Let’s rethink the tools for Scicomm evaluation

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Let’s rethink the tools for Scicomm evaluation

Author: Empar Vengut Climent – Institute of Welfare, University of València, Spain

Co-authors:

  • Isabel Mendoza-Poudereux – Institute of Welfare, University of València, Spain
  • Carolina Moreno-Castro – Institute of Welfare, University of València, Spain
  • Ana Serra Perales – Institute of Welfare, University of València, Spain

Science communicators spend a lot of time planning and delivering their activities. Lately, there has been an increased interest in knowing whether their efforts are worthy and if they have an impact. For this reason, different evaluation methods have been developed to assess the success and effectiveness of science communication.

Online metrics and questionnaires are the main evaluation tools for online and social media communication. The number of attendees usually measures the impact of face-to-face activities; and questionnaires and other evaluation methods can also be used to check whether the outputs and outcomes were reached. However, one of the biggest inconveniences of surveys and questionnaires is the lack of time the communicator and the audience have to conduct the evaluation.

In this regard, technology can lend us a hand, especially when evaluating activities addressed to young people. PERSIST_EU consortium created an ICT platform that allows measurement of the change in knowledge, perception, beliefs and trust, among young people, in four of the current scientific hot topics: climate change, vaccines, GMOs and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). This tool has been validated with nearly 500 university students from 5 countries: Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Germany and Spain; and it is available for its free use in six different languages (Italian, Portuguese, Slovak, German, Spanish, Polish and English).

The results of the validation activities were encouraging, and we hope this platform can be also used as the basis for the creation of other customisable tools for the assessment of Scicomm activities. Namely, we think this kind of evaluation could be implemented in mobile apps, already used in conferences and other activities. If we are carrying on scicomm activities, why not involve the audience in their evaluation by acknowledging they are a part of research?

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Insight talk
Theme: Transformation

Knowing what you don’t know: Does explaining a science article affect Individuals’ assessment of their own and scientists’ knowledge?

Author: Nina Vaupotic – University of Münster, Germany

Co-authors:

  • Regina Jucks – University of Münster, Germany
  • Dorothe Kienhues – University of Münster, Germany

Online media has become the main source of information for laypeople wishing to inform themselves about science (Su et al., 2015). However, knowledge nowadays is highly specialised and often too difficult to fully understand without lengthy (academic) education (Bromme & Goldman, 2014). Online science information is therefore usually written in a simplified and easily comprehensible manner, which could give laypeople an unrealistic confidence in dealing with the respective scientific topic (Scharrer et al., 2012).

The present experimental study wished to investigate how individuals assess their own and scientists’ knowledge about a scientific topic before and after engaging with an online science article in one of the two ways: reading or reading and explaining. Altogether, 168 adults were asked to read an online science news article about algorithmic predictions of severe weather events. Afterwards, half of the participants were additionally asked to give an explanation to a friend who knows nothing about the topic.

Before and after engaging with the science article, participants assessed scientists’ knowledge to be significantly higher than theirs (F(1,167)= 479.1, p < .001). After engaging with the science topic in either of the two ways, participants assessed their own knowledge as well as the scientists’ knowledge as significantly higher than beforehand ((F(1,167)= 121.9, p < .001)). The type of engagement (reading vs. reading and explaining) did not differentially influence participants’ own knowledge assessments, however, the gap between the assessment of own knowledge and scientists’ knowledge was significantly larger when participants additionally explained what they had read ((F(1,167)= 8.359, p = .004)). The explanations given by the participants often contained factual information and were written in a summarizing manner. Our results give some insights into laypeople’ s perception of their own knowledge position in a world in which knowledge is difficult to understand but easy to access. The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Transformation

Grab a drink and talk science: How scientists adapt their talks for an informal science communication event

Author: Nina Vaupotic – University of Münster, Germany

Co-authors:

  • Lukas Gierth – University of Münster, Germany
  • Friederike Hendriks – University of Münster, Germany
  • Dorothe Kienhues – University of Münster, Germany

Science communication, which has left the boundaries of formalised classroom settings is increasingly taking place at informal events. This raises the question of how scientists prepare for such dialogue, and how they adapt their communication in line with their anticipation of the audience. We investigated scientists’ approach to overcoming the barriers of communicating their highly specialised work to a public that likely possesses only limited relevant knowledge (Bromme & Goldman, 2014). While some previous studies focus on surveying attitudes and communication objectives of scientists (Dudo & Besley, 2016), we were interested in scientists’ adaptations to the expected lay audience, namely adaptations regarding theory, methods and results as well as scientific uncertainties and practical implications. Furthermore, we were interested in scientists’ reasons behind these adaptations.

