COALESCE had a momentous 2023. We launched our project to co-create – with you! – the European Competence Centre for Science Communication, and took our first key steps in achieving this objective. We would like, first, to thank all of you who have registered to join our Community of Practice. Don’t worry if you haven’t yet – our doors remain metaphorically open, so sign up today.
One of our highlights last year was our first public co-creation event, held in Granada in October under the aegis of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the European Year of Skills. Find out more about that event further down in this issue.
This month, we’ll be hosting our first COALESCE Clinic, in the form of an online workshop for informal science communicators on the subject of the climate emergency, on 21 February (Wednesday) between 16:00 and 17:00 CET (UTC+01). You have until tomorrow to express your interest to participate in the workshop.
Also this month, we’ll be launching our podcast, with the first season looking at opportunities and challenges for science communication in the age of AI. And if you are still not following us on social media, find us on Twitter/X and LinkedIn and remedy that.
Once again, welcome to your COALESCE newsletter!
– Joana, Jason and Rosa
The COALESCE Co-ordination Team
Researchers and research funders across Europe recognise the value of science communication. But while there have been changes to how researchers report on their research’s impact and outcomes, there hasn’t been a huge shift in reporting their communication activities. Funders vary in their requirements for researchers to engage diverse publics with their work. The COALESCE coordination team – Jason Pridmore (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Joana Magalhães and Rosa Arias (both Science for Change) – visited Brussels in October 2023 to speak with funders from across Europe on the matter and raise awareness of COALESCE’s goals.
The team met with representatives from Science Europe (which represents a number of organisations including national funding bodies), the European Research Council, the European Science-Media Hub and the Joint Research Council as well as staff members of European Parliamentarians. They discussed the importance of science communication and explored the possibility of improving requirements for science communication with a view towards making it mandatory in the coming years.
“Part of the goal,” reflects Jason Pridmore, “is that science communication becomes a normal part of the funding process, making it a core part of publicly funded research. It’s not that everyone should be doing science communication individually but the mentality around team science does require that certain members of the team are.”
The rich diversity of science-communication activities, projects and networks across Europe also presents a challenge: it can get a bit overwhelming, feeling disorganised and not unified. “There is no ‘one place’ that directs you,” notes Pridmore. “It would be helpful if there was a space with some recognised quality and recognised opportunities for science-communication training.”
COALESCE is building the European Competence Centre for Science Communication. But we cannot do this in isolation. In particular, it is vital that we understand the specific needs of the many actors on the science-communication stage, from institutional communicators to science journalists to informal communicators and press officers.
Towards this end, COALESCE held its first public co-creation workshop in October 2023, in Granada, under the aegis of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the European Years of Skills, and on the eve of the Congress on Social Communication of Science. The Congress is held every two years, bringing together researchers and science communicators from across Iberia and Latin-America.
Around 30 participants – including professional science communicators at research centres and universities, science-communication researchers, science journalists and those working at science museums – attended the event, at the Zaidín Experimental Station. Most were in Granada to attend the Congress, but some travelled all the way from Eastern Europe specifically for the COALESCE workshop, and in particular to contribute to the development of the network of national and regional hubs that COALESCE will establish. Over two hours, COALESCE partners and the participants discussed their varying needs and how the Competence Centre might fulfil them.
“There are lots of expectations and wonderful ideas although we are also conscious about our resources as a project,” adds Joana Magalhães, who was involved in organising the workshop, “but there was a good match between their expectations and needs and what we have set out to build.”
Participants were excited about the proposed match-making tool, to bring communicators and journalists together with subject experts in academia. They were also keen to learn about the challenges presented to their professions with advances in AI technology, and sought training on how best to use new tools now available to them.
The success of this first workshop has set the stage for future co-creation events COALESCE will organise in 2024 and beyond.
One of COALESCE’s sister projects is ENJOI, which in the past three years worked to foster engagement, openness and innovation in science communication and journalism in Europe. The project’s Final Event was held on 16 and 17 November2023, at the Palazzo Pepoli in Bologna. Journalists and practitioners from different countries, backgrounds and experiences gathered to discuss ENJOI’s results and the new frontiers of innovation in science communication and journalism.
Coordinated by the Italian science-communication agency formicablu, ENJOI created an Observatory for Outstanding Open Science Communication. The ENJOI Observatory will be part of the future European Competence Centre for Science Communication, with a specific focus on science journalism.
Blueprints for Science communication
The blueprints – from COALESCE’s sister project NEWSERA – are the results of a process co-created together with 39 citizen-science projects, invited stakeholders and science-communication experts, during the CitSciComm Labs.
Science communication beyond tomorrow II – European Commission “A wide range of insights and perspectives will be shared, such as discovering valuable lessons from our audiences, harnessing the potential of marketing campaigns, identifying critical competences at the science policy interface, and exploring the impact of emerging tools like AI on science communication.”
Date(s) 📅: 5 March 2024
Location 📍: ONLINE only
Language(s) 🗣: English
Attendance 🧾: Free of charge, no registration required
High Level Conference on Science Communication – Science Europe “The event will bring together European policy makers and stakeholders to highlight the importance of open, ethical science communication in research processes, and raise awareness of the need to address science communication more formally in research programmes.”
Date(s) 📅: 12–13 March 2024
Location 📍: Brussels, Belgium + ONLINE
Language(s) 🗣: English
Attendance 🧾: Free of charge, only online participation now available
International Journalism Festival “The International Journalism Festival (IJF), is a cultural event dedicated to journalism, which takes place in Perugia, annually, in the month of April. It takes the form of a program of meetings, debates, interviews, book presentations, exhibitions and workshops, which bring together the world of journalism, media, communication and culture.”
Date(s) 📅: 17–21 April 2024
:Location 📍: Perugia, Italy
Language(s) 🗣: English + Italian
Attendance 🧾: Free of charge, online streaming available
EUSEA conference “You’ll have the opportunity to engage with like-minded professionals from all over Europe and beyond. Together we’ll exchange best practices, and explore innovative approaches to science engagement.”
Date(s) 📅: 15–16 May 2024
Location 📍: Tblisi, Georgia
Language(s) 🗣 English
Attendance 🧾: Different fees for EUSEA members, non-members, students
ECSITE conference “Professionals directly involved with the public; people who shape the programming at science centres and museums; exhibitions developers, directors of education, CEOs and Managing Directors, university students, professors and researchers; managers and coordinators of ground-breaking EU and global projects; and senior-level managers of the world’s leading science engagement institutions and more are all welcome.”
Date(s) 📅: 5–8 June 2024
Location 📍: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Language(s) 🗣: English
Attendance 🧾: Registration opens on 14 February 2024
SciComm South West Conference 2024 – UWE Bristol “The conference will focus on how we, as a collective, foster a brighter future for the research and practice of science communication… and for society? And how does our regional hub fit within the global picture of science communication, and local, on-the-ground action?”
ESOF 2024
“[ESOF] is one of the most significant international conferences, having an impact on the science and world transformation. During the event, scientists, entrepreneurs, politicians, journalists and inhabitants are going to discuss the latest scientific achievements, the arts and their impact on society.”
EUPRIO “At the EUPRIO conference, all units of the communication departments in Higher Education learn about the state of the art internationally. In internal or external communication, in social media, in crisis communication, in the digital communication or at open doors, in dialogue with the population or with politics, but also in alumni relations or fundraising.”
