Presenting the Global Plant Council. Bringing plant science closer to society by helping plant scientists increase the impact of their research

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Presenting the Global Plant Council. Bringing plant science closer to society by helping plant scientists increase the impact of their research

Author: Isabel Mendoza-Poudereux – Universidad de Valencia, Spain

Co-authors:

  • Bill Davies – Lancaster University, United Kingdom
  • Ros Gleadow – Monash University, Australia
  • Barry Pogson – Australian National University, Australia

Plant sciences have a key role to play as society seeks to address a growing suite of environmental and social challenges, from food security to mental health and conservation. The Global Plant Council (GPC) is a vibrant community of plant scientists that provides a platform for networking and collaboration. Currently, it assembles 30 member organizations across the globe, representing over 50,000 plant specialists. The aim of the GPC is to promote plant science across borders, supporting those directly involved in research, but also in education and training, while increasing awareness of the key role of plant research in both science and society.

By acting as a central plant science hub, the GPC aims to enhance and develop coordination and communication mechanisms among GPC Member Organizations and their stakeholders. In order to do this, we have rolled out a new social media and communication strategy to engage with different audiences. Currently (December 2020) our online presence reaches over 24.000 followers through its website and social media accounts.

To nurture up and coming plant scientists, GPC recently established an Early Career Researcher (ECR) International Network, the ECRi, a collection of activities addressed to help the plant science ECRs with 4 essential components of their jobs: future job hunting, grant funding, dissemination of research results and networking. In its first year of existence, the ECRi Facebook group has gathered over 3.500 members. Besides Facebook, GPC is employing other social media strategies, such as a monthly Twitterstorm of job ads and a LinkedIn group.

In our visual presentation we will give insight into our online strategy, and how this has enabled us to grow from 9.500 to 24.000 followers in 26 months and how this new reach is helping us to implement our general and ECRi objectives and continue to grow into the future.

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

Presentation type: Visual presentation
Theme: Transformation

How does the public build their opinions and beliefs related to scientific issues?

Author: Isabel Mendoza-Poudereux – Universidad de Valencia, Spain, Spain

Co-authors:

  • Lorena Cano-Orón – Universidad de Valencia, Spain
  • Carolina Moreno-Castro – Universidad de Valencia, Spain
  • Empar Vengut-Climent – Universidad de Valencia, Spain

According to the existing data, the scientific consensus should drive science-related policies. However, some controversial topics (GMOs, climate change, vaccines, CAMs, etc.) have shown us that is not always the case. Public opinion may also be a driven force and even the main one to contribute to the development of public policies. Understanding how the (sometimes significant) gap between scientific consensus and popular beliefs is generated could help minimise said controversies and ease the development of science-related programs.

The CONCISE project (Communication role on perception and beliefs of EU Citizens about Science) is working to shed light on this matter by holding five citizen consultations with 500 people, in five different EU countries: Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain.

Through these consultations, researchers aimed at gaining a more in-depth insight into the public understanding of science and identify current science communication models that will reveal indicators that might help improve science communication. Similarly, the project will allow understanding how individuals perceive science communication, make decisions on relevant topics (ex, vaccines), and which information channels and sources are their preferred ones to access science information.

The analysis of all the data obtained will allow us to produce, among other results, six policy briefs addressed to help policy-makers overcome the gap between scientific consensus and popular beliefs.

The visual presentation will describe the methodology developed for the project and share the first CONCISE results.

The CONCISE project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 824537.

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

Presentation type: Visual presentation
Theme: Transformation

Stories of complementary therapies in the Spanish digital newspapers

Author: Isabel Mendoza-Poudereux – Universidad de Valencia, Spain

Co-authors:
Lorena Cano-Orón – Universidad de Valencia
Carolina Moreno-Castro – Universidad de Valencia

Use and acceptance of complementary therapies in Spain have in recent years earned attention among the public opinion, due to the heavily charged controversy between skeptics and promoters. For that matter, the relevance of stories production on the matter is fundamental for the polarization of citizens views. Official data available on the number and/or use of these therapies are scarce. Briefly, a study prepared in 2008 by the Observatory of Natural Therapies and the report prepared by the Spanish Government Health Division in 2011. Here, the total recount of alternative therapies to be found in Spain is stablished as 139, however the extent of their use and knowledge by Spaniards is still uncertain. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to analyze the volume of news generated by the media about those therapies in order to be able to: firstly, detect the therapies with more media resonance and, secondly, to relate them with their actual use.

A search of all the news published in 388 digital media gathered in MyNews database with any of the 139 therapies mentioned during 2015-2016 period was carried out, giving rise to a gross sample of more than 23,400 stories; this is carefully quantitatively analyzed.

Results obtained until now show that 35% of the therapies have absolute no media presence during the period studied and only 20% of them appear in more than 100 different stories.

The study shows that the volume of press generated on complementary therapies does not necessarily follow their use pattern among Spanish population; therefore, it is impossible to establish a direct correlation between press impact and use. Complementary therapies use in Spain is not affected by its depiction in the press.

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

Presentation type: Individual paper
Theme: Stories
Area of interest: Investigating science communication practices

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