Blog

Science communication continues to develop and change, as a discipline, practice and professional career path, with significant growth in both professional practice and academic study.

Changes in the relationships between science and society and its increasing inclusion in official discourses have opened new opportunities for dialogue and collaboration. At the same time, this may have produced challenges for the authority of science, which can be openly contested, negotiated and transformed in public arenas. This transformation has been fundamentally intensified by the digitalization of the media landscape. New media have increased the diversity of actors using, sharing and generating science content, their communication practices and the strategies they use. (more…)

Pseudoscience takes its toll and as a result people themselves pose threats to health and the environment worldwide. I read posts on FB and slalom around the news that I find true or false. I observe in practice the simple truth that misinformation “sticks” even when corrected. But what should my role as a scientist be in this context? As a researcher, I was very interested to learn from citizens how they define the role of a scientist and what are the societal expectations the scientists should meet nowadays, in the age of misinformation. (more…)

Months of intense work culminated in December with the first phase of the CONCISE project: the organisation of five citizen consultations in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Poland and Slovakia whose objective was to listen and find out how citizens form their scientific opinions. But what has happened after the 500 citizens shared their points of view on science? (more…)

Exploring the hurdles and incentives of science communication is one of the key objectives of the CONCISE Project. To that aim,  the team of the Science, Communication, and Society Studies Centre of the Pompeu Fabra University (CCS-UPF) interviewed 26 science communication researchers (from 15 countries) and conducted one contrast online workshop with 18 science communication practitioners (journalists, communication officers, science museum directors, etc.) from 16 countries.

(more…)

On September 14, 2019, Observa carried out the Italian citizen consultation at Villa Valmarana ai Nani (Vicenza) with the participation of 93 people (50 male 43 female) from 37 different Italian municipalities.
The ten group tables around which the public consultation was organised produced over 80 hours of recorded audio and almost 600 pages of transcription. The audio transcription underwent a statistical content analysis that amounted to 4.797 turns of speech, resulting in a total of 209.213 words.

(more…)

Due to the pandemic, many conferences the CONCISE team expected to attend have been cancelled, delayed, or moved online. SciComPT, the annual conference of the Portuguese network of science communicators, opted for the latter.
(more…)

We speak with Ana Delicado, Research Fellow Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, about the CONCISE project.

(more…)

We speak with Giuseppe Pellegrini, (Phd Sociology 2004) teacher of Innovation, Technology and Society at the University of Trento, about the CONCISE project.

(more…)

How do citizens keep themselves informed about the most controversial scientific issues? Which sources of information do they choose? A two-year project aims to answer these questions in order to obtain valuable information on communication to the public, to be taken into account for the near future.

(more…)

Last Saturday of September 2019. A sunny and crispy morning starts very busily for the team involved in CONCISE. Everything must be ready by 8:00 AM.

The first invited guests appear in the buildings of the Faculty of Economics and Sociology of the University of Łódź. Some are hesitantly crossing university thresholds: they have never been to this building or even to Łódź before. The younger are looking around interestingly – who knows, maybe in less than two years, they will start studying here?
(more…)

We kicked off in the search of a theoretical framework and methodology to use at our public consultations. Based on the literature and previous experience, we proposed a method and held a pilot citizen consultation in Barcelona in March 2019. 17 Spanish citizens attended, helping us test our approach and learn from the experience. The experience contributed to the development of the final guidelines to be implemented at the five citizen consultations planned for autumn.

(more…)

The last public consultation of the CONCISE project took place on November 16 in Lisbon. 102 citizens from all over the country met in a pleasant room overlooking the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém. The chosen venue was the Belém Cultural Centre, an impressive building of the late 1980s that houses a contemporary art museum, auditoriums, restaurants and shops. Belém is the most western parish of Lisbon, bordered by the river Tagus to the south and the Monsanto forest to the north. A tourist hotspot with some of the best-known views in the city and the most delicious Lisbon pastries, the world-famous custard tarts.

(more…)

September has been an exciting and busy month for the CONCISE Consortium. We have already held two citizen consultations in Italy and Poland, and we could not be happier with the outcome. Having learned some lessons, we are ready to meet Slovak and Spanish citizens this month!

(more…)

Exploring the obstacles and incentives of public science communication is an important part of CONCISE. And to achieve this goal, the team from the “Science, Communication and Society Studies Centre” of the Pompeu Fabra University (CCS-UPF) will interview 30 European-based science communicators in depth.

(more…)

We are finally opening the call for the Consultation that will take place in Spain in October 26. Organised by FyG Consultores, a private SME, and the University of Valencia, the consultation will gather 100 persons to talk about science and communication.
(more…)

The Department of Sociology of Trnava University considered possible options for participants recruitment regarding the public consultation, as well as its organisation. The team has made a collective decision to involve its students in the broadest possible way. In order to find suitable participants for the consultation in Trnava on October 19, meetings with students have been organized. The aim of this meetings is to make students acquainted with the project Concise: its goals and expected results.
(more…)

We seek to engage the participation of 100 citizens in each country, representatives of different social groups, considering gender, age, educational level, ethnic minorities, people with physical impairments, and professional careers.
Citizens don’t need to have any previous knowledge in any of the topics. The main objective of this activity is for citizens to contribute improving the way scientific information arrives to society. We want to know YOUR opinions, questions, doubts and experiences. Therefore, all volunteers are welcome! (more…)

From April 8^th till 15^th 2019, the inhabitants of the Lodz region could move into a magical land of chemical and physical experiments as well as explore the secrets of poetry, theater and art. For the 19^th time the Festival of Science, Technology and Art took place in Łódź. Hundreds of festival events in the form of workshops and lectures, exciting discussions, meetings with extraordinary people, as well as games and competitions attracted thousands of participants. Spectacular interactive presentations, experiments, workshops were visited by students and PhD candidates of Łódź universities and employees of scientific institutions.

(more…)

After several months of preparation, the consortium of the CONCISE project meets on March 21 and 22 at the Studies Centre on Science, Communication and Society of the Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona), to carry out the pilot test that will serve as a working guide for the five consultations that will take place in five European cities throughout 2019.
(more…)

On December 13th and 14th, the kick-off meeting of the European project CONCISE (Communication role on perception and beliefs of EU Citizens about Science) was held at the House of Science from CSIC, in Valencia (Spain). 

(more…)