The present interview study was conducted in the context of a science communication event (SCE), during which nine scientists from different disciplinary backgrounds presented their work in separate 45 minute talks. The interviews were conducted before the SCE took place to capture scientists’ prior perceptions and planning of the anticipated communication. A qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2010) was used to develop a coding scheme of scientists’ communication adaptations for the lay audience. Almost all scientists mentioned adaptations such as reducing information regarding methods, focusing on the main results or using simplified language. These were motivated by time constraints or an anticipated lack of knowledge and interest of the audience. While some scientists mentioned wanting to foster an active role of the public in judging their research, a few others completely refrained from explaining the methods and scientific uncertainties underlying their research. We discuss these results from the perspective of scientists’ disciplinary backgrounds and their understanding of science, as well as provide implications for scientists who adapt their public communication when speaking to a lay audience.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Insight talk
Theme: Transformation

Participatory Co-Design of Science Communication Strategies for Public Engagement in the US and Ecuador around Health Behavior Change

strong>Author: Denisse Vasquez-Guevara – University of Cuenca, Ecuador

Co-authors:

  • Judith McIntosh White – University of New Mexico, United States
  • David Weiss – University of New Mexico, United States

This multiple case study was developed through analyzing two research programs that promote healthy nutrition and physical activity habits for children – one in the US and one in Ecuador- to motivate public engagement and collaboration among researchers and their publics. The outcomes of this study provide several guidelines for science communication practitioners and researchers that seek to work with young audiences.

The methodological design combined participatory action research, qualitative research, decolonial epistemologies, and an analytical framework using a combination of media theories (two-step flow, framing, and medium theory). This research design enabled the collaboration of researchers and their publics to co-design science communication strategies focused on adopting healthy habits.

Results

In the US, the results indicated the importance of taking into consideration the relationships among cultural, economic, and environmental factors that come into play for children and their families when proposing new engagement activities and resources. Consequently, the newly-designed science communication strategies proposed peer health education and informational resources through social media. Additional strategies were geared toward facilitating access to healthy food by developing vegetable gardens and pantries in schools.

In Ecuador, the results evidenced the need to provide a more interactive approach through online resources and offline outdoor activities that promote dialogue among researchers and their publics. These findings led to co-designing an app, developing social media resources, and creating informal events that unite families around physical activity.

Contributions

This study provides methodological guidelines for science communication for public engagement conducted through participatory action research. Moreover, it provides procedural recommendations for building trust among researchers and their audiences; and using participatory data collection tools to co-design science communication strategies, messages, content, and selecting appropriate communication conduits/formats to motivate audience engagement.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Transformation

Discussable complexity in science communication through form language

Author: Maarten van der Sanden – Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

Co-authors:

  • Anne Kamp – Vormtaal / Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

In a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world the discussion on complexity is inevitable. However, this interaction is often hampered by a mutual misunderstanding of what the other means by complexity at hand. Diffuse debates on HPV vaccination exemplify this awkwardness in which multi stakeholders and many emotions are both intensely interwoven and fiercely contested.

It is widely known that humans not only understand this complex reality through interaction with others, but actually by using all their senses. Through speech, a sense of touch, vision, sound, people obtain an idea of the whole by bringing their known and felt knowledge together. Likewise, mostly natural scientists make use of 3D-models, and abstract figures to explain or discuss the complexity of e.g. protein folding. However, when the challenge lacks a physical appearance these go-to ways to understand complexity fail and we’re back to relying on words to feed the discussion. A language based on form and space, using properties as ‘proportion’, ‘rhythm’ and ‘scale’ rather than words seems to fill this gap.

Looking at how architecture communicates in a more intuitive way through experience, rather than symbolic meaning, we created a ‘form language’ that invites the user to envision the complexity they feel when they think about e.g. the complexity of the vaccination debate. The various materials as well as the pyramids, spheres and cubes of this language support people to talk, touch, see and feel their mutual complex challenge through the shared imagination of what each form means to them.

