Scientists should defend democracy...and aren't we all scientists?

I am not going to make a political statement here. Democracy in general, the principles behind, the benefits and difficulties of having a majority-driven decision process, and the sacrifices we all have to accept to make democracy a working concept, are beyond politics. They are beyond beliefs and opinions, beyond political directions and parties...and ideologies.

However, for democracy to work that way and being able to resist attacks from undemocratic sources (whatever they are and whereever they come from), everyone participating in democratic processes needs be able to make well-informed decisions. It's not what we believe that should lead us in democracy, its the facts. Its not our opinions that should steer us towards a certain decision, its the facts. It's not our political home or party that should motivate us to have our say on a given topic, it's the facts. And it's by far not ideology that should control how we shape the future of our societies - but the facts.

Facts are what we initially perceive as the truth after stripping off all misunderstandings and misinterpretations. Facts is what remains after we took a scientific look at what we first saw, heard, felt, and thus, believed. A scientific look. A look that questions what we perceive, that takes different perspectives and includes views from different angles. A look that challenges our intial, shallow treatment of what we readily understand as the truth. A look that provides enough scepticism to let common sense shine through and help avoiding traps.

This is how scientists work. They have a hypothesis, a certain belief. Then they design experiments to test that hypothesis. Of course, since it is their belief in the first place, the experimental design is biased. You cannot design an experiment without an expected outcome. By means of the experiments scientists generate data. And these they interprete. They ask the data against the background of all the knowledge available so far: what are you telling me? Their interpretation has to stand against everything that is known about the specific topic, and it has to fit in this knowledge to advance it. Or it has to disprove the current knowledge with sufficient evidence, which is - of course - also backed by a body of other knowledge where the findings fit into.

Working scientifically means to not take a first impression as the truth, but to dig deep into any issue, until finding the core of it. This core is the fact to build an opinion that leads to a belief. While scientists are rather good at this exercise in the laboratory or whereever they work, today's world could use quite a bit scientific thinking outside the ivory tower.

Currently, nearly any political debate in any country seems loaded with more non-scientific or even pseudo-scientific reasoning then maybe ever before in history. Statements and claims are just made, with no evidence given, no proof provided, no proper arguments presented.

When the president of the United States tweets that everybody thinks he is doing a great job and that no president before him accomplished as much as he did so far, where's the scientists asking who "everybody" is, whether he refers to the world, the USA, Washington, the White House? Where's the scientists demanding proof in the form of polls, quotes - facts? People might see this as trivial, believing that everybody should know it is nonsense. But a significant fraction of the American people believe this. If it remains unchallenged, it seems sort of proven. Otherwise people who know better would speak out, wouldn't they?!

When in Chemnitz, Germany, thousands of extrem right-wing, antimuslimic, racist and neo-Nazi people together with the AfD party protest against a homicide allegedly committed by refugees, because the victim was - at least partly - German, and the state premier of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, downplays this as only a harmless commemoration march, where's the scientists pointing out that in 2017 405 persons were murdered, without thousands of people taking to the streets? Where's the scientists challenging Kretschmer in asking what he believes why strangers from all over the republic suddenly feel compelled to mourn about this dead young man? Where's the scientists asking why the extrem right-wing care about a German-Cuban? That person wouldn't be at all Aryan in their perfect world.

We scientists were trained to think in a particular way and the taxpayer mostly covered the costs for this training. We are meant to form the intellectual spearhead of society, finding and presenting the truth about any scientific question. But we should also find, present and ultimatively protect any truth; by providing the facts, collected through scientific thinking. We are the "elite" that the society has to rely on. If we scientists do not reveal the facts behind any political statement, development or initiative, who does?!

Democracy only works if people can make well-informed decisions. We scientists can make sure that the facts become clearly visible. However, it's then on the people to look at the facts, understand them and draw their conclusion. This requires also the ability for scientific thinking. Only when people understand, why a given fact is the truth, and not so what they initially perceived, they can also accept the fact as the basis of their decision making.

Scientific thinking is not a superpower. It is a specific strategy for looking at putative knowledge and find the shortcomings of the first impression of it - in case there are any. It requires training, because people need to get used to it. Besides this it relies mainly on an open mind, a good portion of scepticism and self-awarenss, and common sense. Hence, we need scientific education already at the early ages.

Consequently, everybody can be a scientist - or better - a scientific thinker. And everybody should be. Not only to be able to better understand and rate the facts scientists had hopefully dug out, but to be able by themselves to strip off all misleading information from the "truth" they get presented. To get to the facts, make well-informed decisions, and make democracy work.

The Sisyphus topic once again - but little strokes fell big oaks!

It feels like the SETAC Europe annual meeting 2017 in Brussels, Belgium, is just around the corner. Well, definitely it is not far away anymore, and hence worth to have a look at we are goind to do there in terms of science communication.

Together with Jan Brant of CEFAS and me as co-chairs, colleague Leonie Nüßer from our institute organises another communication session at the Brussels meeting, being the 6th in a row at SETAC Europe AMs since 2012. This shows of course the interest in and the relevance of the topic, but despite always loads of people are attending our sessions, still only few are willing to contribute.

And so it is also this time. At least we got the five platforms that are necessary for the session to occupy one full slot. Besides, a couple of posters will be presented. But it is kind of a Sisyphus thing, and we feel we have to have staying power to keep organising such sessions.

