What role for a scientist in political science communication?

This is a GUEST POST by ATHENE DONALD, Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge and Master of Churchill College. A couple of months ago Brigitte Nerlich, who hosts this blog, asked me to contribute a post. As it happened, when she sent me the invitation I had just read, and possibly inwardly …

The invisibles: Science, publics and surveys

This is a guest post by two science communication researchers, one working at the University of Otago, New Zealand, the other at the University of Queensland, Australia: Fabien Medvecky and Joan Leach. How much can large-scales surveys tell us about attitudes to science and what can we say about the categories of publics constructed around …

Science, politics and epigenetics

This post by Shea Robison is reposted here with the permission of author. Shea originally posted it on his blog ‘The nexus of epigenetics‘ under the title “Epigenetics Minority Report Part I: Epigenetics, blame, precrime and politics“ *** If you picked up the movie reference in the title to this post, you are likely (hopefully) asking …

You say regulatory science, I say mandated science; let’s call the whole thing off?

One issue of contention after the Circling the Square conference was the apparent confounding of science with regulatory science. I finally took a bit of time to dig into the history and use of the concept of ‘regulatory science’ and a related concept, ‘mandated science’. I should stress that there are whole courses on ‘regulatory …

Science, sensationalism and the dangers of over-selling research

This is a GUEST POST by FREYA HARRISON. Freya works in Steve Diggle’s group in the Centre for Biomolecular Sciences at the University of Nottingham, where she researches the ecology and evolution of cooperation. She spends most of her time exploring how communication and cooperation help bacteria to cause chronic infections, but she is also …

Making sense in science and in public

Over the last few weeks some of my colleagues within the Institute for Science and Society and the Making Science Public programme (and beyond) have probably got pretty annoyed with me, as I have become a bit argumentative in a debate about science and politics and the line between sense and nonsense. In the following …

Re-imagining the public / re-imagining the political

  Last month (15-16 May) I attended a conference organised by Michel Ledda, Robert Cowley, and David Chandler from the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) at the University of Westminster entitled: ‘New perspectives on the problem of the public’. Together with Sujatha Raman I work on the Leverhulme funded project ‘Models of Managing …

Describing research in plain language is challenging – but worth it

This is a POST by DAVE FARMER first published on Physicsfocus and which I am reposting here with the permission of the author. Dave is a physics student here at the University of Nottingham. He also participated in our Circling the Square conference and made perceptive contributions from the floor. Dave is an aspiring science …

The Impact awards: A short story for the Circling the square conference

This is a fictional story about impact written by Kate Roach for the Circling the Square conference on research, politics, media and impact (20-22 May 2014) The Impact Awards   By KATE ROACH May 2114 “And here she is folks, the one and only Professor Madeleine Davies.”  Vic Baker broadcast to the whole table as …