Hi Vivienne,
To answer your question directly, the Wellcome Trust expects all of our
major research groups to engage with the public about their work and
will offer support and advice to help them achieve this; blogging,
tweeting and other social media would definitely be welcomed as means of
doing this by the Trust - especially where these provide a provocation
and platform for exchange and discussion with people of research,
research life and the implications of the work we fund. We feel that
communication and engagement can too often be stereotyped as one medium,
or form, i.e. science shows or radio appearances, leading to the usual
smirk about 'colleagues whom you really wouldn't want out there doing
this'; we do believe there is a form of engagement, or activity in
support of engagement (consulting on exhibitions, TV productions, PE
grants) for every researcher out there, and reflective chronicling of a
research project on a blog may well prove to be many researchers' forte,
as opposed to enthusing a classroom of students once a month or so.
All Wellcome Trust grant applicants supply a 250 word summary of their
public engagement plans for the duration of the grant. We use this
information to target our support and opportunities, and to broker links
with public engagement and science communication professionals - it is
not currently a funding criterion - except where funds specifically for
engagement are in question - but it does provide an 'in' for science
communication and engagement professionals wanting to develop
collaborations with Wellcome researchers. This stems from 1) Our view
that coercion is in fact death to effective engagement, but that
requiring people to reflect on and explain what they're going to do in
this area, and how, does engender awareness and openness to/in
discussion with ourselves, their institutions or others about how to
meet these expectations. 2) People's contexts are so variable; some of
our public health researchers are de facto community engagers, and
engagement is integral to the success of their research
project/inextricable from the core funds, whilst the engagement context
and aim for a protein structure researcher might be to explain her,
potentially non-obvious, place in advancing our knowledge of human
biology and/or sharing the beauty of the structures with school
students, to enthuse the next Max Perutz. One is the grant, the other is
something we'd whole-heartedly support - but you're welcome to suggest
how our funding panels might score grants across disciplines fairly,
allowing of course for our funding panel members being completely
independent!
In our eyes, it would be both unnatural and counterproductive for our
researchers not to talk with people about their work and results,
widely, openly and effectively. As others have pointed out, the attitude
towards engagement is shifting - through the efforts of superb
professionals on the ground at HEIs and research institutes, and also
through the steers being given by funders through the Concordat and the
evolution of our individual statements, policies and activities. This
isn't quite a generational thing; it will take time, however engagement
and communication is now a 'given', as something to be addressed amongst
PIs, and as something to enjoy and excel in by increasing numbers of
researchers across the spectrum. The challenge is, as ever, how to
foster those coffee-queue conversations between the right people and
support quality engagement or communication coming out of them. Coming
full circle and perhaps stating the obvious, I suspect blogging,
tweeting etc will be a powerful catalyst in this process.
Hope this helps and happy to discuss further.
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Vivienne Raper
Sent: 08 December 2010 13:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PSCI-COM] Science blogging and scientific outreach
Hi,
I'm trying to find out which - if any - grant funding bodies in the UK
and US ask scientists to explain in grant applications how they plan to
communicate their research results to the public, decision-makers, etc.
If any funding bodies require grant-holding scientists to do outreach,
does anyone know if blogging about your research would fulfil this
requirement?
It's for an article about science blogging and academic careers. I want
to know if communicating your research is increasingly seen as a duty
for scientists and, if so, whether this might make blogging a career
positive.
I was going to ring all the UK Research Councils, but thought it would
be quicker to ask. And I might get some intelligent discussion about
scientists blogging too! Please don't shout at me - I'm scared I look
like I'm spamming the list.
Best wishes,
Viviene
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