That said, here's what we plan. It is once again the trial to gather expertise and experience from the SETAC membership regarding best practice and lessons learned in communicating our science, and this time also including citizen science.

Science communication and citizen science – strategies for successful stakeholder engagements

Nowadays, science communication and interactions with non-scientists is widely recognized as an important responsibility of scientists. When successful, these interactions can be a powerful tool and have the potential to provide a better understanding of your field of research and its relevance to society – which is beneficial for all participating sides. Within environmental and ecotoxicological science and research this is of particular interest since our field is linked to many levels of everyday life. We should not rely on science journalism or the initiatives of a distinguished group of scientists to be solely responsible for the understanding of our research.

However, acknowledging the importance of communication does not make us good communicators. So how do we learn skills and how do we choose the right communication strategy depending on our audience and the information we want to disseminate? How do we avoid misunderstanding and raising wrong concerns? Together with you we want to develop and demonstrate concepts of good communication for our community.

Today, non-scientists may collaborate on establishing hypotheses, project design, interpreting data, and disseminating results.  Citizen science has the potential to provide a wide range of benefits, not least of which is uniting and leveraging the expertise of multiple disciplines to further scientific investigations.

This session will collect experiences and expertise on different strategies for the engagement with specific stakeholders, how to tackle risk and uncertainty communication and the inclusion of non-scientists in sampling campaigns and decision finding processes. The presentations include different case studies where the dissemination of scientific information was implemented via conceptual strategies. 

We seek to initiate a lively discussion between the presenters and the audience. Listeners are encouraged to report their own cases, issues or experiences.

Communicating research findings and uncertainties - a Nantes experience

Our session "Communicating research findings and uncertainties: Strategies, tools, and new platforms for environmental sciences" at the SETAC Europe annual meeting 2016 in Nantes, France, received only minor contributions. However, we were assigned a poster corner, which is in my opinion the best format for presentation and discussion at conferences.

In a poster corner, the posters are presented in short five-minutes talks and then discussed with the attending audience. The seven posters provided a stage for our presenters that they extensively used to introduce their works. The more informal atmosphere with much less distance to the audience than at platform presentations fueled very interesting and lively discussions. Also, the weaker time restrictions allowed us to just let the disucussions going on, without the need to eventually cut them of.

Leonie Nüßer, Erica Brockmeier, Mattia Meli and I as the chairs of the session very much enjoyed this event, and we wrote a session brief for the SETAC Globe to let everyone participate in our excitement.

Why we do not just talk about our science

It is not easy to communicate science, and it is especially difficult from environmental research. Most findings we make are rather directly connected to every day lifes and thus human wellbeing. As a consequence, people tend to assess such research based on their personal feelings, desires, and - in particular - concerns. This can lead to misunderstandings that produce even stronger opinions and are hence even more difficult to solve.

We environmental researchers seem to react with avoidance: before we do something wrong, we do not do anything at all in terms of communicating our science. Thomas Backhaus and I wrote an Editorial in Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management on "Communicating environmental science to the general public", where we shortly analyse this situation and the associated problems and try to encourage our colleagues to anyway take on the challenge. 

Be part of SCIRIC!

The new SETAC Europe advisory group on science and risk communication has a now a website in the setac.org universe. At http://www.setac.org/group/SEAGSCIRIC you will be introduced into the idea and concept behind SCIRIC, the work program, the strategy and some specific ideas.

All the information comes from the proposal for the SCIRIC group, but is optimized for reading fun and easy understanding. The page also lists the current members of the SCIRIC Steering Committee.
Most importantly: as a SETAC member you can join the group by the click of a button. We will keep you up-to-date about all SCIRIC matters via the group mailing feature.

The SCIRIC proposal in full colour and stereo

The SCIRIC story started with a proposal we planned to submit to the Science Committee of SETAC Europe (SC). They were expected to evaluate the idea and give recommendations to the SETAC Europe Council (SEC), who would finally decide on establishment of the group. However, the proposal got already circulated in advance among SC and SEC members. And suddenly I got invited to present the proposal at the May 3 SEC meeting prior to the Barcelona meeting 2015. The presentation went quite well, and I was in good mood afterwards that the proposal has a fair chance once submitted.
Surprisingly though, right after I left the meeting the SEC went on to vote for the proposal and readily approved it.

Here's the winning text. It gives you a deep insight into the idea and mission behind SCIRIC.


Proposal for a SETAC Europe advisory group on science and risk communication (SCIRIC)

Thomas-Benjamin Seiler1, Agnieszka Hunka2, Gerd Maack3, Sarah Bowman4, Henner Hollert1, Pernille Thorbeck5, Katja Broeg6, John Redshaw7, Jennifer Best7, Blair Paulik8, Ceri Lewis9

1 RWTH Aachen University, Germany
2 University of Twente, The Netherlands
3 Umweltbundesamt, Germany
4 The Ohio State University, USA
5 Syngenta, UK
6 Stockholm University, Sweden
7 Scottish Environment Protection Agency, UK
8 Oregon State University, USA
9 University of Exeter, UK

Steering committee
Thomas-Benjamin Seiler, Agnieszka Hunka, Gerd Maack, Sarah Bowman, Henner Hollert, Pernille Thorbeck

Acronym
SCIRIC

Logo

Mission statement
We propose the formation of a SETAC Europe advisory group on science and risk communication (Acronym: SCIRIC). The mission of this group will be to collate expertise and experience on communication within SETAC to establish the communication of scientific findings as an essential aspect in environmental and ecotoxicological science and research. This advisory group aims at providing SETAC scientists with state-of-art communication practices, tools, and strategies to optimize their outreach to other scientific disciplines, stakeholders, agencies, politics, media and the general public.