Testing the form language with professionals and university students showed its great potential in supporting discussions on complexity and the creation of the team. During the insight talk we would like to showcase these results by a short demonstration of such a discussion obtained from our own research and design practice.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Insight talk
Theme: Transformation

Educating science communicators in / after the COVID era

Author: Frans van Dam – Utrecht University, Netherlands

Co-authors:

  • Marina Joubert – Stellenbosch University, South Africa
  • Andy Ridgway – UWE Bristol, United Kingdom

Online courses offer flexible modes of study, allowing science communication practitioners to learn about research who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity, such as those who are outside the country or lack the time to attend conventional courses. On campus, when integrated into ‘face-to-face’ courses, online modules help students to be better prepared. Instead of meeting briefly each week, an online learning class becomes an ongoing community. Moreover, in the COVID era, lecturers and students worldwide have experienced the possibilities and challenges of online learning.

New questions
Online education introduces new questions, about the benefits of face-to-face contact, the pros and cons of synchronous and asynchronous teaching, questions about course fees and how connections between participants. Moreover, teaching online requires a thorough revision of a course.

Sharing experiences
At the same time, online learning enables easy exchange of course modules. In this demonstration, three lecturers share their experiences in designing and delivering online courses on science communication. And what are the lessons learned for the post-COVID era?

Programme
For science communicators in southern Africa, Marina Joubert has been teaching a six-week introductory science communication course for the past five years. Andy Ridgway delivered an online continuing professional development course in science writing attended by participants from around the world. Frans van Dam recently developed a course in public engagement in which students design an activity for a researcher. The speakers will briefly demonstrate their experiences in the context of communication and education theory.

In the second part of this session, groups of participants will generate ideas on areas of science communication research that are difficult to cover in face-to-face teaching but could be covered effectively in an online programme; thus, transforming their course curricula. They will also be asked to consider how online learning could further improve in / after COVID times.
The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Demonstration
Theme: Transformation

How to bring 60 nerds together on a stage?

Author: Veli Vural Uslu – AgroScience GmbH AlPlanta-Institute for Plant Research, Germany

One of the biggest challenges of science communication is to bring the laymen, who are not interested in science, and the reseachers, who are not interested in laymen, together. In order to engage researchers in science communication and to engage the public in science, a theater based experiment, which I initiated four years ago, can serve as a successful model platform.

This project, SciComHD, began with a few random researchers, who saw the SciComHD advertisement posters in the university campus. After a few rounds of simple stage training, the rehearsals turned into an ever growing platform where researchers could express their daily frustrations –sometimes very vividly. With the plenty of stories that researchers brought in from their laboratories, we wrote and performed several theater plays such as ‚Romeo and Juliet in the Lab’, where Romeo and Juliet are two PhD students who fall in love at a conference and their competing bosses do not let them be together. In parallel, the actors also participated in a new format of science communication and talked about their actual research in a theater set up or they just danced their research on the stage.

So far, this project has gathered more than 60 scientists from 30 countries and we performed 12 different theater plays and several dosens of shows. The tickets were sold out in almost every single show and we manage to reach out to several thousands of people. All of these projects run with no external funding and in a non-profit basis to be a sustainable model even for low budget or no budget local initiatives in the future. Altogether this fun experiment demonstrates that such theater based projects can be a successful model to encourage the scientists for reflecting on their extraordinary research and ordinary lab life to non-scientists.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Time

“We don’t know yet, but that’s quite usual!” A Qualitative Content Analysis of the Representation of Scientific Uncertainty in German Online Reporting on Covid-19

Author: Tobias Tönsfeuerborn – Bielefeld University, Germany

Scientific evidence is important for dealing with Covid-19. But scientific findings are characterized by uncertainty, especially regarding the novelty of Covid-19. Media coverage of the pandemic therefore should also express the uncertainty concerning scientific findings presented. This is particularly important against the background of trust in both science and the media.

This exploratory study examines how scientific uncertainty is represented in Covid-19 reporting of six major German print media’s online subsidiaries between March and June 2020. It uses qualitative content analysis to categorize the relevant aspects represented in the context of uncertainty primarily from the material, but also from theoretical assumptions.

The goal here is to develop a typology of uncertainty representation for the specific case of Covid-19 reporting. Given its urgency, the case is not representative for uncertainty communication in general.

The analysis is still in progress, but the main categories are already available.

The first is the presented reason for the uncertainty. Such reasons found in the material were the novelty of the virus, disagreement in the scientific community, and the general incompleteness of scientific knowledge.

Another relevant aspect seems to be whether uncertainty is presented with reference to scientists. If such a reference is present, a distinction can be made between scientists who are involved in the research in question and those who judge the results from the outside.

