Beyond dissemination — science communication as impact
The drive for impact from research projects presents a dilemma for science communication researchers and practitioners — should public engagement be regarded only as a mechanism for providing evidence of the impact of research or as itself a form of impact? This editorial describes the curation of five commentaries resulting from the recent international conference
‘Science in Public: Research, Practice, Impact’. The commentaries reveal the issues science communicators may face in implementing public engagement with science that has an impact; from planning and co-producing projects with impact in mind, to organising and operating activities which meet the needs of our publics, and finally measuring and evaluating the effects on scientists and publics in order to ‘capture impact’.
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Invited commentaries
Ships, Clocks & Stars: the quest for impact
Sep 29, 2015Between 2010 and July 2015, a group of researchers at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge and the …
Beyond the dissemination of Earth Observation research: stakeholders’ and users’ involvement in project co-design
Sep 29, 2015Modern technology and innovation research needs to analyse and collect users’ requirements from the outset of the project’s design, according to the Responsible …
Reflections on the impact of (playful) deliberation processes in contexts of responsible research and innovation
Sep 29, 2015This commentary shares a personal ‘learning curve’ of a science communication researcher about the impact of (playful) tools and processes for inclusive deliberation …
Access to high quality evaluation results is essential for science communicators to identify negative patterns of audience response and improve outcomes. However, there …
In the past 25 years school-university partnerships have undergone a transition from ad hoc to strategic partnerships. Over the previous two-and-a-half-years we have …