Blog

In August, members of the CONCISE team participated in the EASST/4S conference by presenting three papers. It was supposed to take place in Prague but due to the present circumstances it was entirely online. It was organised by the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology and by the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), who every four years hold a joint conference. Over 20 simultaneous panels at three/four time slots occurred in each of its four days, the conference covers a wide array of issues in science and technology studies. From biosciences to data sciences, from climate change to health, from innovation to science policy.

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Dear followers of the Concise project, we have some great news to share with you!

Recently we have finished the qualitative analysis of all five public consultations, which is bringing the Concise project into its final stages. This feat would have been impossible without the vigorous work of the national teams from Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and Portugal. Seem like an easy task, you say? This post will try to show you in more detail the massive amount of work put into analysis.

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The CONCISE Project proposes solutions to foster science communication among different actors. The team of the Science, Communication and Society Studies Centre of the Pompeu Fabra University (CCS-UPF) have leaded the constitution of a database of inspiring practices on engaging scientists and communicators with science communication.

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The methods used by CONCISE at the public consultations were mostly of a qualitative nature. Nevertheless, after each topic discussion (climate change, vaccines, and GMO), participants filled short quantitative questionnaires.

We present the results of the questionnaires that focused on environmental and health issues, focusing on the most frequent and trustworthy sources of information. These questionnaires were administered right after the discussions about climate change and vaccines. Even though in some countries the questionnaire mentioned directly these topics and in others just environment or health, it is reasonable to assume that participants had specific topics at the forefront of their minds.

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A recent EC publication on Science Communication shows the achievements in Horizon 2020 and recommendations on the way forward

“Science communication informs citizens about science and innovation, opens up R&I to society and facilitates citizens’ participation in activities and debate. In order for the public to be on board for solutions to the challenges our society faces, there is a need to build trust through clear and effective communication”, is stated in the report.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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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?
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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.
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