Trust me – I’m a scientist: the role of science communicators

Presentation as part of the session: Trust me – I’m a scientist
The BA Festival of Science, University of Glasgow Tuesday 4th September 2001

Natasha Martineau, Copus Manager

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Introduction

Before I start considering the role of science communicators in addressing the issue of trust in scientists, I thought it would be helpful to outline briefly where I’m coming from – I am here today as the Manager of Copus, which has recently been remodelled as a national partnership for science communication.

Background to Copus

Copus was originally founded in 1985 as a joint committee between The Royal Society, the BA and the Royal Institution to promote a better understanding of the role of science, engineering and technology in society. When it was founded, Copus played an important role in opening up the research community to a wider world. But over time the pattern of Copus activities failed to take account of the significant changes in the relationship between science, and its stakeholders. In addition, Copus’ constituency no longer represented the contributions of the increasingly large number of organisations working to make science more accessible.

Consequently, Copus has recently undergone a significant remodelling to provide a strategic focus for science communication. This remodelling has been guided by a number of developments in the field*, and is reflected both in terms of the sectors that Copus now represents, and in terms of what Copus sets out to achieve.

In constitutional terms, Copus has been reformed as a more inclusive partnership of a broader range of organisations and sectors that are involved in engaging science with its stakeholders. While it continues to be hosted by The Royal Society, Copus now represents the science communication interests not only of its three original founding members, and scientists themselves, but also funders of research (including the Research Councils and The Wellcome Trust), the learned institutions via The Science Council, medical and engineering sectors, museums, science centres and the media. These are all represented on the revised Copus Council.

In terms of its workplan, Copus is moving from interacting with public audiences itself, to providing a more strategic national focus for science communication activities. So, in this respect, its currency has changed from the public, to science communicators themselves. We aim to help identify and minimise gaps and overlaps in approaches, and develop a collaborative approach towards managing the relationships between scientific communities and their stakeholders.

I will come back to the detail of what Copus is currently up to a little later on, but for now I thought that perhaps the best place to start in addressing how science communicators can contribute to the issue of dealing with trust and scientists, is to spend a bit of time looking at what science communication actually is.

What is science communication?

When I’m asked what I am, I often get strange looks when I say I that I’m a science communicator. I know to my cost that it doesn’t count as a recognised profession for useful things like obtaining car insurance, and it rarely raises the nodding head of recognition I would probably receive if I could tell people I was a lawyer or a doctor.

And if I am asked what science communicators actually do, then I would say that we work towards finding ways of fostering public outreach from the scientific community by building bridges between science and its stakeholders.

Science communication is about dealing with science and issues of social responsibility and citizenship. Despite what insurance companies may believe, and at the risk of sounding slightly self-justifying, I think that it is a profession in its own right, and one that is distinct from promoting science, be it through PR, education, infotainment, or encouraging more people to take up science as a career.

Our primary objective is about establishing a forum within which stakeholders can engage not just with science itself, but also with the issues, social and ethical concerns, and processes of science. Working to encourage people to think that science is exciting, or that a career as a scientist is a fulfilling one, are important activities. But as science communicators they should not be our main aims, although they may often turn out to be additional spin-offs from what we do.

Science communication and making science more trustworthy

Within the context of this session, I would like to explore the idea that science communication is not so much about working to ensure that people trust scientists, as working towards establishing a situation in which the discipline of science itself is more trustworthy, by facilitating and integrating the interactions and impacts of the work of the scientific community with its broader stakeholders.

If we are to be successful, we should be addressing not just the trustworthiness of the research itself, but also how the research is applied – the processes of regulation, how scientific advice is used and interpreted, the commercialisation of research – as well as its broader impacts on society.

And in terms of managing the trust relationships with broader audiences, we need to improve the public outreach capacity of scientific communities to ensure that they meet their stakeholders’ needs and expectations. We can only do this by equipping scientists to engage effectively and meaningfully in debate. In this way we can provide the public with an opportunity to assess realistically the credibility, integrity and dependability of the processes of science.

