Environmental health literacy (EHL) has recently been defined as the continuum of environmental health knowledge and awareness, skills and self-efficacy, and community action. In this study, an interdisciplinary team of university scientists, partnering with local organizations, developed and facilitated EHL trainings with special focus on rainwater harvesting and water contamination, in four communities with known environmental health stressors in Arizona, USA. These participatory trainings incorporated participants’ prior environmental health risk knowledge and personal experiences to co
We characterize the factors that determine who becomes an inventor in the United States, focusing on the role of inventive ability (“nature”) vs. environment (“nurture”). Using deidentified data on 1.2 million inventors from patent records linked to tax records, we first show that children’s chances of becoming inventors vary sharply with characteristics at birth, such as their race, gender, and parents’ socioeconomic class. For example, children from high-income (top 1%) families are ten times as likely to become inventors as those from below-median income families. These gaps persist even
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Alex BellRaj ChettyXavier JaravelNeviana PetkovaJohn Van Reenen
Genetic Modification (GM) has been a topic of public debates during the 1990s and 2000s. In this paper we explore the relative importance of two hypothesized explanations for these controversies: (i) people's general attitude toward science and technology and (ii) their trust in governance, in GM actors, and in GM regulations, in explaining the Dutch public's Attitude toward GM applications, and in addition to that, the public's GM Information seeking behaviour. This will be conducted through the application of representative survey methodology. The results indicate that Attitudes toward GM
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lucien HanssenAnne DijkstraSusanne SleenhoffLynn FrewerJan Gutterling
This paper is a reflective account of a public participation project the authors conducted in Japan in 2012–2015, as part of the central government's initiative for evidence-based policy-making. The reflection focusses on three key aspects of the project: setting a precedent of involving public participation in policy-making; embedding an official mechanism for public participation in policy-making process; and raising policy practitioners' awareness of public participation. We also discuss why we think engaging with policy practitioners, while problematic in various ways, is and will continue
The night skies and the planet on which we live can be inspirational to young and old alike. In the run up to its 200th anniversary in 2020, the U.K.'s Royal Astronomical Society has put together a £1 million scheme to fund outreach and engagement activities for groups that are less well served in terms of access to astronomy and geophysics. This article outlines the projects funded and the impact they are starting to have.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Steve MillerSue BowlerSheila Kanani
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The 15th international conference of the Public Communication of Science and Technology network took place from April 4–6, 2018. Given its location in Dunedin, New Zealand/Ōtepoti, Aotearoa, it was a natural venue for two sessions on communicating science across cultures.
Communicating about environmental risks requires understanding and addressing stakeholder needs, perspectives, and anticipated uses for communication products and decision-support tools. This paper demonstrates how long-term dialogue between scientists and stakeholders can be facilitated by repeated stakeholder focus groups. We describe a dialogic process for developing science-based decision-support tools as part of a larger sea level rise research project in the Gulf of Mexico. We demonstrate how focus groups can be used effectively in tool development, discuss how stakeholders plan to use
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Denise DeLormeSonia StephensScott HagenMatthew Bilskie
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The first Japan Scicom Forum in Tokyo on April 20, 2018 gathered nearly 120 attendees to discuss the growing need and demand for English-language science communication in Japan and Asia. Keynotes and workshops addressed both the philosophy and motivations for scicomm in Japan and also the best practices for international outreach. Global science communication has reached a critical mass in Japan but securing sustainable funding, integrating the community and retaining momentum present ongoing challenges. As an online community and (hopefully) a recurring event, Japan Scicom Forum will foster a
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Ayumi KosoAmanda Alvarez
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
There are strong arguments for and against having either a dedicated funding scheme for science communication in the next European Framework Programme, or mainstreaming upstream engagement across all disciplines. How could both approaches be combined? The success of either will depend on its operationalisation.
We argue that the commitment to science-society integration and Responsible Research and Innovation in past European framework programmes has already made considerable progress in better aligning research and innovation with European societies. The framework programmes have important socialisation effects and recent research point to positive trends across key areas of Responsible Research and Innovation within academic organisations. What appears to be a step away from the concerted efforts to facilitate European citizens’ meaningful contribution to research and innovation in the upcoming
For decades the idea that scientists, policy makers and industry know best in research and innovation has been convincingly challenged. The concept of Responsible Research and Innovation [RRI] combines various strands of critique and takes up the idea that research and innovation need to be democratized and must engage with the public in order to serve the public. The proposed future EU research funding framework programme, Horizon Europe, excludes a specific program line on research in RRI. We propose a number of steps the European Parliament should take to institutionalize RRI in Horizon