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Jul 13, 2026 Editorial

Transitions in science communication: agendas, approaches, and voices

by Declan Fahy , Alice Fleerackers , Ana Claudia Nepote , Guoyan Wang

This editorial introduces the JCOM special issue on “Transitions in Science Communication: Continuity and Change”. The issue positions continuity and change within four historical processes that have shaped the development of the field: institutionalisation, professionalisation, internationalisation, and diversification. Within these broad field-shaping processes, the issue seeks to capture moments of transition in science communication by featuring selected contributions to the 2025 conference of the Global Network for the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST). The special issue combines three genres of contributions: research articles, practice insights, and an invited essay. Across these different contributions, the issue captures three types of transitions, focussed on agendas, approaches, and voices. It illustrates ongoing transitions within the institutions of science communication and transitions in professional roles and institutional responsibilities. It features contributions that show how the processes of internationalisation and diversification lead to new agendas, new approaches, and, crucially, new voices that can take science communication in new directions.

Volume 25Issue 52026Transitions in Science Communication: Continuity and Change (PCST 2025)

Jul 13, 2026 Practice Insight

Agents of (comedic) change: co-creation through improv to develop environmental science agency

by Claire A. Murray Dr , Ms Paola Serrano Bravo , Gesche Kindermann Dr , Jessamyn A. Fairfield

The climate crisis is no longer a crisis of knowledge, but a crisis of agency. Individuals wishing to act must overcome climate anxiety, feelings of powerlessness, and doubt associated with the complexity of the scientific realities of climate change. Rural communities offer much to learn about sustainable living and environmental solutions, but are rarely the site of many science communication initiatives due to inequities in funding, transit, and access to decision-makers. This practice insight explores how the act of performing in `We Built This City on Rock and Coal', an improvised theatre show about climate change in rural and remote communities in Ireland, supported performers to develop agency and transition towards taking pro-environmental actions in their own lives. Accessing environmental science expertise alongside space for emotional responses (both heavy and light-hearted) in specific contexts anchored by local knowledge helped practitioners create a platform for change and climate action.

Volume 25Issue 52026Transitions in Science Communication: Continuity and Change (PCST 2025)

Jul 13, 2026 Practice Insight

Including lived experience voices in science communication to combat mental illness stigma: insights from India

by Kadambari Patil , Anushka Banerjee , Imtiaz Zafar , Ipsa Jain , Meghna Prakash , Dr Pavithra Jayasankar , Ms Varsha Kini , Vasundhra Teotia , Ashitha S Niranjana Murthy , Dr Bhagyalakshmi Mallapura Shankarappa , Swarna Buddha Nayok , Jayant Mahadevan , Suhas Ganesh , Biju Viswanath , Reeteka Sud

Outreach on mental illness presents a unique challenge for science communication, in that it requires approaches to actively address associated stigma. A significant barrier to treatment and recovery, stigma shapes the lives of those diagnosed with mental illnesses alongside their clinical symptoms. Evidence suggests that active involvement of person(s) with lived experience (PwLE) may be a promising strategy to combat stigma. However, such interventions remain under-documented in low- and middle-income countries like India. To address this gap, we designed a series of innovative events, co-produced with PwLE. We engaged approximately 260 participants and displayed 191 creative artefacts. This article presents and reflects on our science communication practices to address mental illness stigma by integrating arts-based participation with principles from contact theory.

Volume 25Issue 52026Transitions in Science Communication: Continuity and Change (PCST 2025)

Jul 13, 2026 Review Article

Organising collaboration for strategic science communication in research projects

by Marjo Pauliina Honkaranta , Tomi Laapotti , Tanja Sihvonen

This state-of-the-art literature review advances the shift in science communication research towards an organisational perspective, moving focus from individual researchers' capabilities to the role of organisational structures and practices. It explores how temporary collaborative research organisations, such as research projects, organise their activities, and examines the link between organisational structuring and science communication. Offering a structured overview, the review identifies research gaps and contributes to systematising the field by proposing a conceptual framework that integrates the communicative constitution of organisations (CCO) theory with institutional approaches to science communication. The literature reveals three key organisational dimensions: contextual conditions, cooperation, and communication. In addition to previously recognised components of `organisationality' — actorhood, identity, and interconnected decision-making — contextual conditions are also shown to play a role in organising in temporary research organisations. The theoretically driven framework supports the defragmentation of the research field and provides a foundation for future inquiry.

Volume 25Issue 52026Transitions in Science Communication: Continuity and Change (PCST 2025)

Jul 13, 2026 Article

Academic saviourism: how well-meaning science communication can reproduce epistemic hierarchies

by Miriam Welz

This theoretical article introduces academic saviourism as a concept that explains how inclusion efforts in science communication can at times unintentionally reproduce epistemic hierarchies, and end up being symbolic rather than transformative. Building on theories like Bourdieu's habitus, Archer et al.'s science capital, and Critical Race Studies' perspectives on the White Savior Industrial Complex, I draw out three interrelated manifestations of academic saviourism: (1) affective burdens on marginalised individuals, (2) the performative inclusion practices of science communication institutions, and (3) the underlying normative assumptions that shape how science communication actors understand marginalised communities' needs and participation.