I see our role very much as establishing a forum within which people can engage with science. And this is a forum that can distinguish clearly between the effects of science as a tool for improving economic productivity, and as a tool for developing citizenship and social responsibility, to help us make sense of the scientific issues that impact on our lives.

And if we start from the somewhat defensive stance that people who question the validity, trustworthiness or usefulness of scientific research are automatically coming from an ill-informed position, then we are almost certainly setting off on the wrong foot.

We need to consider the broader influences on the whole range of factors that affect what people think about science. We should embrace the fact that people are interested enough to care about science, and they certainly do when it impacts on their lives, and we should welcome the contribution of those who rattle the cages.

For example, the scientific community may not always like or agree with what the single-issue groups have to say. And there’s a common cry that there isn’t enough science in the papers, or that it’s not the right kind of science.

But rather than dismissing these contributions as scientifically inaccurate or misleading, and turning our backs on them, we should welcome them and see them as an opportunity to fuel the debate. And we need to contribute actively to this debate by feeding into it perspectives from the dimensions of research.

Science communication and the nature of science

And at this point, we also need to be honest about the nature of science, and clear about what questions it can and cannot resolve. Research is a human enterprise and as prone to problems as any other human endeavour. Sometimes it gets things wrong. Sometimes the answers aren’t always clear. Sometimes researchers don’t always agree. And very often it is the way that science is interpreted, applied or fed into the policy-making process, rather than the research itself, that causes people to question its contributions.

Providing a forum for people to question, discuss and evaluate what science achieves, and how it sets about achieving it, should be seen as important as actually doing the research. I am not for a minute suggesting that this is an easy task, but it is one that science communication should be working towards.

We need to be clear that repeating a message about the benefits of science often enough, loudly enough, or s-l-o-w-l-y enough, in the hopes that eventually people will be converted, is not going to advance us far in the right direction, and will contribute little towards making anything more trustworthy.

Making sure that the scientific community is seen to do the right thing, or that it pays lip-service to engaging in interactive debate with its stakeholders, is not going to help much in improving the trustworthiness of science either. For example, no-one organising a project that attempts to engage stakeholders in dialogue should go very far if there is not a clear way to demonstrate how information gleaned from the project will be genuinely fed into the decision-making process. We need to encourage proper consideration in the public domain of how science is done, and not to shy away from the consequences of engaging in this debate. If we are not equipped to react to and deal with the answer, then we shouldn’t be asking the question.

Science communication and Copus

So, where does Copus come into all of this?

This more mature approach of engaging public audiences with the broader issues and effects of research, rather than simply explaining it in a jargon-free way in the hopes that non-scientists will understand it, represents something of a new agenda for the science communication profession. And the remodelling of Copus as an umbrella organisation for science communication strategies will enable us to commit to and focus this approach.

Public attitudes to science are not often tied up with their knowledge about the facts linked to it. And in any case, there is not much evidence to suggest that more knowledge necessarily means more trust. Every day we form opinions about things without necessarily knowing all the facts behind them. And it’s precisely because we can’t expect to know everything, that we depend on ‘experts’ to do the right thing by and for us. But this dependency is only ever going to be established if the experts behave in a socially aware and responsible way.

And thus one of the most important items on the Copus agenda is to equip scientists, who often fill the role of the experts in this particular arena: first, to communicate about their work; second, to become more publicly aware of the broader social and ethical implications of that work; and third, to be prepared to discuss these issues in the public domain. Copus continues to believe that such activities should be an integral, not optional, part of a scientist’s duties.

At a practical level Copus is working to ensure that scientists have the training, funding and support in which to achieve this in an effective way. We are looking for ways to ensure that communications training includes aspects of how to deal with discussion about the broader social and ethical implications of today’s research.

We provide funding through the Copus grant schemes to foster and encourage activities that improve public engagement with science. These schemes have recently undergone significant review to ensure that the projects we support underpin the idea of establishing an interactive understanding between science and its stakeholders.

And in a broader dimension, we hope to sit down with other providers of grants for these types of activities to ensure that, as a community, we provide effective support for public engagement activities across the whole spectrum of scientific disciplines, and that these activities are as inclusive as possible in terms of the range of audiences that they aim to reach.