Rationale
The list of SETAC advisory groups clearly resembles SETAC's ambitious claim: Environmental Quality through Science. Within SETAC we are not only doing science as our everyday task, but with the advisory groups SETAC aims at ensuring highest quality and continuous advancement of research. Nevertheless, scientific knowledge is in that context rather communicated and disseminated within the community than outreached to decision making and the public. We often seem to avoid communicating to people outside our own scientific community. Balancing quality science and lay understanding is a very fine line, and therefore the risk and fear of failure is high within the scientific community. Nevertheless, since the results obtained from environmental sciences raise concern about the environment as a whole, disconnection from the general public is more than just a typical academic characteristic. In the end it is a complete failure of our fundamental intentions. Connections between ”the laboratory” and “the public” of course exist, via, e.g., press offices of institutes, news on institute web sites, or reception of important findings in newspapers. However, the crucial questions are: what is perceived by the public that can generate impact on the politics and decision making? Are scientific results which can provide important information for decision making reaching their targets in an appropriate and timely manner?

Communication means to convey meaningful information to create shared understanding. If messages from environmental science are not suitable to generate public comprehension and endorsement, we remain in our “Ivory Tower” despite all connections to the outsie there might be. This demands easily understandable and clear communication and also for subsequent confirmation of the right understanding. Consequently, it is not sufficient for environmental science to merely contact the interested public but to effectively and sustainably compile and distribute scientific findings for a safer and healthier environment.

Past activities
Recognizing an urgent need for expansion and improvement of communication of scientific findings by the SETAC community, we started a series of well-attended sessions on science and risk communication, beginning with SETAC World Congress 2012 in Berlin, continuing with SETAC Europe annual meeting 2013 in Glasgow, and most recently at the annual meeting 2014 of SETAC Europe in Basel. The Glasgow session also featured a panel discussion with participants from academia, authorities, industry, and media. Panelists and audience agreed that environmental scientists should communicate research results not only within the scientific community, but also to the public and decision making. The encouraging outcome was that communication is seen as a topic of large interest within SETAC and that many colleagues already have clear views and distinct opinions about how communication could and should work. Yet, most of us do not have the time and resources to realize it properly.

We furthermore initiated an article series on science and risk communication in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe (ESEU) to provide a platform for colleagues with expertise and/or interest regarding communication-related topics. The collection meanwhile features five articles and several more are in review or preparation.

Clearly, modern societies are becoming increasingly worried about environmental and personal chemical risks. Environmental sciences were established as a response to the anthropogenic impacts on environmental and human health, e.g., on reports about acid rain and its impacts on forests, or effects of chemicals in the environment (see Rachel Carsons pioneering report “Silent Spring“). Environmental sciences are at the heart of what people deal with in their daily lives: environmental quality, food safety, clean air, fresh water, human health. Why aren't the results of our work in their daily thoughts? How can they get there? Numerous decisions are taken every second which could be supported by knowing the outcomes of our research.

Work programme
Environmental sciences provide results which are essential for the maintenance of environmental- and public health, and hence have a “traditional” link to the public, media, and decision making. As a consequence for environmental scientists it should be easy to distribute and publicize their work. Even if the „Why“ regarding science and risk communication is obvious to researchers, the more fundamental questions often remain unanswered:

• How can we make science and risk communication more trustworthy?
• What kind of “stories“ find their way into the media? Is it necessary to express our work in terms of disasters?
• Are there other possibilities to tell “good stories“ about what environmental scientists are doing, and still show the relevance of our topics?
• How can we improve science and risk communication with the general public?
• How can social and political scientists and communicators work together with biologists, chemists, geologists and other natural scientists?
• What can we learn from each other?
• What are the specific information needs of, and communication formats for, the single target groups (e.g. public, media, stakeholders, agencies, politics).

The advisory group on science and risk communication will work to fundamentally improve the way dissemination of scientific findings is regarded and carried out within the researcher's community of SETAC and beyond:

1. We will collate expertise and experience on science and risk communication within SETAC to identify those colleagues capable of advising others and giving input to the work of the AG.
2. We will deeply analyze environmental research and identify the special requirements of communication of environmental sciences.
3. We will review the state-of-art in science and risk communication and develop methods, tools and strategies tailored for the special requirements of environmental sciences.
4. We will continuously emphasize the importance of communicating research to all different levels of the society as an integrated part of environmental science.
5. We will establish trainings for SETAC members, teaching those interested in science communication the available tools and strategies to succeed in proper dissemination to the „outside of the Ivory Tower“.
6. We will continuously review the state-of-art in communicating science and adapt as well as develop novel concepts for a successful outreach of scientific findings from environmental research.
7. We will be seeking to become one of the major platform for discussion and sources of advice on science and risk communication within SETAC and beyond.
8. We will be working to ensure that the quality of science conducted within the SETAC community is maintained also upon dissemination to the media and the public.

