The Dispatch
Communicating science
How science communicators and universities can work together to make science a shared experience.
By Julie Hoeflinger
I arrived at the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition in London and was mildly surprised to see that the line extended well outside the door. It was Sunday July 7th, the sixth and final day of the exhibition, the sun was shining, and there were people of all ages waiting anxiously to get inside. Having not looked into any of the stalls and workshops ahead of time, I stepped into what felt like a childhood science fiction book.
The building was buzzing with people wearing virtual reality (VR) sets and kids trying on portable brain scanners, moving a ball with their brain activity alone. There was a giant reflective moon made of stainless steel surrounded by fingers gliding over its many craters. I saw a neon green laser beam in a dark glass case eliciting a “woahhh” every few seconds along with enlarged, spectacularly high-quality photos of outer space from the James Webb Space Telescope. For those wanting a quieter display of science, there were also several seated presentations a day given by various speakers.
With 14 exhibits and more than 300 scientists who were visibly excited to talk to people about their research, there was truly something for everyone.
"Having that physical interaction… just engaging all the senses as much as possible and making it tangible can kind of [allow people] to get an understanding of what is going on, especially when we're dealing with kind of abstract concepts."
"It’s always about the story… Most of the time, if you include that human touch, you can really help overcome the barrier that perhaps many people have when talking about science."
I speak with Dr Daan Arroo and Dr Ryan Bower, who have an exhibit called “Engineering Atom by Atom”. Dr Arroo and Dr Bower are both postdoctoral research associates at Imperial College London and are on the Nanoscale Advanced Materials Engineering (NAME) EPSRC Programme Grant, an international research team that does research nanoengineering – or the science of creating materials at an atomic scale. Dr Aroo explains that the glowing green light was coming from an ion implantation tool that fires ions into a material, altering its properties by replacing one atom at a time.
Their stand has a VR experience that allows people to “become the size of an atom”. They also showcase other devices and materials the team has made in collaboration with partner institutions, such as the world’s purest silicon, which can be used in future quantum computers. Another component of their stand is a workshop giving kids the opportunity to design their own nanomaterial experiment and watch it come to life on a giant light cube simulation.
Figuring out an engaging yet digestible way to communicate their research was essential, and luckily, the team had some training from the Royal Society on how to best involve people. “I think trying to make it quite hands on was something we decided quite early on rather than it just being information going from us to the public,” Dr Arroo explains. “Across ages, people do have that sense of curiosity, whereas if they feel like there's an information overload, I think that tends to turn people off.
Dr Bower adds, “Having that physical interaction… just engaging all the senses as much as possible and making it tangible can kind of [allow people] to get an understanding of what is going on, especially when we're dealing with kind of abstract concepts.”
Perhaps simply reading jargon like “nanoparticles” or “quantum computers” on a white board might be enough to turn a lot of people away. In order to form a connection between subject matter that most of us are isolated from, visuals and interaction were at the center of their exhibition, making the science more accessible.
“There were really positive reactions from members of the public,” Dr Bower recalls. “I remember there was one child who got to the end [of designing an experiment], and then was like, ‘Can I go again?’ So, seeing that excitement [was really great].”
What about science that doesn’t glow in the dark?
While VR and laser beams are immediately exciting to most people, research in other subjects doesn’t always have the same inherent appeal. How do you get the public excited about something otherwise mundane – like batteries?
Dr Heather Au, a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering ran a make-your-own-battery-workshop with her colleagues Dr Maria Crespo Ribadeneyra and Dr Marina Freitag. Dr Au tells QS Insights Magazine about the importance of sharing her research, which was on developing sustainable batteries, with the public.
“[We wanted to] give people a taste of the processes that we use in the lab, the materials that we're making, and how we go about testing them. We were thinking of how to do a demonstration, and it's actually quite difficult to make a rechargeable battery,” Dr Au explains. They ultimately used materials found in fruits and vegetables as electrodes that would go on to power an LED light.
“It's good to get people involved and have [them] understand the full implications of the technologies they use every day. Because in the end, taking batteries as the example, we use them for everything,” Dr Au shares. “I think it is important that people do know where these things are coming from and what the consequences are of these technologies, whether that's on the environment or society.”
