Sci Connect Logo

Science communication and
media skills training

  • Home
  • Why Us
  • Courses
  • Our Consultants
  • Why Bother
  • News
  • Links
  • Contact Us
« Cheerleader or watchdog? The purpose of science journalism
Competition time: Spot the hidden jargon »

Can outreach make you a better scientist?

Driven by his passion for sharing science with the public, Michael Faraday (pictured left) set up an annual series of Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution in London back in 1825. Faraday was a nineteenth century proponent of what we now call “outreach”: sharing his research with people outside his field of expertise. More than 180 years later, the lectures are still going.

But although most funding agencies and research institutions recognise the value of engaging the public about scientific research, performing outreach is often regarded as an add-on to a scientist’s day job, rather than an integral part of it. Worse, scientists who communicate their work to the media or the public sometimes encounter the view that these activities somehow make them second-class researchers, or that they are wasting valuable research time.

Does it have to be this way? Should more scientists be doing outreach, not just because it perfoms a valuable public service, but also because it could benefit them as scientists? Or do scientists simply have too much to do already? Should they simply focus on doing good science, and nothing else? We’ll be exploring these questions at a workshop that SciConnect is hosting at the Euroscience Open Forum 2012 (ESOF 2012) in Dublin this week. The workshop will explore whether engaging wider audiences should be part and parcel of doing science, and whether scientists who do so not only improve their career prospects, but can also enrich their research, increase its impact, and boost their ability to collaborate and innovate.

SciConnect directors Claire Ainsworth and Jon Copley will be speaking: Claire will be offering some tips on how to share research effectively with non-specialists, while Jon will talk about his experiences engaging wider audiences with his research as a full-time academic. They will be joined by Lena Raditsch, Head of Communications at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) who will give an institutional perspective, while Helen Goulding, director of Quercus Training, will talk about the transferable skills researchers can develop through outreach and how this can help them in their research careers.

If you’re at ESOF 2012, please come and join us! If not, and you’d like to know more, we’ll be tweeting from our workshop, so please follow us (@SciConnect) on Twitter. We’ll also post some updates on our blog about the workshop’s content, so watch this space.

Our ESOF 2012 workshop takes place on Thursday 12th July at 16:00; please see here for more details - http://bit.ly/PIfeGo

Tags: ESOF 2012, Impact, outreach

Tweet

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2012 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Public engagement, SciConnect News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Logging In...

Profile cancel

Sign in with Twitter Sign in with Facebook
or

Not published

  • 1 Reply
  • 0 Comments
  • 0 Tweets
  • 0 Facebook
  • 0 Pingbacks
Last reply was February 18, 2013
  1. @beastiet
    View February 18, 2013

    RT @SFriedScientist Can outreach make you a better scientist? Great article by @expeditionlog http://t.co/meZe0dnM…

    Reply

Why Us?

Courses

Our trainers are professional experts who work day to day in the areas they teach. Why Choose SciConnect.

  • RSS Feed
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Join us on Facebook
  • Recent posts

    • Science in schools: creeping, not leaping, ahead
    • Women in Science and the Media
    • Unlikely Jargon
    • Science outreach: what the Twitterverse said
    • Can outreach make you a better scientist? (part 2)
  • Categories

  • Tweets


  • Search

  • Tags

    A-level ABSW audience Brian Cox communication communication skills dumbing down engagement ESOF 2012 GCSE Impact investigative journalism media outreach presentation Public engagement public lecture REF researcher Research Excellence Framework schools schools outreach science science communication science journalism statistics training transferable skills TV UKCSJ university women in science
 
Copyright © SciConnect
Site by Giant Peach