For all our activities we will consider the tripartite structure of SETAC to ensure proper communication from and to all different parts of the society. We will furthermore seek to include views and perspectives of media, policy and education.

Detailed strategy
We propose the following strategy to reach our goals (see also figure below). It is based on two pillars, namely “people” – which focuses on educating and connecting the SETAC community – and “topic” – which aims to understand, describe and develop science and risk communication as an important part of environmental research. The AG will work on both parts in parallel:

For the “people” part the process of collating expertise and experience (1) is the initial step forward and started already with the session on science and risk communication at the SETAC World Congress 2012 in Berlin and the initiation of the ESEU article series. These events founded a continuously growing network of social, political, communication and environmental scientists with a link to science and risk communication. Our sessions on science and risk communication bring together and connect those colleagues capable of and interested in contributing to communication as a topic within SETAC and let us build up a directory of communication experts. The work for the article series continuously identifies authors and reviewers with expertise in communication. As a first outcome from the AG this growing directory will be used to provide all colleagues a list of people within their own networks who could support them in questions of science and risk communication. In the ongoing process of advising and learning a strong community of scientists experienced in communication of research will then be build up; we also propose to include a “science communication” tag to the SETAC members directory for easier identification of skilled colleagues. This continuously growing and interconnecting community of scientists interested in communication and convinced of its importance will strongly facilitate the establishment of proper dissemination to all different target groups in society as a crucial part of the scientific process (4). This will finally help us to successfully run trainings, such as short courses at SETAC AMs, special sessions, workshops etc. (5). The growing awareness for science and risk communication should also allow for the introduction of an own session track at SETAC Europe annual meetings.
We intend to closely co-operate with

• the SETAC Europe (SE) committee for education in organizing training courses, share expertise and experiences, and to avoid overlapping and redundancies. This committee already supported our activities by inviting us to organize a short course on science communication at the SETAC Europe annual meeting 2014 in Basel.
• the SE Committee for membership and public relations to harmonize PR activities, exchange experience and expertise, support each other in generating the best possible impact of either work, and by that increasing the awareness of the different target groups (public, politics, media, stakeholders) concerning environmental sciences and SETAC.
• the SE Science Committee by identifying scientific issues in need of proper communication to the respective target groups, to learn about scientific issues that will require tailor-made communication strategies and to provide advice also in advance and/or response to emerging topics, and to ensure that the high scientific quality of SETAC is maintained upon communication.
• the SE Awards Committee regarding the establishment of a SETAC Communications award; this award should highlight exceptional performances in science- and risk communication with a clearly measurable positive impact on the addressed target group(s).
• the SE committee for regional branches to better distribute the idea of proper communication within SETAC Europe, and by that to increase the awareness of the community of the AG’s activities; to identify and address local characteristics of communication processes (e.g. stronger emphasis of the media on science writing in some countries compared to others, different use and/or availability of the large variety of information channels and platforms), and to tailor communication strategies with respect to the specific circumstances of the different regions.
• the SE Long range planning committee to work on a shift in awareness for proper science and risk communication, and establish a sustainable strategy to educate SETAC scientists in high quality communication of their research work.
• the SETAC Europe Council, since a large part of our activities will reach beyond the SETAC Europe society, and mutual understanding is needed on how and what to communicate. We intend to reach an agreement on a trustworthy and at the same time streamlined process for approval, based on a categorization of communication activities within a tiered approval scheme.
• the SETAC Europe Students Advisory Council, to implement the idea of proper science and risk communication as a crucial part of environmental research already at the level of young scientists; to include also the view on communication of SETAC’s student members, as well as benefit from the young and increasingly technology- and media related generation for our activities towards best practice and the application of novel tools and strategies.
• the SETAC Global Publications committee and the various SETAC publications directly (Globe, ETC, IEAM, SETAC News) to establish new periodicals and space within the current publications, respectively, aimed at comprehensible description and communication of scientific research; to utilize the expertise and experience in scientific writing and successful publication of the committee and the editorial offices together with our knowledge on communication to create attractive training courses in scientific writing and communication skills.
• the respective SETAC North America committees (e.g. education, awards, public relations and communications) 
• the respective SETAC Global committees, already in preparation of moving from the European to the global level, once the AG is well established in SETAC Europe.
• the specific thematic communities within SETAC directly, especially those that have a naturally strong link to public perception, such as the scientists doing LCA studies. These topics can readily raise interest by the relevant target groups if communicated properly. The AG will support dissemination of research findings from the respective community and by that gain valuable experience from the practical application of communication strategies and concepts.

Within “topic”,  analysis and identification of specific requirements for communication of environmental research (2) will be the initial task of the AG after its foundation. Only when we can base our activities on fundamental knowledge of what is needed to be changed, created and established, we will be able to work efficiently and focused towards our goals. Once such knowledge is available, we will derive tailor-made strategies built upon the current state-of-art in science and risk communication, develop novel tools and methods (3) and eventually provide the scientific community a toolbox for proper communication that is easily adaptable to the specific situation. This toolbox will undergo continuous review and being updated by the most recent development in communication science and practice. The aggregated expertise on communication within the AG will also lead to the development of new concepts and strategies, especially based on the ongoing worldwide technological progress (6).

