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Carolina Moreno-Castro
University of Valencia
CONCISE coordinator

In the evolving landscape of science communication, the book How Citizens View Science Communication: Pathways to Knowledge emerges as a critical examination of the dynamic relationship between the public and the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Published by Routledge, this book stands out for its insightful analysis based on the European CONCISE (Communication Role on Perception and Beliefs of EU Citizens about Science) results, aimed to unravel the complexities of how science communication was perceived and interacted with by citizens across Europe.

The CONCISE project, which the European Commission funded, sought to identify effective science communication by exploring the public’s trust, engagement, and understanding of science. Through public consultations held in five European countries—Spain, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Slovakia—the project gathered diverse perspectives on science communication, selecting four topics debated on health and environmental issues.

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CONCISE held the project’s closing seminar titled “Path of trust for better science communication” last Friday, January 22. This online event was followed by almost one hundred people from all across Europe.

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The four Spanish partners of the international CONCISE team (ScienceFlows-UVEG, the Spanish Association for Scientific Communication, UPF Studies Centre on Science, Communication and Society and FyG Consultores) presented the main conclusions of the project in an online activity on January 14. The event, attended by 126 people, took place virtually and was aimed at science communicators, healthcare workers, research personnel, as well as members of public institutions. Several researchers from the CONCISE project presented the main recommendations that have been drawn from the results of citizen consultations, as well as the conclusions of the study carried out in parallel on the impediments and incentives for the professional practice of scientific communication in Europe.

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This post is the continuation of previous Part I and Part II.

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This post is the continuation of previous Part I.

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The CONCISE consortium needed a year to analyse the citizens’ speeches deriving from the five CONCISE public consultations. On the one side, we carried out a quantitative analysis based on a lexical-metric approach, and a qualitative research based on a more classical methodological approach. On the other, we analysed the discourses of the citizen consultations focusing on the social aspects of communication and the ways participants used language to achieve specific effects (e.g. to build trust, to create doubt, to evoke emotions, consent or dissent). After coding the transcripts, we analysed the speeches for both levels of the studies. Each form of content analysis responded to specific purposes, following particular procedures and relying on specified software, which we will describe below.

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On November 18th, CONCISE hosted a European Policy Dialogue on science communication, where the consortium presented project findings and recommendations to improve science communication in front of policymakers and relevant stakeholders. The event took place online and brought together 157 people.

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CONCISE has published the book that includes the process of organising the citizen consultations that took place between September and November 2019 in Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Portugal. The consultations had the aim of listening what are citizens’ beliefs and attitudes towards science, what information channels they use to get scientific information and what influences their opinions and decisions about science.

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As seen in a previous post, the public consultations included a couple of quantitative activities after the discussion of each topic where citizens had to fill in a very short questionnaire. Activities were either focused on general environmental/health issues (Italy, Spain) or on the specific topic of climate change/vaccines (Portugal, Poland, Slovakia).
After addressing the use and trust in sources in the previous instalment, this post will present the results about channels of communication through which citizens access scientific information, in particular digital media and analogical ones.

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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. (mais…)

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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. (mais…)

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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? (mais…)

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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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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.
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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! (mais…)

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.

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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.
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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). 

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