Hello all
Andy makes a good poing but I'm afraid I don't know much about the portal, but I thought I'd pipe up about (my experiences of) medical research charity science communication.
Medical research charities (1) - newly funded research, and telling people about what you're funding
Some / many / most / all medical research charities want to highlight what they've spent their (your) money on and make it understandable both to people who've paid for it and people who might contribute in future (it's a fundraising tool). Perhaps not every single grant that's funded will have information about it published in a non-specialist-friendly format but there may well be something on file.
Many grant applications, as someone has already mentioned, include the applicant(s)' version of a lay summary - it'll very much depend on the topic and style of writing how much editing will be done on that. So that's the 'new grants'. My experience is with the larger charities who have full-time science communicators (eg 'Research communications officers' etc) who will edit / re-write or write these lay summaries (and perhaps articles for the website or members magazines) in discussions with the scientists. Presumably freelancers might do this too, or someone else in the organisation is co-opted.
Medical research charities (2) - funded research that's been published
For newly published papers there's been a bit of a push, and some workshops, organised by the British Library and Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC), along with other sponsors, to try and help AMRC-member charities in involving charity supporters in the co-writing of non-technical summaries of published papers (work funded by the charity). Patients Participate! has more information on its blog http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/patientsparticipate/
It seems there are bits beyond just the lay summary that might need putting in context - I don't know how easy this is to do. For example you can translate a complex bit of science into something easier to read / comprehend but you may also need to contextualise it, explicitly making clear what conclusions can reasonably be drawn about this type of study (eg was it petri dishes or people, a randomised controlled trial or observational?).
Quite a few people have recently-ish wondered if, when health consumers / patients become more aware of papers that papers are being published by open access means and so more available*, that might change the way in which they're written.
*though not necessarily easy to understand.
Also, from the document linked above "Some charities use lay involvement
to develop their research strategies and to ensure that they fund
research that is responsive to the needs of their members."
Jo
Jo Brodie
On 5 October 2012 08:33, Andrew Russell
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi all
I might have missed the point of this but isn't the interesting bit of the Science for All Action Point the "...via a single web portal" bit?
Thanks
Andy
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Dr. Andrew Russell,
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From: psci-com: on public engagement with science [mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of Neil Stoker
Sent: 2012-October-04 17:22
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [PSCI-COM] Plain English summaries of scientific papers
Dear all
In the Science For All report from 2010, one Action Point was:
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2.3 Provide accessible information on the sciences (including lay research summaries) via a single web portal
- ensure that all scientific research papers with any public interest dimension have a plain English summary giving context and implications, for public and media consumption
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I'm thinking of doing something towards this in my institution, or more broadly, and am looking for information about initiatives, practice, experience, supporting research, and general discussions on this topic.
Any comments or information gratefully received.
Thanks
Neil Stoker.
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