Furthermore, the analysis shows a distinction regarding the evaluation of presented uncertainty: Is uncertainty presented as normality in science, problematized or even scandalized?

Finally, an analysis of the consequences of uncertainty described in the respective articles is indicated. So far, these include the presentation of the necessity of further research, the problematization of expectations of science, and appeals to trust in science despite uncertainty.

Further analysis will now use these categories to develop a typology of uncertainty representation in the specific case of Covid-19 reporting.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Insight talk
Theme: Time

Branching out: Reaching younger audiences and telling the story of plant STEM Careers through technology

Author: Jessica B. Turner-Skoff – The Morton Arboretum, USA

Co-authors:

  • Carissa Dougherty – The Morton Arboretum, United States
  • Meghan Wiesbrock – The Morton Arboretum, United States

The fields of plant science and horticulture are vital for a myriad of global issues, including food security, conservation of biodiversity, and human health. However, plant blindness, or the idea that people do not appreciate or understand the importance of plants, poses a real challenge in attracting the next generation of plant scientists and professionals. If efforts are not made to engage and communicate with this important audience, we will not have the skilled workforce able to solve these problems. Interdepartmental teams at The Morton Arboretum are transforming how they engage with this audience by using new technologies and storytelling techniques to share the importance, viability, and accessibility of plant careers. Using information derived from a focus group, the Arboretum developed Planted: Finding Your Roots in STEM Careers podcast. This podcast provides an authentic experience with STEM professionals and showcases the opportunities associated with the field. To make this podcast relevant for schools, there are lesson plans that complement each episode; teachers can engage students with the audio content through activities and visuals. In addition to the podcast, the Arboretum created a series of online graphic novels called Canopy Career Chronicles. Teenagers take an online quiz to determine their interests and the interactive platform connects them to graphic novels that highlight the career journeys of diverse plant science professionals. Each of these resources allows the unique personalities of real-life professionals to shine through, creating deeper, more meaningful connections to students. Learn about these two unique resources, the opportunities and challenges of using new media platforms, the process of collaborating with a diverse team of experts, and how to use evaluation methods to improve outcomes. Technology and collaboration are important tools for informal learning centers to use to connect and transform the targeted audiences’ knowledge and perception of science.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Time

Science communication practice as a catalyst for science and humanities

Author: Aya Tsuboi – The University of Tokyo, Kavli IPMU, Japan

Kavli Institute for the physics and mathematics of the universe (Kavli IPMU) hosts an Artists in Residence (AIR) program since 2015. Recently one of their artworks based on his resident was awarded the second prize at the Japan media art festival among over 4000 artworks. This program is characterized by the host’s nature – Kavli IPMU being an institution of basic science and around 100 of the world’s top-level scientists gather to reveal the mystery of the universe.

This talk will introduce an unique model that stands in-between a deficit and a dialogue model based on the AIR program, by illustrating three perspectives. Contrary to dominant science communication where the focus is primarily on applied science, it focuses on exploring communication of basic science such as physics or mathematics. Second, it attempts to work as a catalyst for science and humanities rather than dispatching one-way information from the science field. Lastly, it shows an unique attempt to disclose the model itself to the public from the early stage.

These three perspectives are explained in the context of the art exhibition hosted by Kavli IPMU that took place at a gallery in Central Tokyo in 2018 for 2 weeks, which featured the artworks of 3 artists who participated in the AIR program as well as a symposium, a workshop and seminars participated by 15 professionals from multiple fields such as science culture theory, aesthetics and analytic philosophy.

The talk will also introduce the result of the survey conducted among over 300 people who visited the exhibition by asking them to fill in the questionnaire at the venue. Some of the highlights include a diversity of audience the program managed to reach, and a high interest in Kavli IPMU, which result is compared against other surveys of conventional scientific public programs hosted by Kavli IPMU.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Visual presentation
Theme: Transformation

Personalities, publics and places in 19th century science popularisation

Author: Brian Trench – Dublin City University, Ireland

The long version of the history of science communication reaches back to pre-industrial times. Through the 19th century, as the figure of ‘scientist’ takes shape, the role of populariser is integrated into it. In the development of this role for the scientist many of the considerations about how popularisation can be, or should be, done prefigure the concerns of our own time. More than that, awareness of this early history offers insights into present practices; the attention that early popularisers paid to speaking style may illuminate performance aspects of current science communication.

