Public communication by research institutes compared across countries and sciences: Building capacity for engagement or competing for visibility?
PLoS ONE, vol. 15, pp. e0235191
Abstract
Leading academic institutions, governments, and funders of research across the world have spent the last few decades fretting publicly about the need for scientists and research organisations to engage more widely with the public and be open about their research. While a global literature asserts that public communication has changed from a virtue to a duty for scientists in many countries and disciplines, our knowledge about what research institutions are doing and what factors drive their 'going public' is very limited. Here we present the first cross-national study of N = 2,030 research institutes within universities and large scientific organisations in Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. We find that institutes embrace communication with non-peers and do so through a variety of public events and traditional news media-less so through new media channels-and we find variation across countries and sciences, yet these are less evident than we expected. Country and disciplinary cultures contribute to the level of this communication, as do the resources that institutes make available for the effort; institutes with professionalised staff show higher activity online. Future research should examine whether a real change in the organisational culture is happening or whether this activity and resource allocation is merely a means to increase institutional visibility.
Authors 18
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Marta Entradas corresponding
Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa · London School of Economics and Political Science
Affiliation as printed
Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, England, United Kingdom
Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisbon, Portugal
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London School of Economics and Political Science
Affiliation as printed
Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, England, United Kingdom
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Affiliation as printed
University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
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Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
Affiliation as printed
Department of Social Sciences, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
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National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
Affiliation as printed
National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo, Japan
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Affiliation as printed
Observa Science & Society, Vicenza, Italy
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Affiliation as printed
Department of Advertising and Public Relations, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America
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Affiliation as printed
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, FIOCRUZ, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, Instituto Nacional de Comunicação Publica da Ciência e Tecnologia, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Affiliation as printed
Department of Science Communication & Society, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The University of Texas at Austin
Affiliation as printed
Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
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Affiliation as printed
Department of Sociology, Università di Trento, Trento, Italy
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Affiliation as printed
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, FIOCRUZ, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, Instituto Nacional de Comunicação Publica da Ciência e Tecnologia, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Affiliation as printed
Faculty of Education, Shiga University, Otsu Shiga, Japan
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Affiliation as printed
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, FIOCRUZ, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, Instituto Nacional de Comunicação Publica da Ciência e Tecnologia, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Affiliation as printed
Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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Affiliation as printed
Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey
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Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
Affiliation as printed
Department of Social Sciences, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
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National Sun Yat-sen University
Affiliation as printed
National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
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