“Sharing Science” is a “pop-up podcast” about science communication, science education, and the relationship between them, featuring short interviews with twelve leading researchers.

Our podcast disseminates academic scholarship in these areas and is intended for researchers, practitioners, and anyone interested in these areas.

A few months after its release, we would like to share some of the "behind the scenes" of this project with you for at least two reasons:

Because our podcast’s content is situated within a unique niche, bridging science communication with another field; And to share the promises and pitfalls of producing a podcast, for readers who wish to produce similar projects of their own.
What is a "Pop-Up Podcast"? We envisioned “Sharing Science” as a “pop-up podcast,” a term we borrowed from pop-up retail shops, which are stores “opened temporarily to take advantage of a faddish trend or seasonal demand.” By analogy, a pop-up podcast is a brief, one-of…

Brian Trench delivered a guest lecture entitled "Images in the social conversation of science on occasion of the official inauguration of the Master in Communication of Science, in Trento on October 2nd, 2019.



In his talk, Trench addressed the issue of how images related to science are created by lay people, and how they are externalized and shared in society.
The way science is represented in the collective imagination is often prone to stereotypes. An example of this, as straightforward as illuminating, was triggered by Trench's request to the audience to mentally depict a scientist. It turned out that the most popular image was the by now trite portrait of Albert Einstein. Few attendants represented the scientist as an ordinary person. Even fewer, as a woman -- still quite a long way to go in this respect.
Rigorous assessments of the images of science people have in their mind conducted in more formalized settings, such as focus groups, have been proved to provide analogou…

Science shapes our world, but scientific understanding may often seem out of reach to those without a scientific background. We now know that people are more likely to engage with science when they share a cultural background with the messenger - the scientist - yet 81% of Americans cannot name a living scientist, let alone identify a scientist that looks like them.
In 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) launched an initiative designed to bring diverse perspectives from early-career U.S. leaders to important dialogues around how science, engineering, and medicine are shaping the future.

An initial cohort of 18 professionals - New Voices’ in Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine - was asked to provide new perspectives on globally important scientific issues, to improve the communication of scientific understanding, and to advocate for innovative strategies to expand the diversity of the scientific workforce.  To achieve the communications goals …

Science is under attack in some quarters. Vaccine and climate change skeptics, for example, argue that scientists misrepresent the threat posed by particular technologies. Others question whether science does more harm than good, altogether. One of the most common beliefs about anti-science attitudes is that they reflect ignorance or inexperience with science.

The assumption is that increasing exposure to science through education and outreach is the key to reducing skepticism of public science and opposition to public policy informed by science. Indeed, surveys in the United States and the United Kingdom consistently find evidence of a link between education and science appreciation. However, there is much less research on science attitudes in non-Western countries and we wanted to know whether the link between education and appreciation of science is universal or whether it depends on the country.  Researchers disagree about why education is associated with more favorable views of sci…

By Tobias Füchslin Citizen science projects invite people to become “citizen scientists” and contribute to scientific research. This contribution can range from classifying galaxies online and collecting plant specimens out-side all the way to initiating and running community-based research projects together with scientists. Citizen science not only enables researchers to realise large-scale projects, but also invites the public to learn more about the scientific process and develop an informed opinion about science’s role in society  It is not surprising that the academic world is hoping for an expansion of this inclusive scientific approach.
Unfortunately, hopes and reality do not always match. Citizen science seems to suffer from “participation inequality”. While citizen science has the potential to include diverse publics in scientific knowledge production, studies have shown that citizen scientists are predominantly white, male, highly educated, and highly interested in science.…

By Raquel Bertoldo & Claire Mays
Across the globe, the past four years are the warmest on record; June and July 2019 are the hottest in recorded history. The climate crisis is a given; that it is anthropogenic is equally clear. Scientists agree on this, and the 2013 study quantifying the consensus in the scientific literature at 97% (its lead author says the consensus continues to grow) has been downloaded one million times. Nonetheless, a kaleidoscope of information on climate continues and will continue to emerge from a plethora of sources: complex scientific statements, naïve speculations or supported demonstrations on links between climate and weather, bona-fide or manipulative claims and counter-claims disputing where the ‘fake news’ may lie.



Political ideology and demography shape both belief and denial: the shrinking minority of climate sceptics remain most frequently right-wingers and older men. Beyond these well-known factors, could other beliefs, assumptions or attitude…