This paper examines what it meant to do popular science through the stories of four leading exponents spanning the 19th century: Humphry Davy (and his cousin Edmund Davy), Dionysius Lardner, John Tyndall and Agnes Mary Clerke. Through their own reflections and through newspaper reports and scientific society records we can view the growing publics for science and these popularisers’ understanding of their popular role.

In the early 19th century Humphry Davy was a celebrity lecturer whose public talks in Dublin in 1810-11 were the hottest tickets in town. Davy had a notably strong following among women, who were largely excluded from the practice of science.

From being a theme of fashionable social gatherings popular science evolves into a profitable practice. In the 1850s Lardner and in the 1870s Tyndall presented US lecture tours over several months and both they and Clerke had outstanding publishing records, with some of their books appearing in multiple sell-out editions. Clerke was a pioneer among women popularisers, though exclusively as a writer.

With regard to place, the four personalities are linked through being born in or active in Ireland. All four had a significant presence in London. Two of them broke into the US market. Tyndall was published in several European languages.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Time

Science Communications Training: Insights and Review from a Practitioner’s University-wide Program

Author: Dana Topousis – University of California, Davis, United States

In November 2016, the Office of Strategic Communications of the University of California, Davis created a half-day science communications training for faculty, graduate students, and post-docs, with a focus on storytelling and messaging, for a nominal fee. What is unique about our program is that it was developed and is run by the Office of Strategic Communications. While other university communications departments provide ad-hoc or regular media training to faculty, we are one of the only universities in the U.S. that runs a program of this stature through its central university communications department.

The scope of our program covers the value of good communications to a variety of audiences—including media, legislators, donors, alumni, and other public audiences. We present data and provide best practices, tools, practice, and individual feedback on how to deliver messages compellingly and effectively.

The author will present key insights about the value of this program after more than three years, including how we have built relationships with faculty to expand our program. She will provide survey results from universities across the United States about the work they’re doing in the realm of sceince communication training. Finally, the author will share results of a new leadership program for women faculty in STEAM fields, developed and delivered in partnership between UC Davis Strategic Communications and senior faculty.

As part of this PCST session, the author will provide lessons learned, feedback and data from our workshops, feedback from a faculty advisory group, and details about how we’re working to expand this work in California.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Visual presentation
Theme: Time

But does it work? Evaluation, effectiveness and the history of health communication

Author: Elizabeth Toon – University of Manchester, United Kingdom

Health communicators today employ the tools of social science to determine whether their interventions have been successful. Have their messages reached the right targets and conveyed information appropriately? Has behaviour change occurred, and is that change due to their intervention? Is behaviour change the only marker of success? Are changes in knowledge that could someday lead to behaviour change enough to prove a campaign has “worked”?

In this presentation, I draw on historical research to outline how a much earlier generation grappled with many of the same issues. While they never tried to calculate a “weighted mean effect size” for their mass media campaigns, health communicators from the 1910s through the 1940s sought to prove that their efforts were contributing to ““ and maybe even responsible for ““ improvements in the public’s health. Early practitioners and academics scoured surveys of attitudes and practices, trends in service use, and even vital statistics for evidence that persuasion could change knowledge, attitudes, behaviour, and eventually, health. Like their descendants today, these experts were often frustrated by what they found: marginal or at least poorly quantified effects, particularly compared to their commercial rivals” ability to sell products and habits.

The ancestors of today’s health communicators would soon refine their approaches to both campaigns and evaluation. By embracing social science over showmanship, selling, and hard-won experience as their central claim to expertise, they hoped to prove themselves legitimate contributors to an increasingly academic public health world. Even so, they wondered what this trade-off might sacrifice. Was it enough to have faith that their efforts would someday bear fruit? Did a campaign have to have proven impact to be worthwhile? And what we can learn from their efforts to balance science with enthusiasm, theory with practice, and academic concerns with practical accomplishments?

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Time

Demand for Trustworthiness Information from Science Communicators

Author: Leigh Anne Tiffany – Michigan State University, United States

Co-authors:

  • John Besley – Michigan State University, United States

During a global pandemic, trusting the scientists sharing health-related information is critical. We use a representative survey (n = 400) to better understand the degree to which Americans want science communicators to share information about scientists’ trustworthiness in the context of COVID-19. We focus on “demand for trustworthiness” information due to a concern that scientists might hesitate to strategically share trustworthiness information (i.e., information that portrays warmth, competence, openness, etc.) because they worry audiences (a) do not want such information or (b) might see such information as manipulative.

