Quelle: Pixaby Briefly analysed
Engaging and communicating with the public is not easy. Lots of things must be considered which often differentiate from the daily research routine. Therefore, we introduce a toolkit by the QUEST. Its points on the checklist are about topics like time, audience, messages, framing or simplification. We summarized the most important points and give additional advice like the classification of the society in types.
Checklist Effective communication and engagement needs to be prepared in a strategic way. The Toolkit from QUEST helps. We add some advice to points we find most important.
It doesn’t matter if you as scientist communicate for the first time or since a while a checklist is always good. Cause communicating and engaging with the public is a complex task and so many things must be considered. That’s why we would like to introduce a toolkit by QUEST that we found quite useful. One reason for that is: it’s a result of studies, guidelines and interviews with scientists and professional science communicators. At the end they came up with fourteen points about: time, audience, messages, framing, or simplification– to mention a few. To every point they give some advices, which help to reflect. Some of them might apply in specific contexts, the QUEST says. So here is an overview about the points we find most important:
Knowing your audience
A planning is only as good when you know for whom you are doing it. So, ask yourself who is my target audience? This step is time and resource consuming. But necessary to have a great outcome. We also suggest considering the classification of the society in types. The citizens are divers, but there are people who think similar. For example, there are the angry ones or the ones with an open mind. This is a result of a study from More in Common. They also found out that most of the types stay in almost the same places as parks or restaurants. These findings can be an inspiration for new public engagement locations.
Communicating in a dialogue
Dialogue is the key word for sustainable and effective public engagement, but also to communicate science in general. It helps you as scientist to understand what the public likes to know and gives inspiration for your research. On the other side the public can better understand science. Also, it may reduce stereotypes of scientists and increase trust. One good thing about dialogue is that you must listen as well. That gives you inspiration not only for the research but also for new ways of engagement.
Telling stories in a simple way
We all like listening to or watching stories. Communicating or engaging only with facts, data or numbers is boring for the audience. Remember these are lay people and need to connect with something from your research. Maybe there is a proband who is interesting and like to the share his/her story about her role in the research. Or think about why you search on your special topic. Always tell as simple as you can. Cause people speak and listen in another language then you as scientist do.
The last point summarizes two of the QUESTs Toolkit. To have all in one you can download the poster. They also put together a leaflet with more information about each point. Communicating to or engaging with the public is a lot of extra work beside the research. If you need any help we as grasshopper kreativ are happy to support you – especially in developing a strategy for effective science communication and public engagement.
Checklist:
Checklist for scientists: Quality and effective science communication for public audiences by QUEST