Figure Schematic of the activities and their interrelations of the AG SCIRIC. The top-down view also resembles a chronological order of the AG development.

All these measures are envisaged to strengthen the value and visibility of the AG within SETAC and its community and getting AG members involved in consultancy on science and risk communication at the various levels of the science communication process (7). We especially aim at acquiring members which are participating in at least one other SETAC advisory group (European, North American and/or global). Those persons can act as ‘ambassadors’ for science and risk communication and (a) bring the ideas, knowledge, experience and visions from our AG to all other AGs, while (b) learning about issues and problems for which our AG could provide tailored solutions. By that, we also get to know the specific communication perspective of a wealth of different groups within SETAC, thus increasing our knowledge and experience. Furthermore, on a regular basis we will organize workshops for the AG chairs to learn about communication and discuss current communication issues from their specific topics, and we will offer demand-driven advice meetings with AGs to work on specific ideas or issues that they bring in. This will lead to a large pool of properly educated and sufficiently committed environmental scientists communicating SETAC research to all different levels of the society, developing and using target group-specific concepts, which will strengthen SETAC's visibility and reputation in the public. An increase of societal and political impact of SETAC is expected as a result, helping to facilitate our vision of environmental quality (8).

Specific activities
Our goal is to fascilitate a development we call “Public Understanding of the Scientific Process” (PUSP). Communication of scientific facts in the 1950s was dominated merely by science fiction. The more complex and powerful scientific findings and technological achievements got, the more skepticism spread along – which spawned large-scale information campaigns. However, public understanding of research is not a matter of sufficient knowledge through comprehensive explanation (a so called „deficit model“), but rather driven by personal concern and interests as a result of emotions and individual involvement and a certain code of values. As a consequence, science communication started to enhance public understanding based on the concept of science and humanities (PUSH phase). This strategy, combining scientific knowledge with the information needs of people, effectively constituted the understanding of scientific research within the public. Nevertheless, many scientists are not aware about it and thus, a large amount of dissemination activities and communication efforts often are still based on a scientist's monologue on facts. On the other hand, most of the people “consuming” science communication know little to nothing about how scientific research happens. Hence, even if they understand based on acquired knowledge, their view of science is generally biased by their imagination of how science happens.

One example is the uncertainty of findings as a key concept of proper science. Uncertainty of scientific findings is one of the main drivers for misunderstanding, distrust and consequently lack of interest or even opposition of the public. To understand, why certain results are vague; clear findings are scarce; several aspects remain uncertain, people must have the opportunity to look behind the scenes of scientific research. Seeing this as an approach based on the fairness theory, which postulates that transparency of a process increases willingness to accept its outcome, it would be a measure of informational justice, meaning access to appropriate information, and transparency of the relevant processes leading to a certain result. It has been shown that people can better accept a negative outcome when they feel they know how a decision was made. In the perception by the public, scientific uncertainty has a quality similar to that of a decision's negative outcome, since common expectations – as detailed above – rather demand for clarity. The conclusion is that the public needs to directly participate in the scientific process.

This transparency will be more than anything else a matter of communication from within the scientific arena. For the format of such communication a large variety of choices are available, ranging from open days and science nights over science slams, public lectures and video blogs to articles in popular journals and TV or newspaper interviews. Especially for the purpose of letting the public look behind the scenes of science a novel concept that uses theatre-based communication can be applied. A similar approach in legislation, the “legislative theatre”, proved a very successful and suitable way of democratic decision making according to the fairness theory. Involving scientists as actors which just play the role of their everyday working life, with all difficulties, decisions, discussions and especially also failures could bring on stage the reality of research, and thus correcting the media-biased image of scientific research in the public. This more realistic view on researchers and research will encourage common people to more directly approach environmental scientists. Nowaday's polished image of scientific research as an ever highly successful endeavour rather scares away public curiosity; common people, especially at lower educational levels, feel weak and unsecure.

We will also put one strong focus on communicating to the younger part of the society in terms of a start-of-pipe approach. Educating already the young generations to take care of their environment and to consider anthropogenic contamination can significantly reduce diffuse pollution in future, thus enhancing environmental quality. Concepts and strategies for activities especially aimed at schools will be developed in close cooperation with local teachers and pupils, thus taking into account differences between regions and countries. In the interest for a long-term awareness of the society about environmental issues and the science taking care of them, the communication and education should start already with the children, who are particularly interested, curious, easily fascinated and eager to learn.

Long-range vision
We believe in and will work towards our vision that proper training of environmental scientists in science communication based on a strong theoretical foundation that recognizes the specific aspects and requirements of environmental research and communication can eventually increase awareness, interest, comprehension, and appreciation for environmental research. This can lead to a true participatory role of the public in environmental sciences, thus strengthening the impact of the SETAC community on societal development as well as political decisions.

