Challenges and Opportunities in Science Communication
The KU Leuven ParCos team and various Mintlab colleagues participated in the international and interdisciplinary VIU (Venice International University) graduate summer school on September 12-16, 2022, in San Servolo Venice. This year’s summer school was about science communication and its global challenges and opportunities in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) era. The graduate seminars were led by several universities, namely: Venice Internation University (Italy), Stellenbosch University (South Africa), University of Padua (Italy), KU Leuven (Belgium), and Ca’Foscari University of Venice (Italy).
On the 14th of September, the ParCos team organized several activities such as lectures and participatory workshops. During one of these workshops, they introduced the ParCos Trainer Cards: a self-reflexive tool for the development and evaluation of science stories. The participating students were asked to use these Trainer Cards to evaluate or iterate the science story that they had developed in group during an earlier activity.
Experiences and Impressions of Mintlab’s participants
“Before attending the VIU seminar, my experiences with science communication were limited. By participating in the various interactive and informative workshops, especially in the courses on the core theories and models of science communication and scientific co-design, I have now discovered many points of convergence with my own research on menstrual self-tracking apps in the Chinese context. In particular, the seminar has enabled me to extend my current understanding of Chinese science communication and support more theory-driven science communication conceptualizations and research. I now feel confident to move from a mere public understanding of science communication, towards a combination of understanding and science participation.”
– Jiamin Li
“Thanks to VIU, I got the opportunity to think together with other, social and non-social scientists about the ways my PhD research can really matter to the societal stakeholders I’m working with. The offered courses by senior experts on science communication theory, its target groups and communication formats have enabled me to think about my research on sports betting mediatization beyond the lens of the academic publication, foregrounding the United Nations’ SDGs along the way.”
– Niels Bibert
The VIU graduate summer school was initiated by ParCos’ Horizon 2020 SWAF (Science with and for Society) partner QUEST. More information on both ParCos and Quest can be found on ParCos project & QUEST project. This blog is a slightly altered version of the original posted by Mintlab.