Support for outreach participation

• High agreement that outreach is important because research is funded by taxpayers, and funding agencies should help scientists communicate research to wider audiences.
• However, few scientists feel outreach plans should be a component of grant applications.

Benefits of outreach participation

• High agreement that it makes one a better scientist, gives one a sense of enjoyment and gives job satisfaction.
• Few feel that it attracts research funding, advances one’s career, provides collaboration opportunities or makes one think about one’s research in new ways.

• Science Communicator (2010 — present)
  Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration at CERN
• Doctoral Student (2014 — present)
  UWE Science Communication Unit, Bristol
  • MA in Science Journalism (2009 — 2010)
    City University, London
  • BSc in Physics (2005 — 2008)
    St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai (Bombay)

Twitter: @RaoOfPhysics | GitHub: @RaoOfPhysics
This presentation: github.com/RaoOfPhysics/201608_ICHEP

Scientific Literacy

“greater knowledge about the facts of science will improve people’s lives while gaining public support for, and reducing opposition to, research”

Public Understanding of Science and Technology

“part of each scientist’s professional responsibility to promote the public understanding of science”

— The Royal Society, 1985, p.24

The Deficit Model

“the role of scientists and science communicators is to fill a perceived knowledge deficit among the public”

Low levels of Scientific Literacy

“Many [scientists] recognise, in their own inability to be certain of their answers, that the public cannot be expected to retain facts that are not useful.”

— Stocklmayer & Bryant, 2012, p.18

“while scientists may have scientific facts at their disposal, the members of the public concerned have local knowledge and an understanding of, and personal interest in, the problems to be solved”

— Miller, 2001, p.117

Three aspects/stages:

1. “scientists […] encouraged to inform the public”
2. “scientists […] encouraged to develop dialogue on scientific facts and processes”
3. “scientists must engage with society in the early phase of scientific development”

— Crettaz von Roten, 2011, p.54

Science Communication research

• Conversation dominated with research fields that have:
  • direct impact
  • immediate impact
• What about fundamental research?

“Engagement” → “Outreach”

• used to refer to all science-communication activities “designed for an audience outside academia” (Crettaz von Roten, 2011, p.54)
• used among particle physicists to refer to:
  • working with schools
  • direct dialogue with the public
  • disseminating information through the media

The term “outreach” refers to all science communication and education activities that bring scientific research to audiences outside the research community. It is also known as “popularisation”.

— note included in survey

Research questions

• What are the attitudes towards outreach within the particle-physics community and what are the motivations for and barriers against participating
• Do these vary w.r.t. age, gender and academic position

Research questions (…)

• How are these influenced by
  • funding bodies
  • national expectations towards outreach
  • the multicultural nature of international collaborations
• How does the community perceive the usefulness and impact of outreach

CERN

The European Laboratory for Particle Physics

• Geneva, Switzerland
• host laboratory for international collaborations
• ~half of all 20,000 particle physicists

The CMS Collaboration

Compact Muon Solenoid

• one of the two teams that discovered the Higgs boson in 2012
• people (June 2015)
  • over 4000 physicists, engineers, students (not including technicians and admin)
  • 183 institutes, universities, laboratories from 42 countries
  • 80+ nationalities

Electronic survey distributed by e-mail

• Sent to the whole collaboration via mailing list
• Three reminders sent to whole list
• Engineers reminded separately as well
• Representatives from low-response countries reminded separately

Responses

• over 400, but a few duplicates
• final count: 391 valid responses
• ~10% of the collaboration

CMS member countries

… outreach is important because research is supported by taxes…

… funding bodies should scientists help do outreach…

… outreach details included in grant applications…

… makes me a better scientist…

… feeling of enjoyment…

… job satisfaction…

… attracts research funding…

… advances my career…

… collaboration opportunities…

… think of my research in new ways…

Support for outreach participation

• High agreement that outreach is important because research is funded by taxpayers, and funding agencies should help scientists communicate research to wider audiences.
• However, few scientists feel outreach plans should be a component of grant applications.

Benefits of outreach participation

• High agreement that it makes one a better scientist, gives one a sense of enjoyment and gives job satisfaction.
• Few feel that it attracts research funding, advances one’s career, provides collaboration opportunities or makes one think about one’s research in new ways.

Emma Weitkamp, Clare Wilkinson, Erik Stengler, Christine Sutton, for supervising my research

Achille Petrilli, CMS Head of Communications, for supporting my research

Special thanks to Richard Smith-Unna (t: @blahah404) for help with R code!

R + RStudio

reveal.js

plotly

RAW

Git + GitHub