At a strategic level Copus is working to ensure that science communication is recognised and taken seriously by head of departments at research institutions, as well as at a policy-making level within funding and governmental sectors. We are also looking at ways of incorporating elements of it in a coordinated way into training programmes for post-graduates so that it becomes more integral to the portfolio of skills that professional scientists possess from the start of their careers.

Another important role for Copus is to work in partnership with science communicators (e.g. with the psci-com resource) to provide opportunities to network, showcase and share best practice. Copus is positioning itself to act as a one-stop shop for information about science communication, and provide something akin to a brokering service to integrate various approaches – whether they are dealing with interactions with journalists, NGOs, schools, politicians, businesses or other specialist and general public audiences. We need to engage actively with the influences beyond the academic scientific community that affect what people think about science: for example, developments in the commercial sector, policies set by government, and the attitude of the media and campaigns by lobbying organisations.

The nuances of science communication

People are never going to accept everything that is achieved by research, simply because scientists are behind it. And in this respect, Copus should look to raising awareness towards some of the nuances in science communication, both within the science community and at a policy-making level. These need to be recognised if we are to establish a portfolio of interactions to earn the respect needed to make science more trustworthy.

• It’s about recognising why we promote a piece of research to the media. It’s the difference between communicating what has been discovered and what implications that will have on the way we lead our lives, and promoting it to gain column inches for the institution where the research has taken place, the organisation that funded it, or the scientists who have carried out the work.
• It’s about being aware of whom we work for, whose interests we will be seen to represent, and what impact this may have on the perception of what we communicate.
• It’s about understanding the possible compromising position an organisation may be put in if it is coming under pressure to reassure stakeholders that a new development is ‘safe’, when at the same time it is also carrying out research into the potential longer term environmental or health-related side-effects.
• It’s about finding ways to balance the concomitant pressures of treating a story so that a journalist can sell it to the editor, and ensuring that it retains its scientific integrity.
• It’s about devising schemes to put scientists into schools to provide positive role models and encourage more people to take up science as a career on the one hand, and introducing the idea at an early age that the processes and implications of science have the potential to impact on the quality of our lives on the other. And that this concept of science as part of citizenship is equally important for all students, regardless of whether or not they decide to study science in further education.
• It’s about appreciating the potential conflict of interests in securing funding from industry, and being aware of what effect that may have on people’s perception of the results of the research.
• It’s about being aware of the way that risk is perceived. As risks around us are being reduced, so our expectations to live in a relatively risk-free environment increase. And we need to try and balance the realities of science with our increasing expectations as members of the general public to live in an environment that reliably and reasonably immediately delivers a low-risk way to live our lives.

The two dimensions outlined to each of these approaches to communicating science are not necessarily mutually exclusive. But Copus needs to encourage awareness towards each one in addressing the issue of whether or not people find science trustworthy.

Evaluating science communication

One of the potential problems with science communication is that a lack of public support for science is sometimes interpreted as a sign that science communication isn’t working. In this respect, we need to recognise that earning public trust is a longer and more complex activity than undermining it. And thus evaluating the success and impact of these activities is difficult – it isn’t about testing people’s knowledge of science, and it shouldn’t be about gauging their support for it.

At the moment, it is difficult to illustrate the long-term implications, be they social or financial, of not communicating science, but we do still need to find ways of evaluating its impact. Copus is working to establish how this might be achieved.

Conclusion

Making science more trustworthy is about being honest and open about what it can and cannot achieve. We need to be careful not to fuel misconceptions that scientific evidence is final and that scientific enquiry can always provide all the answers. If people are to put their trust in science, then the scientific community needs to make sure that it builds bridges with its stakeholders through the processes of negotiation, discussion, and dialogue. It seems to me that science communicators have an important role to play in facilitating that process.

Natasha Martineau
September 2001

*including the following reports: The Office of Science and Technology/The Wellcome Trust Science and the Public, The Wellcome Trust’s Survey of Scientists, The House of Lords Science and Society, Wising Up from Lancaster University, and Open Channels (pdf file) by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. (return to paragraph)

The Copus Grant Schemes are funded by the Office of Science and Technology and The Royal Society.

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