d never felt so Finnish in my life. 

Thankfully my California-trained socialization skills finally kicked back online somewhere in the middle of the first day, and I was able to plug in and get involved without getting too overwhelmed. And what a summer school to get involved in- the content and speakers were top-notch, the format engaging and impactful, and the organizers and participants great (more on how we still keep in touch at the end). 

While I feel I could write a whole book about everything I learned and the fantastic people I met, for the sake of brevity I’ll summarize the five key lessons I learned here.

1. Let’s focus on the methods, processes, and values of research- not just the results.

Science communication often focuses just on the results of research, the ‘facts’ we get from the scientific process. But what about when a new study overturns previous knowledge? If scientists got it wrong before, how can we trust this new fact is really a fact?

Communicating authentically about the methods, processes, and values of research is about increasing trust. By explaining not just the facts, but how we come to those conclusions, we can help those outside science understand something pretty important: research and science is a human, social enterprise, with all the flaws and idiosyncrasies of all human endeavors. And yet, it’s still one of the best ways of finding out how the world around us really is. 

And communicating in a personal way how you yourself do your work can also help increase trust in science and research- as said by Kai Kupferschmidt, a science journalist and speaker at the summer school, “People don’t trust ideas, they trust other people”.

2. Science communication practitioners and SciComm researchers need to… communicate better!

Ok, so, let’s say I’ve sold you on the idea that science communication is important, can make you a better scientist, and you should start doing SciComm. How do you know that what you create is actually going to make an impact? Or will it just be screaming into the void of the endless content on the internet?

Turns out there’s a whole field of research trying to answer these very questions. Ironically, the communication between SciComm practitioners and the field of science communication research is not that great. We apply rigorous standards and best practices to our own scientific work, so why not do the same with science communication? By applying knowledge, tools, and techniques from the field of SciComm research, we can be more efficient in getting impact from our efforts at science communication.

3. Who’s your audience? Have you even thought about it?

Speaking of impact- what is the goal of any particular piece of science communication? Usually that depends on the audience, and who you want to reach. Most of the time we rather lazily just call this a “general audience”, meaning everyone who isn’t a scientist or researcher. But it turns out there just isn’t such a thing as a general audience- modern media landscapes have fragmented people into segments, like moms who follow FaceBook for news, young men who follow YouTube stars, and retirees who watch cable news. You aren’t going to reach all these people, so who are you really aiming for?

When you’re working on a piece of science communication, ask yourself: who is this for? What do I want them to know? How can I make it interesting, relevant, and entertaining for that group of people? By thinking about these questions carefully, you can plan your time better and cut through the white noise of content on the internet and create something that is useful for a particular group of people.

4. What kind of audiences are we not reaching? And how can we solve it?

In that media landscape of fragmented audiences, there are certainly segments that aren’t reached by science communication. If we agree that the fruits of research are something that should be shared with everyone, how can we reach more diverse audiences? 

One answer could be to have more diverse science communicators. By having a plethora of backgrounds, experiences, and native languages, we have a better chance of understanding what is relevant, interesting, and entertaining for different audience segments we’re trying to reach- and how to make a better impact with those audiences.

5. What’s in a name? ’Science communication’ vs ‘research communication’

The words “Science Communication” and “SciComm” are just starting to be recognized by the research community- but the word “Science” in there has the unfortunate effect of making researchers in social sciences, humanities, and other non-STEM research areas feel like it’s not for them.

As much as we can’t go back in time and get “Research Communication” to be the popular, recognized term, we’re trying here at The Science Basement to use the terms science and research interchangeably. We’re happy to work with you whether you work on molecules, the economy, or obscure 17th century literature!

Declaration on the Future of Science Communication

In all, the best part of the summer school wasn’t just the content, but how participatory it was. We didn’t just passively take in information; in the last three days of August summer heat and rain at Hotel Rossi we actually created something. In seven interdisciplinary working groups, we wrote a Declaration on the Future of Science Communication, detailing our hopes, opportunities for and obstacles to science communication in Europe and across the world. 

It was such an impactful experience for the participants, that when it was over we decided to just…not stop. We’re currently in the process of creating the International Society for the Advancement of Science Communication, to build on the ideas and network we created during the summer school. Be sure to look out for more from this group- if anything, we’re just getting started.

REFERENCES

The International Summer School: Communicating Science was organized by Wissenschaft im Dialog in partnership with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. 

Read more about the Declaration on the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation website here: https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/explore/newsroom/press-releases/declaration-on-the-future-of-science-communication

Find the declaration hosted on the Wissenschaft im Dialog website: https://www.wissenschaft-im-dialog.de/projekte/international-summer-school/declaration/

And read more about Russ Hodge and his model of ghosts in science communication here: https://goodsciencewriting.com/ghosts-models-and-meaning/