Building Bridges 14-15 April 1999

Well, I have received two offers of pints for the first part of my write-up
of the Edinburgh conference (sadly collectable in Australia and Austria).
Here is the rest of my text, submitted in the hope of winning a couple more
closer to home.

Friday Afternoon. Society and Science
===
Mark Dyball (departing from OST) and Suzanne King (departing from Wellcome).

This was a second presentation of the OST/Wellcome Trust report on public
attitudes to science. See my email of 21 March 2000 (or email me if you
weren't a member of psci-com then).
The major development since the March meeting is a change of names for two
of the publics:
OLD NAME	NEW NAME
Politicos 	Politically aware
Technophiles	Technophiles
Supporters	Supporters
Concerned	Concerned
Socially Excluded	Don't Care
Not For Me	Not For Me

Dyball again emphasised that the crisis is in the governance of science, not
science itself. "Mechanisms need to bet set up to make [the public's]
opinions have some weight.
===
Friday Afternoon. Scientists and Society
There were three sessions:
1) The changing climate of research
2) When scientists become sources of expertise and advice
3) Scientists reflect on science
I attended the last of these, can anyone offer notes on the others?

===
Brian Wynne, Lancaster. Scientists reflect on science.

This was a very interesting session based on Economic and Social Research
Council funded research. Its intention is to examine the science-society
relationship through the perspectives of scientists themselves,
concentrating on environmental scientists.

There is a heterogeneity of scientists that have different affiliations,
ways of working and ideas about the relationship of science and society. The
notion of a scientific community is not meaningful for young scientists.
Many of the pressures on scientists as a whole mean that they are becoming
more alike but not necessarily a community.

Older scientists have seen big changes:
* increased competition for funding
* increased competition with peers
* blurring of academic/government/industry distinctions
* sense of community more fractured
* accountability is moving from knowledge to financial accountability.

Younger scientists
* different breed
* more competitive, faster pace
* more flexible
* no sense of community

The frequently seen gender differences also appeared in this study. Women
scientists:
* are better at making and maintaining relationships with clients and
funders consultancy type relationships
* are better at articulating concerns about uncertainty in knowledge easily
* generally bring to work a strong personal sense of responsibility
* make strong connections between research and research-relevance to
society.
Younger women are more confident in the new world.

===
Saturday Morning. Science Communication Strategies for the Future
Mapping Science Communication. Dyball and King (resurrected)

This is part of a trilogy of studies:
1) Public attitudes (see above)
2) Scientists' attitudes (to be published in the Autumn)
3) Mapping of science communication activity.

The survey was conducted by Research International and you may have been
included in it. It will be published next month. It looked at the supply
side of science communication and was not a comprehensive survey.
There were long and unstructured arguments about the mapping presented.
One of the most interesting points was made by Rebecca Crawford. She argued
that this study, and most public understanding of science work, has ignored
the whole area of core skills and competencies for children. The science
education community is working on these, the public understanding community
is not. These are two distinct communities that sometimes talk at a local
level but do not communicate at a national level. This point was also made
earlier by Lord Jenkin when he argued that the new COPUS should embrace
science education. (It would also be a useful topic to pick up on this
list.)

===
Saturday Morning. What Does it All Mean?
Peter Briggs and Jill Nelson.

"The House of Lords Report and the OST/Wellcome Trust surveys will only make
an impact if the science communication communities take them seriously. In
this session, we take a look at what they might mean for one organisation -
the British Association"

That was the promise in the programme brochure. It was not delivered.

Peter Briggs began the session with an overview of what the British
Association did and said:
"The House of Lords report is going to be a landmark document. It is saying
things that we all now believe in the right way at the right time."

And that was it. No discussion of what the Jenkins report or the survey
means for the BA. Instead, we were dismissed into break-out groups to
discuss how the survey's six publics (above) could be integrated into
Science Week (missing the point that Science Week is probably the wrong
vehicle for some of them anyway.) The groups were very interesting but
Science Week is not the BA.

So, the opportunity to discuss how the British Association is going to move
from the c-world (communication) to the d-world (dialogue) was abandoned
before it started. This is an important topic for most of those who had
trekked to Edinburgh. The BA is the church of science communicators and its
congregation deserves better treatment from its leaders. Our time was wasted
and, if I had known in advance, I could spent the session more usefully
engaged in the public understanding bunker.

===
Alas, I had to fly back early afternoon and missed the Historical Awareness
and Open Plenary sessions. Can anyone contribute notes on them?

Andy Boddington




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