Science communication is often thought of as conveying scientific findings to others in an accessible way. And while that is true, it’s only part of the story. In actual fact, science communication doesn’t begin only once research has been completed, when it’s time to explain its outcomes to a wider public. It actually begins wherever and whenever scientific or scholarly knowledge relates to societal issues, experiences, and conflicts.
In my perspective on science communication, which is informed by my role as managing director of the ScienceCenter Network as well as by years of work in arts-based research, science communication is not a bridge that gets built and then stands once and for all. It much rather consists in relationship-building: it connects research findings and methods as well as scholarly and scientific modes of thought with various segments of the public. The relationships to which this gives rise are not static. They need to be shaped and nurtured—by way of appropriate formats, comprehensible language(s), open spaces, and a willingness to take different starting points and forms of knowledge seriously.
More than Transfer: Research as a Public Process
Current debates often distinguish between two logics of knowledge transfer, both of which are relevant to universities in that they refer to how research has an impact beyond academic contexts. “Science to Industry” describes processes where research is funnelled into applications, innovations, or the creation of economic value. “Science to Society”, by contrast, refers to the socially relevant dimension of research: to public responsibility, participation, integration, and dialogue. Particularly where scientific and scholarly pursuits, society, business, creative practice, and non-profit structures intersect, it becomes clear how both approaches involve more than just transfer: user-centred design, open innovation, co-design, and co-production all work with knowledge that isn’t simply passed on from research to society or industry but is much rather generated, put to the test, and enhanced by way of collaborative processes.
All this goes beyond the mere explanation of results. When dealing with socially relevant, complex, or controversial topics, the communication of facts is important—like when climate change, health, digitalisation, or democracy is at issue. Just as important, however, is the creation of participatory formats where questions, experiences, and contexts of use can be fed back from various publics into processes of research and innovation. In this sense, participation and dialogue mean not only querying the scientific community in response but also assuming an active, formative role: Who defines relevant problems? What perspectives are recognised as knowledge? And under what conditions can scientific, artistic, practical, and experiential forms of knowledge work with each other productively?
This dimension of process is of significance for democratic societies. The faculty of scientific and scholarly judgement requires more than just access to information. There also needs to be an understanding of how knowledge is produced, tested, justified, and delineated. Science communication can make debates more objective and nuanced if it reveals these conditions of knowledge production and simultaneously gives rise to spaces where various stakeholders can contribute their questions, experiences, and perspectives. And while it cannot replace political decisions, it can create foundations upon which these decisions become more transparent and negotiable.
To this end, a nuanced approach is required: universities deal not with a single public but with diverse publics, publics that differ in terms of their prior knowledge, experiences, expectations, and barriers. Addressing different target groups does not mean simply formulating the same message at varying levels of complexity. It much rather entails developing approaches in a precise and open way. In some contexts, explanatory formats are appropriate; in others, settings of a dialogic or participatory nature work well. The crucial question is that of who is actually being addressed—and who remains excluded by language, location, format, or institutional codes.
All this points to how science communication must not be mistaken for a PR afterthought. It is much rather part of universities’ responsibility toward society. It can make research visible, help to contextualise complex topics, and open up spaces of engagement. And when taken seriously, it asks not only how research can be better explained but also just what relationships universities wish to build with various social groups, what should be researched, and how the public might be enabled to share in it.
Arts Universities as Special Venues of Science Communication
In the context of arts universities, the matter of science communication shifts somewhat. Artistic and arts-based research works with forms of knowledge that are not always linear, articulable through language, or unambiguous. Such forms of knowledge arise by way of materials, the body, space, sound, images, archives, memory, performance, and social situations. Here, communication often doesn’t just encompass the mere presentation of findings but is in fact part of the very process of knowledge generation. This makes arts universities unique science communication venues. They are capable of not only explaining social issues but also enabling them to be experienced. Their strength resides in their ability to live with ambiguity, to switch perspectives, and to render complexity visible as well as enable it to be experienced and discussed.
Precisely because science communication is growing in importance, however, its limitations must also be clearly articulated. It cannot force trust, compensate for social inequality on its own, or replace political responsibility. Nor should it be reduced to merely positioning research institutions in a way that attracts public attention. And last but not least, professional science communication must reveal where uncertainty and a lack of knowledge exist. Particularly in this regard, artistic methods can make an important contribution thanks to how they refrain from hastily framing openness as certainty, instead creating experiential spaces where contradictions become perceptible and negotiable.
Science communication realises its full potential whenever it not only explains research but also facilitates relationships—not “in addition” to research, but as an integral part of how universities fulfil their responsibility to the public.
