10.07.2020
PLOS ONE, classified in Quartile 1 by Scimago Journal Rankings 2019, has just published the article "Public communication by research institutes compared across countries and sciences: Building capacity for engagement or competing for visibility?", which presents a comparison of the science communication made by more than 2000 research institutes from 8 countries.
The article written by Marta Entradas and the team she coordinated as part of the research project funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), MORE "Mobilização de REcursos para o Envolvimento do Público com a ciência e a tecnologia", presents data from the first transnational study that gathered data from research institutions integrated in large scale Universities and Scientific Organisations in Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, studying how scientific institutions involve society in their research.
In addition to the analysis by country, a comparison is made of science communication by research area. In other words, we learn which countries and which scientific areas communicate the most, what means they use, and what resources they have available.
It was concluded that institutions communicate with the public through a variety of public events and traditional media (radio, TV, articles in magazines and newspapers, newsletters, brochures, etc...) and not so much through the new media (social networks), but the online presence increases in larger institutions with human resources specialized in communication.
Three main observations:
1) Public communication remains far from being fully instituted and taken-for-granted across research institutes in universities and large research organisations;
2) Public communication activites differ across countries and sciences, yet, the small differences found were to a certain extent, unexpected;
3) Variation in communication is associated with institutional commitment to public communication such as having a policy in place, professional communications staff and available funding.
How to quote:
Entradas M, Bauer MW, O'Muircheartaigh C, Marcinkowski F, Okamura A, Pellegrini G, et al. (2020) Public communication by research institutes compared across countries and sciences: Building capacity for engagement or competing for visibility? PLoS ONE 15(7): e0235191. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235191
Marta Entradas is an integrated PhD researcher at CIES-Iscte and Assistant Professor at Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa. She is also a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