Organisation
The AG should be established first at the European level. Since cultures in science and risk communication can differ strongly between different geographical regions the initiation of AG on the European level will limit the complexity to challenge and thus help building up a strong initial platform and network for the various activities. We will immediately apply for moving to the global level, once the framework of the AG is established and structured properly (e.g. steering committee, thematic groups, regular meetings, promotion material), and it is working on a routine basis.
We are thinking of communication as a multilateral exchange between all relevant groups concerned about a certain topic. Our steering committee (SC) will therefore be clearly balanced in terms of stakeholder participation and gender equality. Furthermore, we will try to include a member from every Geographical Unit of SETAC. This will allow for consideration of the different regional views and opinions, and will help to adapt our activities specifically to the varying characteristics of communication. The SC will contain between 5 and 10 members and vote the chair(s) of the AG. It is preferred that members of the SC do not serve more than 3 consecutive years. When a person leaves the SC, a substitute will be nominated by all members present at the next AG meeting, preferably in such a way that the balance of the SC is respected. We will try to strictly resemble the tripartite structure of SETAC and will actively recruit members to represent this structure. Moreover, among the representatives from academia, industry and authorities we will seek to have as much diversity as possible, which will give the benefit of a high variety of different perspectives and needs of communication. On the other hand, this will allow for a rapid identification of points where strong agreement exists as well as conflict areas. By that the activities of the AG can be directed towards immediate progress and success in the beginning, and thus facilitate establishment of the AG as a communication think-tank for SETAC Europe.

The composition of the AG is intended to adhere to the basic SETAC guidelines, i.e. comparable representations from academia, industry, government and non-profit organizations. This also means that we will actively recruit members to resemble the tripartite structure. We know that we need a balanced representation of all different perspectives to achieve our goals. The AG is open to any interested parties and both scientists and students of SETAC are encouraged to join.

Session track at Nantes meeting

One far goal of our activities to strengthen the role of communication within environmental sciences was an own session track at SETAC conferences.

I am really thrilled that we already reached this, maybe indicating how popular this topic is about to become. The call for sessions for the SETAC Europe annual meeting 2016 in Nantes, France, includes a track "Communication on and public perception of environmental risks". I had the opportunity to contribute a good share of the description:

This track is seeking to bring together knowledge and experience on how to communicate properly on environmental risks and the research done for detection, evaluation and mitigation of pollutant effects, to different target groups including decision/policy makers and the general public. Sessions within this track are expected to deal with strategies that can be implemented to organise data in support of communication tools development (e.g. databases and user friendly derived tools), to identify relevant information, to increase and evaluate public perception, to raise awareness on environmental issues and to use public impact for SETAC’s aim of environmental quality.

We from the SCIRIC AG have the role to take care of this track, organise session proposals and contribute our own ideas. As it looks right now it could become a set of very interesting and challenging discussions at the conference.

SCIRIC - a major source for advice on communication

It is done! As of May 3rd, 2015, SETAC Europe, the European professional organisation for environmental toxicology and chemistry, has a group of experts officially formed to advise on proper environmental science and risk communication. This so called „Advisory Group on Science and Risk Communication (SCIRIC)“ will in future work on strengthening communication from within the SETAC community to all different target groups including the general public.
As the leading author of the proposal that restulted in the establishment of this group I am now chairing an initial steering committee to bring the group to live. This committee consists of several colleagues with strong interest for and expertise in science and risk communication, who are all very eager to develop this topic as an integral part of environmental research within SETAC.

In a nutshell, SCIRIC aims to become one of the major sources for advice on science and risk communication for SETAC members and maybe even beyond.

The working programme of the group is ambitious and challenging, but also very promising as a huge step forward into a future of better science and risk communication of environmental issues as a pre-requisite for a stronger public awareness of our research, findings and goals. We will basically base our activities on two pillars: the people and the topic.

For the „people part“ we aim at forming an interdisciplinary and international network of SETAC members with experience and/or expertise in communicating research. This measure already started back in 2012 with the first session at the Berlin conference and is ongoing until today with the sessions in Glasgow, Basel and latest Barcelona. In parallel we are increasing the number of submissions to the focused article series in ESEU. As a first outcome we seek to provide to the SETAC members a list of experts to consult in terms of questions regarding any kind of science and risk communication.

The „topic part“ has as a goal to fully understand environmental research as a topic for science and risk communication, through strictly analysing the properties, characteristics, and particularities of this topic with respect to communicating research findings. This analysis includes a complete list of target groups with a similar characterisation; a record of the connection between these target groups and environmental sciences, be it professional views, rational considerations, or rather emotional expectations, fears and desires; a full summary of the possible or imagniable findings, results and opinions to communicate; a list of the goals and desired impact of environmental scientists when communication their research.

Upon knowing the people and understanding the topic we will be able to develop taylor-made tools and strategies for proper science and risk communication of environmental research, set up trainings, workshops, and conferences, further advance the knowledge, and by that reach a high level of communication from within SETAC as well as maintain this quality.

This will tremendously increase societal and (by that) political impact of SETAC, thus leading to higher environmental quality and better human health.


As a nice side effect I designed another logo.

SOLUTIONS post on the freshwaterblog

The SOLUTIONS project held its annual general assembly from 13 to 16 October in Delft, The Netherlands. It was a very valuable event with the cosy atmosphere of a family meeting.

We tried to capture this feeling in a blog post for the freshwaterblog, which is run by one of our partner projects - called MARS.

I enjoyed being responsible for the first draft, and hence the overall structure of the text. It is based on a personal-general scheme, for which I collected quotations from project members. This was fun, especially because I chose a slightly cybernetical approach asking my interview partners about their role in and expectations for SOLUTIONS - sometimes quite a challenge for scientists in times when the main reason for projects seems to be fundraising.

Appears to have been a good excercise for everyone. The blog post can be accessed here.

