茄子直播

Dr. Martin Bloxham from the Barefoot Thinking Company coached researchers in sharing their science with a wide audience (photo by Dominic Ali)

Speaking science in a common language

茄子直播鈥檚 science engagement team launches 鈥淪cience Leadership Program鈥

Being a Canadian researcher isn鈥檛 easy: having to juggle researching, teaching, running labs, overseeing graduate students, applying for funding grants, presenting papers at conferences and publishing in academic journals.

And, on top of all that鈥攑erhaps hardest of all鈥攖hey must communicate findings from their complex research to the public, media and government.

鈥淲hen I talk to people about tissue engineering, they think there鈥檚 no way they can understand it,鈥 said Alison McGuigan, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at 茄子直播. 鈥淏ut you can show them how to understand it.鈥

To help Canada鈥檚 leading scientists and social scientists become even more effective communicators, the University of Toronto鈥檚 science engagement team launched its Science Leadership Program at Toronto鈥檚 Hotel Intercontinental on May 2. The three-day event drew scientists like McGuigan as well as researchers from institutions across the country who wished to develop their communications skills.

鈥淲hen you deal with extremely technical things, sometimes relating things back to the day-to-day can be a problem,鈥 said McGuigan. She added that the Science Leadership Program taught her the value of storytelling in making her research come alive for listeners.

Conference attendee Kathryn McWilliams, an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan, described the challenge of learning to share research with the general public versus academic audiences.

鈥淲hen scientists speak to the media, we tend to explain, explain, explain,鈥 she said. McWilliams added that researchers often speak to the public in the same way they do in 鈥榓dversarial鈥 academic discussions, though such an approach can make science stories inaccessible a general audience. 鈥淥nly when we are sure that we have convinced the public of our sound reasoning, do we tend to tell the public our conclusions.鈥

Professors McGuigan and McWilliams were just two of more than 25 participants from universities across Canada attending the program. Researchers were experts in a diversity of fields including physical education, chemical engineering, psychology, physics, biology, marketing and geography.

鈥淢ake your passion for your subject contagious,鈥 advised Kate Cassaday, a senior editor at HarperCollins, speaking to researchers during a breakout session on getting popular science books published.

Participants received tips from Cassaday and other guest speakers and panellists including international communication consultants; journalists from The Economist, The Globe and Mail, and CBC Radio鈥檚 Quirks & Quarks; as well as authors and book publishers from Penguin Canada and HarperCollins.

茄子直播鈥檚 own experts also offered their insights as conference participants learned how to effectively communicate with the government from Marny Scully, 茄子直播鈥檚 assistant vice-president of government, institutional, and community relations, and Barbara Sherwood-Lollar, an NSERC council member and a university professor鈥攖he highest distinction awarded a faculty member at 茄子直播..

鈥淭here鈥檚 so much important work happening in universities,鈥 said Cassaday, 鈥渂ut if it鈥檚 only staying within those four walls it can鈥檛 inspire and inform. It needs to get out to a wider world.鈥

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