Project description
Communicating science is just as important as science
Effective science communication is key to boosting interaction among scientists, communicators, citizens and policymakers. The question is how science is communicated: the growth of digitalisation and social media, and the challenges faced by traditional media, are continuously changing the communication of science and the relationships among its actors, including citizens. The EU-funded project, QUEST, studies the landscape and the dynamics of science communication today, investigating three main strands – journalism, social media and museums – with the aim of designing quality indicators and tools to support it. The project will strengthen a multidisciplinary science communication community by testing best practices and proposing innovative ways to engage with science, particularly when dealing with major societal challenges, such as climate change, vaccines and Artificial Intelligence.
Objective
Science Communication (SciCom) plays a key role in addressing today’s societal challenges. To be effective, it must be conceived as multi-directional communication, involving scientists, policy-makers, journalists, other communications actors and citizens. On one side, scientists produce research results but are not always equipped to communicate efficiently to the public and to policy-makers. On the other, journalists and other communications actors act as the interface between science, citizens and other audiences, although they may face challenges in fully comprehending the scientific message. Citizens will have a varied perception of the information received but limited knowledge and tools impeding a qualitative assessment. The variety of means of communication existing today makes communications faster and easier, but that increases the complexity of these interactions and the challenge to communicate “sound” science. We also need to consider that much of today SciCom passes through the digital sphere, as the advent of digitalization has changed the way in which information flows and opinions are shaped, also regarding science. Social media are one of the key representatives of these modern means of communication, deserving a special focus. In this context, the challenge faced by SciCom is in finding effective, non-hierarchical ways to exchange these diverse forms of knowledge, by making SciCom stakeholders interact in a constructive way through the different media. QUEST aims at facing this challenge with a multi-step approach that will: (1) understand the dynamics of today SciCom (2) design tools to evaluate SciCom quality (3) experiment best practices and proposing innovative ways for SciCom (4) promote SciCom training (5) build an engaging SciCom community. The focus will be on (a) journalism (b) Social media (c) Museums, recognized as having the highest impact in this context. Climate change, Vaccines and Artificial Intelligence are used as case studies.
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
30100 VENEZIA
Italy