Science Communication

The Science & Society research group leads international science communication research projects as well as teaching undergraduate and postgraduate modules on science communication. This alignment of research and teaching enables the research group to contribute to the field of science communication in areas such as investigating activism (Roche & Davis, 2017), evaluating public events (Roche et al., 2019), and assessing teaching practice (Roche et al., 2021).

Science communication influences how citizens engage with the scientific challenges and solutions facing society (Delaney & Tornasi, 2020), which has resulted in the European Commission investing €10 million in eight international science communication research projects. The Science & Society research group is leading one of these projects (GlobalSCAPE) and is a partner on another (QUEST).

GlobalSCAPE

The Science & Society research group is coordinating GlobalSCAPE, a European Commission-funded study of the global state of science communication. GlobalSCAPE will contribute to a more comprehensive picture of science communication by focusing on science communication professionals working in non-Western countries and in regions where science communication can be challenging or under-valued. GlobalSCAPE was ranked first out of 26 proposals submitted to the European Commission’s science communication funding call in 2020, due to a “comparative analysis of European and non-European, western and non-western approaches to science communication, which constitutes a substantial novelty in the field.” GlobalSCAPE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101006436.

QUEST

The Science & Society research group is also a partner on the European Commission-funded project QUEST: questproject.eu. The QUEST research project focuses on defining quality in science communication as well as developing measures and supports for improving effectiveness in dialogue between science and wider publics. The Science & Society research group contributed to investigating the landscape of European science communication (Davies et al., 2021), developing indicators of quality in science communication (Olesk et al., 2021), and creating guides and toolkits for science communicators (Mannino et al., 2021). In particular, the Science & Society research group established a museum writing group to co-create an academic writing handbook for museum communicators. A paper describing the handbook and its goal of supporting museum professionals in taking ownership of how their field is portrayed in the published literature can be found in the journal of Museum Management and Curatorship (Roche et al., 2021).

QUEST has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 824634.

Publications

1. Roche, J., & Davis, N. (2017). Should the science communication community play a role in political activism? JCOM: Journal of Science Communication16(01), L01, 1-4.
2. Roche, J., Fairfield, J. A., Gallagher, Á., & Bell, L. (2019). Bright Club: Establishing a Science Comedy Variety Night in Ireland. Science Communication,42(1), 130-140.
3. Davies, S. R., Franks, S., Roche, J., Schmidt, A. L., Wells, R., & Zollo, F. (2021). The landscape of European science communication, JCOM: Journal of Science Communication, 20(03), A01, 1-19.
4. Roche, J., Barber, G. L., Batlle, M., Bell, L., Hulm, E. M., Lynch, E., Martin, I., McDwyer, E., McLoone, F., Mu, M., Neenan, E. E., & Ryan, C. (2021). Academic writing in museums, Museum Management and Curatorship, 1-6.
5. Roche, J., Bell, L., Martin, I., McLoone, F., Mathieson A., & Sommer, F. (2021). Science Communication Through STEAM: Professional Development and Flipped Classrooms in the Digital Age, Science Communication, 43(6), 805-813.

Sponsors

• European Commission Horizon 2020 - GlobalSCAPE (Grant agreement no. 101006436) and QUEST (Grant agreement no. 824634)
  
  
• Higher Education Authority and Trinity Global Engagement Office (Developing mobility opportunities for modules linked to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals)