---
title: Public engagement hackathon project
tags: hackathon
---

# Public engagement hackathon project

## First steps
Maybe some people can talk to actual science communicators? In many places you can do a bachelors programme in science communication. Seems like a logical first step if we're interested in best practices, no?

## Courses in Public Communication
* ADD SEMINARS OR DEGREE PROGRAMMES HERE (+online courses)

* (only in Polish) https://swps.pl/oferta/warszawa/studia-pierwszego-stopnia/zycie-publiczne?fbclid=IwAR3DAbCLs1j16IRRYZBIAGzd2mcXgXqtHYFM5_6psPJtkQA1Ql_ekzEsBow
* https://www.uva.nl/en/programmes/research-masters/communication-science-research/communication-science-research-msc.html?origin=5BOaRAofTjCccATraJp2XA
* https://www.wihoforschung.de/en/master-of-science-communication-1758.php
* https://leibniz-psychology.org/en/research/research-literacy/plan-psy/

### Syllabus

* ?

## Existing projects
* (not a project but a concept) - [nudging](https://www.ted.com/talks/sendhil_mullainathan_solving_social_problems_with_a_nudge)!
* TalkLing: https://www.mpi-talkling.mpi.nl/?page_id=56&lang=en. (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics's biweekly blog)
* Het Talige Brein: http://www.hettaligebrein.nl/. (Monthly blog from the NBL department at the MPI for Psycholinguistics)
* Zooniverse (https://www.zooniverse.org/about) - "Our projects combine contributions from many individual volunteers, relying on a version of the ‘wisdom of crowds’ to produce reliable and accurate data. By having many people look at the data we often can also estimate how likely we are to make an error.""
* https://cityhealthinternational.org/ - "network of individuals and organisations engaged in the study of and response to structural health issues and health behaviours in the urban environment"
* Pint of Science (by no international, started in the UK, or at least that's where I first heard of it): https://pintofscience.co.uk/.
* https://lis.gdynia.pl/english/ - SIL is also an embodiment of the idea grown from thinking that in order to develop sustainably and achieve durable results a city needs new ideas not just in technological and economic areas but also in all social activities dedicated to the inhabitants. SIL’s objective is developing, supporting and promoting innovative social solutions so as to improve the living standards for all inhabitants of Gdynia – regardless of their age, address and social background.

* https://how-to-open.science/ general collection of open science resources

## Making your research more visible to public
* Hire dedicated science communicators to interface between the researchers and media/participants. For an example, here's the profile page for the MPI for Psycholinguistics's Senior Communications Advisor and Press Officer: https://www.mpi.nl/people/scherphuis-marjolein.
* During a conference, you have an extra day at the conference dedicated to presenting your work to educational psychologists, speech-language therapists and policy makers. The following day you present it to the public (e.g. International Workshop of Reading and Developmental Dyslexia) https://www.bcbl.eu/oldevents/iwordd2019/en/conference/
* as an example - https://sciencepr.pl/en/
* Join databases for media to find your profile more easily (e.g., [Les expertes](https://expertes.fr/) for French speaking women). There is a list of databases [here](https://www.journaliststoolbox.org/2021/06/23/expert_sources/) which could point minority researchers to places where to put themselves forward.
* See if your local/national government maintains a database of experts
* Monitor your national government calls for evidence or experts
* Write a pop-science version of your manuscript

### Relay your results back to your participants
* include "after the study" info. - describe what was the purpose, your results, how they apply to "reality" - create a template for your department and make it obligatory (e.g. if you use one system to recruit research participants like SONA)
* patient studies: offer patient workshops or lectures open to the public
* Patient and Public involvement groups
* Reflections on https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK487675/
* A Researcher's Guide to https://oxfordbrc.nihr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/A-Researchers-Guide-to-PPI.pdf
* work with practitioners and self-help groups, include them in developing future research questions
* Discuss with specific organisation such as British Dyslexia Associations about research
* Podcast with specific groups or other researchers who are public engagement advocates (e.g. Tiffany Hogan)
* Interviews with Specific organisations such as action for stammering in children who discuss how the work applies theoretically and how it applies practically
* Present data back to specific conferences dedicated to the population such as Stamma conference which is a group of people who stutter and speech language therapists interact and meet each other and to learn up-to-date science, while meeting each other and learning new strategies on how best to support each other.
*

### Relaying research to kids
* Frontiers in Young Mind Journal: open access
* resources used for kids can also be really helpful to relay information to older populations!
* https://www.ring-a-scientist.org/modx/
* In the US, Skype A Scientist: https://www.skypeascientist.com/.
* Kletskoppen Festival (Dutch only, sorry): https://kletskoppenfestival.nl/wie-zijn-wij/. They also have a podcast, but I think they no longer produce new episodes.
* do "open days" like [International Darwin's Day](https://darwinday.org/) or International Brain Week
* (in Germany) Boys & Girls Day (originally intended to get girls into STEM, now a yearly event where kids can just look into any job they like) --> offer days where kids can come "work" at your lab, let them try easy versions of your experiment (e.g. we usually do neuroimaging or tACS on watermelons, stuff like that)

### Share tools and materials to citizen scientists
* **Community Toolbox** (The Community Tool Box is a free, online resource for those working to build healthier communities and bring about social change. Our mission is to promote community health and development by connecting people, ideas, and resources.) - https://ctb.ku.edu/en

## Open Source Training
1. Training on Reflection, Reflexivity and engaging with the public (updated regularly) - https://github.com/themichjam/Training
2. Training on public speaking and engagment with passing members of the public - http://pubhd.org/
3. Training on public speaking and engagement in public areas (for women and non-binary groups)- http://soapboxscience.org/

## How to include scientific knowledge into local community work
* Start at the onset of the project by involving citizens/users advisory groups (see e.g., [work by Sagar Jilka](https://youtu.be/WLowg32mdfE))

* Pracademics workshops with practitioners and researchers presenting: no internet trace of examples known to me unfortunately, but in the past my colleague organized two with emergency services (decision-making topic) and we organized one with healthcare workers involved in promoting the flu vaccine in their NHS trust. The pracademic workshop can be a starting point for developing the research with the users, and/or an end point.

* Some citizen science community have managed the database collected the projects for public goods (e.g., [citizen science data sheet](https://airtable.com/shrJwHQ3VYSb27i4o/tblOmJi6Uz72Rkqgo/viwZliDTFltIoOXni?blocks=hide) in Traditional Chinese ). Researchers could actively share the research outcomes with them.

* Promote more qualitative research on this topic, organize focus groups and view samples of ways to communicate information (e.g., inforgraphics, data visualizations). For example this has been done for setting up documents for [financial information](https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/ea428cc5-9e8f-11e5-8781-01aa75ed71a1/language-en)

* Attend local government events relevant to your expertise to meet councillors and engage in developing collaborations with them (e.g., if you are working on changing behaviour related to environmental impact, your local government might have a "clean air" day).

## Templates

* Visualising data: Think about your audience, choice of colors, format of graphs, including alt text. Data visalisation guides are a good start. This website contain a list of useful guides: https://medium.com/nightingale/style-guidelines-92ebe166addc

## Interesting references

Twitter for Scientists by Dan Quintana - https://t4scientists.com/

### Good examples of research youtube channels
* maiLab (only in german) publically funded youtube channel of Dr. Mai Thi Nyugen-Kim https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyHDQ5C6z1NDmJ4g6SerW8g --> very detailed and explains stuff step by step while relaying most important concepts of research
* SciShow - (also basically anything else that Hank Green touches) https://www.youtube.com/user/scishow --> more like a news show, less about how to engage with science
* LegalEagle- A good example of communicating complex topics in interesting ways: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpa-Zb0ZcQjTCPP1Dx_1M8Q
* Kati Morton- Really accessible clinical psychology and mental health topics: https://www.youtube.com/user/KatiMorton
* psychologeek https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClimlKiB3xLJlpP1BbzfXSA (german version of Kati Morton)
* Climate Adam- Accessible and funny content on the climate crisis: https://www.youtube.com/user/ClimateAdam
* Independent Sage- More serious science communication, started in response to government failings https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqwC56XTP8F9zeEUCOttPQ
* Tom Scott - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBa659QWEk1AI4Tg--mrJ2A

### Good examples of research podcasts:
* Future Black Doctor- Podcast exploring the experiences of black PhD students https://www.swdtp.ac.uk/black-future-dr/
* Infinite Monkey Cage - with Prof Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w/episodes/downloads
* The BBC has many podcasts with a science theme, e.g. The Life Scientific, Inside Science, More or Less: Behind the Statistics.
* Ologies with Alie Ward: https://www.alieward.com/ologies.

### Good examples on twitter
* Carl T. Bergstrom [@CT_Bergstrom](https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/)
* Dr.Raven the Science Maven [@ravenscimaven](https://twitter.com/ravenscimaven)
* AstroKirsten: Really good tiktoks and tweets about astronomy (https://twitter.com/AstroKirsten)
* USGS Data Science Account: Contains nice animations that breakdown the data they analyze [@USGS_DataSci](https://twitter.com/USGS_DataSci)
* Leslie Bernsten [@leslie_bern](https://twitter.com/leslie_bern) - stats tiktok

### Books

* Smallest Common Denominator (in german) https://www.amazon.de/Die-kleinste-gemeinsame-Wirklichkeit-wissenschaftlich/dp/3426278227

### Research articles

Reading recommended in the SIPS 2021 *How to write a plain summary of your research: Gain new perspectives and open up your research to a wider audience* Workshop (25th June)

"Stoll, Kerwer, Lieb & Chasiotis (2021). Plain Language Summaries: A Systematic Review of Theory, Guidelines, and Empirical Research": http://dx.doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.4933
Link to preregistered protocols for experiments:
"Kerwer, Stoll & Chasiotis (2021). Translating the evidence of psychological meta-analyses into plain language" http://dx.doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.4471
"Kerwer, Stoll, Jonas, Benz & Chasiotis (2021). Translating the evidence of psychological meta-analyses into plain language - Study 2" http://dx.doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.4791

### Philosophy of SciComm (dedicated career or everyones job?, applying SciComm outside of Psych)
xxx

### Ethics
xxx

### Departmental Support- good examples
* UK- Bath Public Engagement Unit is very active: https://www.bath.ac.uk/professional-services/public-engagement-unit/

### Funding sources
* CH: SNSF Agora Scheme (http://www.snf.ch/en/funding/science-communication/agora/Pages/default.aspx): *The Agora scheme aims to foster dialogue between scientists and society. It encourages researchers to communicate their current research to an audience of lay people. Agora projects have to initiate a dialogue between researchers and the public in which they interact and listen to each other.* For projects of upto 3 years between CHF 5,000 and CHF 200,000.
* UK: Most doctoral training partnerships have an "impact fund" you can use for public engagement: https://www.swdtp.ac.uk/category/funding/impact-fund/
* PL: https://www.gov.pl/web/ncbr-en | The National Centre for Research and Development
* UK: Wellcome Trust Grantholder support: https://wellcome.org/what-we-do/our-work/public-engagement-support-researchers
* UK: PsyPAG sometimes supports public engagement efforts: http://www.psypag.co.uk/
* International: SPSSI has a variety of grants available: https://www.spssi.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&pageId=1978
*

### Awards and Recognition
* Three Minute Thesis: A competition run by lots of different universities internationally to communicate a PhD thesis in three minutes https://www.vitae.ac.uk/events/three-minute-thesis-competition
* UK: The Light of Understanding for Public engagement at University of Birmingham. It is an institution-wide Award to recognise individuals and groups who carry out public engagement with research. They win £2000.

### Role Models- People who have spoken about this and run workshops
* Madeline Pownall - Did a great presentation for the BPS about media engagement pitfalls and feminism
* Michelle K Jamieson - talks about lived experience, runs presentations and workshops around co-production, positive media engagement, and reflexivity in quants - https://twitter.com/themichjam
* Sam Martin- https://twitter.com/sfmartin Trans researcher at Oxford, talks about the balance between engagement and self-care
* MJ Barker- https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/meg-john-barker/ - Writes Graphic novels about queer research, also a great speaker on creative research communication
* Mike Richardson - Winner of Bath's 3 minute thesis competition 2021, & Naomi Heffer - run Senseless Psych and do lots of public engagement and media work https://www.senselesspsych.com/
* Dan Ariely - great books and ted talks

### also bad examples, with scicomm gone wrong.... (e.g., Wakefield)
* Drosten vs BILD (virologist vs Germanys version of daily mail): huge debate where the paper accused him of doing faulty research because other researchers critised his publication --> miscommunication of the scientific process https://www.thelocal.de/20200529/why-germanys-coronavirus-guru-is-being-targeted-by-lockdown-critics/
* Use of NHS patient data and lack of choice/ opt-in fiasco. Lack of public consultation or co-production on the issue - https://theferret.scot/data-loch-to-generate-millions-from-nhs-records/

## Don't do this
* https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/04/23/
* https://gidmk.medium.com/why-i-want-to-hit-academics-on-the-nose-with-a-rolled-up-newspaper-3726acbde6ce

### Pitfalls and how to avoid them
* Overhyping - The association between exaggeration in health related science news and academic press releases: retrospective observational study (https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7015)
* Oversimplification (need REF)
* Overcomplicating
* Overinterpretating (e.g., take correlation as cause-and-effect)
* Not twisting the truth, but saying things are not known, when we do have an idea
* Failing to distinguish between things you're an expert on and things you're not
* Twitter blue ticks are for something specifc, but are still there when you're talking about other things
* Journalists do not like citing all authors, so risk that your co-authors, sometimes junior ones and under-represented minorities or women, do not get represented
* Propose that the junior, under-represented co-author, is the one communicating if they are happy to (if you are the senior person, do you really need that mention?)
* Helicopter / Exploitative research when working with communities
* Involve a researcher from that community as co-author whenever possible to avoid just being a data extracter
* Otherwise, or even additionally, advisory group at the onset might help to avoid this
* Patient and public interaction for active research collaboration with the population of interest, as opposed to conducting research “about” them. Researchers can incorporate the lived experience and expertise of patients and the public at all stages of the research process. This makes the research more beneficial and helpful to them.

## Copy-paste from chat
- For researcher: tips for getting start on twitter: https://t4scientists.com/
- We are working with adolescents, and we now use Facebook, Instagram to communicate about the ongoing project: https://gbiomed.kuleuven.be/english/research/50000666/50000673/cpp/research-1/social-interaction/sigma/index.htm
- The KU Leuven university provides support to whether preprint or not: https://www.kuleuven.be/open-science/what-is-open-science/scholarly-publishing-and-open-access/schol-pub/interview-preprints
- Citizen science portal in The Netherlands and Belgium: https://www.iedereenwetenschapper.be/
- Civil knowledge center for citizen science: https://www.scivil.be/about-scivil
- Here is a link for a lab where one of their main goals is community engagement: https://civiclaboratory.nl/
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