What we propose from what we learned

We were invited by Peter Chapman to write a so called Learned Discourse (LD) for the SETAC journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (IEAM). LDs are described as "timely scientific opinions" and give authors the opportunity to communicate their thoughts on a specific topic. Peter is editor for LDs in IEAM. He asked us to write an LD about the Basel session, but we extended the theme to an overall review of our science communication activities. From that we derived "Three propositions for improved science communication from environmental research".

More of Basel - a communication session focused on projects

Barcelona will host the 25th SETAC Europe annual meeting in 2015. We could celebrate there the forth science communication session in a row at SETAC Europe AMs since Berlin 2012. Quite a run!

As promised earlier, the session "Science communication - Concepts and activities from past and current research projects" will focus on reports on science communication from research projects. This turned out to be very valuable during the Basel session, and we want to hear more of such theoretical brackground translated into practical experience.

As always, the session is open for abstracts until 26 November 2014, 23.59 Brussels time. Abstracts can be submitted via the online submission system. All details on abstract submission can be found here.

I am looking forward to your contribution as an important step forward towards quality science communication of environmental research.

So how about communication now?

The Basel session raised again strong interest. We chaired a lively session with fantastic talks in front of a full-seated room, once more showing how important this topic is for a large number of colleagues. The authors gave practical tips on blogging and social media usage, they dived into the current situation of science communication of environmental research, and they presented approaches on how to properly disseminate activities and results from running research project. This last aspect seemed to us be of wider importance, why we decided to focus our session proposal for the upcoming SETAC Europe annual meeting in Barcelona, Spain, on more of such background and experience.

The session also helped us to further shape a proposal for a SETAC Europe advisory group an science and risk communication, that is currently being prepared and planned to submit this year.

Find a more detailed description of the session and it outcomes in our session brief as a contribution to the June issue of SETAC Globe.

Irony of ivory

Let's say, polls are in, and we didn't make it into government.
There was a deadline when registrations for short courses at the SETAC Basel 2014 conference were counted, and afterwards decisions had to be made for each course whether its worth it to run.
Three courses were offered on communication topics. I really liked reading that. But as large the choices as little was the interest. Our course drew 4 registrations...the others drew one each. As a consequence, all three courses were cancelled.
What a pity! I liked our proposal, for sure, but I would also have loved to attend the other two courses. Simon Pardoe of PublicSpace UK offered "Disseminating publicly-funded science and technology research: challenges, issues and strategies". Most environmental scientists should have been interested. From what I experienced being active for science communication the last years I doubt that many colleagues have sufficient knowledge about this - if any. The SETAC Europe Student Advisory Council (SAC) in person of current acting chair Dragan Jevtic wanted to contribute "Social and Professional Networking Tools for Science Communication". A similar course as a noon time seminar at the SETAC North America 2013 conference in Nashville was a huge success.
So what went wrong? As a "nice piece of irony", to quote Roel Evens of SETAC Europe, we seem to have failed to communicate: the importance of proper communication of scientific findings, the necessity to leave the comfort of our ivory tower, and the fact of 3 courses on science communication available at SETAC Basel. This was for us to learn. We will do better next time.

Here's to identification!

It took me quite a long time to come up with a satisfying logo for the research group."Effect-related Ecotoxicology" doesn't work well as an acronym. Adding "work group" or "reasearch group" or even "team" as initials also just sounded silly. Well, so the best way out is to avoid using an acronym for the logo. The disadvantage of this strategy is that a catchy group acronym aids in identfication of the members with their research ("Hi, I'm Thomas of the REFEC team!"). But a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So here's what I have in hand now. Maybe I find something better in the bushes later on.

On the proper dissemination of findings

I seem to have gained already bit of a reputation as someone who cares about science communication, and also sports sort of expertise or at least can bring in a network that helps. At least, SETAC Europe's education committee learned enough about my activities to ask me to organise "a short course on communication tools" at SETAC Europe's annual meeting in Basel.

Needless to say that I agreed after shortly checking back with some colleagues who could give valuable input as instructors. We submitted a proposal "From quality platform and poster presentations to proper dissemination of findings - learn tools, get practice, gain experience" and promised to "help the participants to improve the quality of their platform and poster presentations and train them to adapt their communication of scientific results".

Together with Ulrike Kammann of Thünen Institute Hamburg, I will try to win the particpants for presentation design based on the presentationzen ideas of Garr Reynolds, but adapted to the needs of environmental sciences. Agnieszka Hunka of University of Twente will then teach the course proper poster design, and Katharina Tarnacki of the Institute for Management Cybernetics at RWTH Aachen University will help shaping written texts to catch the different target groups we have. Knowing a whole lot about successful design and writing the participants will then have the opportunity to train their skills with the production of some draft promotional material - aiming at a self-choosen audience.

The course will take place - given at least 10 people register for it - on Sunday 11 May from 8.00 to 17.30.

All along the Ivory Tower

We got our session! At the SETAC Europe Annual meeting 2014 in Basel, Switzerland, we will try to define a good way to leave the Ivory Tower and make environmental science matter to a broader public. The session will run on Wednesday, 14 May 2014, from 10.45 to 12.50.

Though the session became smaller and shorter than hoped and expected, we will hear 6 interesting and challenging talks about tools for science communication, the current state, and experiences already made within research projects - to pinpoint the best practice for a successful dissemination of scientific results.

