Recommendations for "Science Communication and Chains of Mediation"

7. Foster Context-sensitive Science Communication

Actions for RPOs & Institutional Support officers

  • Facilitate science communication in diverse spaces and invite society into the spaces of science, ensuring the inclusion of communities and groups across both social and geographical contexts
  • Increase the breadth and diversity of science communication and communicators, to be representative of the diversity of society.
  • Insist on broad communication of science and facilitate the availability and discoverability of science

Actions for Mediators

  • Work to enhance the communicative value and reach of communication by curating research without relying on jargon
  • Be mindful that individual attitudes and perceptions of science are key for the reception of and interaction with science communication and work to bridge divides based on values and attitudes
  • Tailor efforts to specific audiences and take care to target communities both proximate and distant to science using their preferred information channels

Actions for Researchers

  • Be aware that the aspects of research that are most salient for science and society are not necessarily the same and be willing to engage with questions and concerns that arise from public debate.
  • Engage with the public in their preferred spaces, to learn, understand and frame communication in ways that will be accessible and attractive to audiences

Actions for RFOs, National Policymakers, and the European Commission

  • Be attentive to science communication as a societally impactful outcome of research and facilitate and incentivise these activities
  • Support the establishment and maintenance of science communication spaces and organisations and emphasise the importance of both deliberation and dissemination
  • Push to increase diversity in science communication and science communication audiences in terms of individuals, venues, and formats
  • Ensure that the results of research are available to broader society and relevant stakeholders in a format they find useful
  • Work cross-institutionally to facilitate cooperation of science communication, education, and science debates

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