When asked about the challenges of sharing her research, Dr Au responds, “You have to make [people] understand why something is relevant to them. In the end, if you can't make somebody care about what you're doing, whether they understand it or not, then they're probably not going to put in the effort to try to understand it.”
These science festivals are just one of many events hosted by universities and science institutions across the world that aim to get the public involved with their research in a fun, relaxed way.
Good science communication is just as important as good science
The first person to say that science could be of benefit to society was Sir Francis Bacon in his manuscript New Organon published in the early 1600s. He suggested that science’s ability to better understand the nature of reality could result in an improved quality of life, using the rationale that “human knowledge and human power come to the same thing”. Several other science philosophers from that point on would champion this idea, from Paul Feyerabend to Paulo Freire, and some even went as far as to say that the public should be involved in science, as opposed to scientific knowledge remaining exclusively among scientists.
And they were right: “Science is a shared experience,” wrote Nature in a 2022 editorial on ending racism in science. In fact, science is a human right as established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Science is a telling of the story of reality as we know it given our current tools, knowledge, and practices. It’s a perpetual opportunity to imagine a better world, so long as we’re using those tools correctly.
We all know what can ensue when science is poorly practiced or poorly communicated: Chernobyl, COVID-19 and the ongoing climate crisis all come to mind. Not only are scientists and government officials to blame for some of these disasters, but reporters, too, play a role in in the spread of misinformation.
Considering the rampant dissemination of pseudoscience in an increasingly online modern world, universities and scientific societies play a paramount role in serving as a source of credibility. This responsibility has become more crucial than ever with the surplus of information available on the internet today, often containing countless conflicting conclusions that leave the public confused and weary. It’s all too easy for someone who lacks proper training to misinterpret findings, overlook the nuance of a subject, and make unfounded claims with the quick click of a “post” button for millions to see. It happens nearly every single day on social media. In fact, a number of viral TikTok “challenge” videos have led to mass hospitalisations by making spurious health claims.
Communicating science, however, still has its difficulties even when that communication is coming from an institution like a university. Scientists undergo years of training to acquire highly specialised knowledge and a highly specialised lexicon. Communications and public relations teams within universities are a really great tool that shouldn’t be underestimated, but even then, there lingers a small gap. The barrier is not that science is “too difficult” for anyone to understand; the biggest barrier is language.
That’s where science communicators come in. Translators of sorts, they bridge the gap between people with science backgrounds and those without. Having an education in both science and communications, science communicators use their knowledge from both fields to try to minimise the barrier between the two.
Science communicators can work with scientists to transform highly technical research papers into digestible media that is engaging for people who are not experts of the subject matter. Giuseppe Forestiere is one such science communicator who specialises in creating animated videos about sustainability and environmental sciences.
“It’s always about the story,” explains Forestiere. “You want to be accurate, but you want to try to turn [the science] into a story because stories are what draw humans to what you're sharing; they want to feel and to empathise with the story, as well…. Most of the time, if you include that human touch, you can really help overcome the barrier that perhaps many people have when talking about science.”
Forestiere describes the impact of using animation as a tool for communicating science to a lay audience. “Most of the time I work with academics and universities, which have, I would say, a very straight approach to the way they want to be precise, of course, in [how] the science is presented. It has to be precise. But on the other hand, it needs to be appealing for people who have no knowledge at all about some topics. I saw that the power of visuals could really help.”
Science is for everyone
One of the best ways that universities and science institutions can get the public involved in current research is through dialogue, which is exactly what happens at science festivals like the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition. Such events allow people from diverse backgrounds to come together to exchange ideas and incorporate unique perspectives that place science into both local and global contexts with the help of science communicators. And they’re just pretty darn cool.
Science isn’t perfect: it’s inherently flawed and full of limitations. And maybe learning about a new neural pathway involved in the pathological mechanisms of a disease you’ve never heard of won’t necessarily alter the course of your life.
But curiosity and interest aside, there’s an urgent need for more than scientists to come together to tackle pressing global matters like climate change and the safe development of new technologies. We need human solutions to human issues, and the more people who bring in different perspectives to science, the better off the world would be. Universities, long serving as a voice of scientific authority, hold the unique position of being able to nurture this discourse in a productive way. That responsibility can be best realised by continuing to take creative, interactive approaches to welcoming the public into the wonderful, shared world of science.