Volume 25Issue 52026Transitions in Science Communication: Continuity and Change (PCST 2025)

Jul 13, 2026 Article

Transforming narratives: gender equity struggles in Latin American and Caribbean science museums

by Bianca Hipólito de Oliveira BHO , Alessandra Bizerra , Miss Mirelly de Oliveira Soares

Science museums are undergoing a transition, expanding their role in science communication to engage with equity and inclusion actively. Although women and gender-diverse individuals constitute a significant proportion of museum audiences, they remain underrepresented in exhibitions and leadership roles. This study examines how science museums can address gender equity. Based on a survey of science museum professionals across Latin America and the Caribbean, we identified respondents reporting gender-focused transformative actions. We conducted a thematic analysis of gender-focused transformative actions. Five key elements were developed: female participation, identity negotiation, disruption of normative gender narratives, historical recovery, and activism. The initiatives demonstrate significant transformative potential but are constrained by persistent challenges. By examining these evolving practices in contexts shaped by both structural inequalities and historical struggles for rights, this study contributes to an understanding of how science museums can act as spaces for social transformation.

Volume 25Issue 52026Transitions in Science Communication: Continuity and Change (PCST 2025)

Jul 13, 2026 Article

Shared gatekeeping: comparing relevance criteria for selecting science information

by Janise Brück

Science communication experiences major transitions: alongside science journalists, scientists, their institutions, and public relations departments increasingly select and communicate science information to publics, thereby stepping into gatekeeping roles. To better understand this “shared gatekeeping” and how different science communicators select topics, this article investigates relevance criteria that guide selection and communication decisions of science information. Drawing on 57 interviews with German-speaking science journalists, science public relations practitioners, and scientists, the study identifies and compares relevance criteria for each group based on the hierarchy of influences model. Findings reveal a wide range of relevance criteria as well as similarities and differences at individual, communication routines, organizational, and social institutional levels. Although all groups seem to be guided by similar, partly journalistic, relevance criteria (e.g., overlapping goals, topic characteristics), they operate within distinct professional contexts and thus weigh these criteria differently.

Volume 25Issue 52026Transitions in Science Communication: Continuity and Change (PCST 2025)

Jul 08, 2026 Commentary

The erosion of academic freedom in Venezuela: international human rights law, authoritarian practice, and implications for knowledge communication

by Mr Ricardo Villalobos Fontalvo , Dr David Gomez Gamboa

This commentary examines the tension between the recent consolidation of academic freedom as a human right in international and Inter-American law and its systematic erosion under authoritarian regimes, using Venezuela as a paradigmatic case. Drawing on General Comment No. 13, the Inter-American Principles on Academic Freedom and University Autonomy, and an operational framework developed in regional monitoring, it analyses how Venezuelan state policies, legal and institutional engineering, criminalisation and repression, economic strangulation and judicial interference, undermine core attributes of academic freedom CESCR1999,IACHR2021a. It shows how these measures reshape the ecosystem of science communication by narrowing who can speak, what can be researched and how knowledge circulates in society. The commentary concludes by identifying gaps in regional and international protection, highlighting comparative data from the Academic Freedom Index, and proposing pathways to strengthen academic-freedom safeguards and democratic science communication in the Americas.

Volume 25Issue 42026

Jul 08, 2026 Commentary

Scientists under fire: lessons from the Omicron case

by Mrs Kim Darley Waddilove , Nothando Ngwenya , Marina Joubert

Scientists face growing pressure to share their research with the public — an ethical and professional duty that can sometimes lead to public hostility when addressing sensitive, controversial, or unpopular topics. Negative reactions from society, often worsened by social media, threaten not only the scientists themselves but also public trust in science and the integrity of knowledge systems. This commentary presents a case study of two scientists based in southern Africa, Professor Tulio de Oliveira and Professor Sikhulile Moyo, who identified the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in November 2021. After sharing their findings with the relevant authorities, they encountered a wave of public criticism and abuse. Using insights from interviews with these scientists, we examine the different forms of this abuse, its impact, and the coping strategies they employed. We highlight the broader lessons this case offers for contemporary science communication, arguing that protecting scientists who face public backlash when sharing their research is essential for safeguarding science as a whole. We also suggest ways individuals, institutions, and the scientific community can create more supportive research environments for scientists working on potentially sensitive political or social issues.

Volume 25Issue 42026

Jul 08, 2026 Commentary

The price of speaking out: European landscape of online hate and harassment

by Atte Oksanen

Hostile online communication is an increasing concern in academia. This commentary focuses on online harassment victims in Finland and online harassment perpetration in Europe. Data are drawn from representative surveys of Finnish academic research and teaching staff and national samples from Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland. In Finland, 30% of academics reported online harassment within the past 6 months. Victims were disproportionately senior staff, minorities, and those in the social sciences and humanities. Only approximately 18% of the perpetrators were a member of the respondent's work community at their university. Public engagement in the media heightened risk. Victims reported more distress, lower trust, and weaker workplace support. Across Europe, men reported having sent offensive or threatening online messages more commonly. Perpetration was associated with younger age, psychological distress, and higher online involvement. These findings highlight the need to strengthen institutional support and improve digital culture to protect academic freedom and well-being.

Volume 25Issue 42026

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