The logic underlying the current study is that scientists cannot take their trustworthiness for granted and thus need to consider devoting some effort to (ethically) communicating relevant trustworthiness information. Our sense is that too much of the current science communication literature simply emphasizes identifying trustworthy communicators rather than seeking to cumulatively build trustworthiness beliefs over time.

Descriptively, the data suggest that respondents see communicating a willingness to listen (i.e., openness) as the trust-related objective that science communicators should prioritize most highly; in a hypothetical 60-minute public talk, this is the objective to which they believe scientists should allocate the most time. In fact, respondents saw communicating a willingness to listen as slightly more important than sharing results and risk-benefit information. Respondents gave relatively lower priority to information about integrity and benevolence (i.e., warmth or motivation), but still clearly indicated that scientists should devote some attention to such topics.

Multivariate analyses were of limited value in predicting respondents’ desire for trustworthiness information. Only perceived usefulness of such information was a somewhat consistent and substantive predictor. Demographics, issue concern, and perceived information sufficiency were not consistent predictors. While Americans clearly want trust information, additional work is needed understand what drives this demand.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Time

Brave Zoom World: Exploring engaged research in a strange, new, physically distanced world

Author: Virginia Thomas – University of Exeter, United Kingdom

Co-authors:

  • Angela Cassidy – University of Exeter, United Kingdom

Building on the growing consensus across practices of interdisciplinarity and participatory research that collaboration is best fostered via regular sociality and shared problem solving, From ‘Feed the Birds’ to ‘Do Not Feed the Animals (DNFTA) was designed as an experiment in ‘engaged research’ (Holliman, 2017). Investigating animal feeding in the past and present requires sharing theories, insights, methods, and research data across multiple academic disciplines as well as with non-academic partners in the conservation and heritage sectors. The project was predicated on in-person contact and working with objects in archives and museum collections across the country. Before we even had chance to celebrate funding success however, COVID-19 arrived in the UK sweeping all before it and instituting a formal lockdown across the country by 25th March 2020. As with almost every aspect of life, COVID-19 has had profoundly disruptive effects on animal feeding and human-animal relations. This paper discusses these processes of disruption and the creative redesign of DNFTA, in which we have had to accommodate the ongoing uncertainties of the pandemic, the changed circumstances and priorities of our third sector partners, and the need to safeguard the health of all involved. We aim to share our experiences and invite dialogue with PCST colleagues about the challenges of undertaking engaged research in the midst of a pandemic.

This paper will address all three of PCST 2020’s themes:

Time –sticking to a research agenda through periods of lockdown, disruption and restrictions.

Technology – using old and new technologies to continue with a research programme predicated on in person sociality and collaboration.

Transformation – transmuting engaged research to effective interaction at a physical distance, and the ongoing transformation of science communication from ‘deficit’ to ‘participation’ and beyond.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Insight talk
Theme: Transformation

It’s about “making” – Civic hackathons as technoscientific public communication/engagement mode

Author: Carolin Thiem, Germany

In the last decade, civic hackathons transformed into public events that innovated science policy and science communication. The term “hacking” is mostly related to a computer crime, but this is not what it means in terms of civic hackathons. Here “hacking” is related to the distortion of something’s original purpose to solve a problem. At a hackathon event, multiple people from various backgrounds work on one challenge. Via a multiple methods approach I examined different civic hackathons dealing with solutions for the oceans and for cities. I analysed ethnografic and webnograhic data from 6 different hackathons and conducted 8 different interviews (organizers and participants). The initially addressed public for these hackathons was imagined to consist of certified scientific experts, programmers and designers – hoverver inexperienced people with a desire to improve the actual situation (enthusiasts) also participated.

I analyzed the different modes of technoscientific communication and engagement and compare them with different existing and classical modes of science communication and engagement. Therefore I will focus first on how lightning talks transform from scientific lectures into input for a creative hacking processes. Second, I will show that through the making of prototypes, citizens can gain different technological knowledge while using diverse (new) digital technologies or data sets. Further, they develop scientific knowledge regarding the topic (city/ocean) during the prototyping process. While making and tinkering citizens arrange technologies in a new manner, they can also contribute to the production of technoscientific knowledge. Last I will display how the special time frame of two days and the tension between regulation and experimentation keeps the participation at the civic hackathon alive.

In my conclusion I will frame civic hackathons as instruments for public engagement in science – especially for the communication and engagement in technoscience.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Insight talk
Theme: Transformation

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