Beside the platform presentations the session will provide another 6 authors opportunities for presenting and discussing their specific views to the audience in a short talk within the poster corner session during poster social that same day.

Hence, in total we will have 12 different perspectives to listen to, discuss about and learn from. That's a good step forward towards our goal of a comprehensive communication strategy for environmental sciences.

Escape from the Ivory Tower

Back in 2012 at the 6th SETAC World Congress, held in Berlin, Germany, we started our activities on science and risk communication of environmental research with a small session of six platform presentations and a couple of posters. Though largely disregarded by abstract submissions, the session received very well attendance and initially encouraged us to go further with the topic.

We wrote a session brief also for this first effort. As it did not make it into SETAC Globe I post it below in full text - for the sake of completeness of the communication story.


RA08 Escape from the Ivory Tower – Environmental sciences should impact public and policy

Thomas-Benjamin Seiler (RWTH Aachen University), Magnus Engwall (Örebro University), Henner Hollert (RWTH Aachen University)

Communication means to convey meaningful information to create shared understanding. If messages from environmental science are not suitable to produce public endorsement, we remain in the Ivory Tower despite all connections there might be. The session therefore invited colleagues to share their ideas, thoughts and experiences regarding the communication of scientific findings to the public.

It was due to the high temperatures in room ECC 5 high above the poster and exhibition area that everyone could feel an urge to „escape from the ivory tower“. Nevertheless, the session was well attended, with nearly every seat occupied and vivid discussions after each talk. The presentations ranged from individual experience with the pitfalls of press work, over diverse aspects of communication to a successful effort in public relation.

Fabienne Schwab (eawag, Switzerland) shared her experience with a research finding on nanoparticles being largely misunderstood by the media and thus causing major press coverage – but with a completely wrong message. The obstacles she faced were named by Agnieszka Hunka from Roskilde University, Denmark. She presented a study on risk communication based on interviews with stakeholders. A successful example of public communication was presented by Rüdiger Berghahn (Federal Environment Agency, Germany). He brought a movie clip introducing a research facility in Berlin in a manner that can cause common people to just go there and have a look. Talks by Philippe Garrigues (Université de Bordeaux 1, France) and Valentina Castellani (University of Study Milano, Italy) addressed the need for sound communication of decision making in order to raise public acceptance. Either for political decisions made or public awareness of environmental issues, the box of tools for change management introduced by Thomas Hinton from IRSN, France, could help to achieve the goals of public communication.

Communication seems a largely neglected topic in environmental sciences. Annual meetings very rarely provide the possibility to exchange ideas and experiences on the dissemination of scientific findings. This session was intended to start a process to establish science communication as a regular topic at annual meetings. The strong interest and the responses from the audience show that the session met an urgent need.

From this first attempt to explore the mechanisms of public communication in environmental sciences we already learned that emotions play a key role. Whilst scientists are dedicated to sound reasoning and rational thinking, the receiving public care intuitively about their fears and desires. Hence, the translation of scientific language into public understanding is not just a matter of non-technical wording, but requires consideration of the different cultures involved. A strong commitment to a shared vision from either side could overcome such barriers.

Research on communication and communication of research

At SETAC Europe meeting 2014 in Basel, Switzerland, I plan to chair a special session on science and risk communication together with Andrea Rother of University of Cape Town, South Africa, Ragnar Löfstedt of King's College, London, and Henner Hollert of our institute.

The title "Research on communication and communication of research – pinpointing the best practice to improve our outreach" promises both theoretical and practical insights. We also plan to structure the talks according the geographical regions to reveal local differences in communication strategies. Dig deeper into what we have thought about by reading our session proposal.

The session is open for abstracts until 30 November 2013, 23.59 Brussels time. Abstracts can be submitted via the online submission system. All details on abstract submission can be found here.

We are looking forward to a lively session and discussion with good conclusions on how to strengthen public awareness of environmental sciences.

Paper series on science and risk communication

Earlier this year I started a paper series on science and risk communication as an editor in Environmental Sciences Europe. The series will publish a wealth of articles on a broad range of different cases of communication in environmental sciences. It is meant to facilitate the discussion about science and risk communication we initiated with a session at the SETAC World Congress 2012 in Berlin.

Six to eight contributions are confirmed and three of them were already submitted or published. However, the call for papers is still open. Whoever wants to add a manuscript should contact me by email. The up-to-date content of the series including the editorial with additional information is accessible here.

Science communication brought forward

At the SETAC Europe annual meeting 2013 in Glasgow we organised the session "Bridging the Gap between Risk Perception and Ecotoxicology Research―How Can We Communicate to Improve Our Outreach?" on science and risk communication in environmental sciences. It was a follow-up to our much acclaimed initial session "Escape from the Ivory Tower - Environmental sciences should impact public and policy" at the SETAC World Congress 2012 in Berlin. The Glasgow session featured a final panel discussion and received strong attention by the SETAC community. It can be considered a major success on our mission to establish communication topics at SETAC conferences. Find a post-meeting report in SETAC Globe here.

Next step will be a special session at the SETAC Europe annual meeting 2014 in Basel. It will combine practical experience with theoretical background for science and risk communication and will also include the views from different geographical regions. We just submitted the session proposal to SETAC Europe.