#GradSciCommScaling Up Communication Trainings for Young Scientists

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DISCOMFORT COMFORT

We agree: there is an unmet need for communication skills training in

STEM graduate education.

What will be different when this need is met?

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Changes in Society• Trust in science• Increased science literacy• People want to be a scientist• Better-informed public policies

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Changes in Science• More collaborative science• Scientists talk in a way that

resonates w/ that audience• Dialogue, not dissemination• Communication skills are

integral to science skills• Science communications is

awarded in tenure process• Creation of more career

options for PhD Scientists

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Changes in Graduate Education • Graduate education is less

frustrating – it is a joy• Communication is part of the

fabric of graduate education, just like ethics and statistics

• Graduate advisors endorse communications training

• Institutions churning out STEM PhDs have resources/capacity to offer/provide communications training

• Shared understanding of best practices in pedagogy

Vision

Roadblocks

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BIG Roadblocks• Change is slow • Public is ambivalent

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Science Culture Roadblocks• Scientific culture will never

change• Scientists have too many

things to do/lack of time• No institutional incentives/

rewards• Have we seen/quantified the

ROI on science communications?

• We lack platforms for scientists to communicate

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Graduate Education Roadblocks• Scientist identities do not

include research AND communication (presumed tradeoff)

• Lack of support from advisors• Money• Monitoring and evaluation

Roadblocks

Competencythe ability to do something

Proficiencymastery of a skill

TextTextText

Top 5 CompetenciesUnderstand society/audience + emotional

context: basic familiarity with the social science *******************************

Simply state “so what” of research ****************

Use simple language to explain complex ideas *******

Storytelling*******

Writing clearly*******

feedback practice

training

how does change happen?

Motivation• Students recognize that communication training matters • University administrations recognize that this is a

pressing need• Faculty advisors help their students get this training

Alignment• Align the stars (personal incentives match institutional

ones)• Align career-wide training goals (communication training

needed may personalized for diverse career paths)• Align timing (students need different training at diff times

in career)

Change requires

•Catalytic funding (e.g philanthropy, NIH/NSF, etc.)•Sustained funding•Champions (right people; right institutional level,

right time relative to local conditions)•Pressure from outside (e.g. AAU or NSF Broader

Impact requirements)•Rewards from outside (individual or institutional)

Drivers of change

SOCIETY

SCIENCE

SELF

• Better-informed public policies • Trust in science & science literacy increases• People want to be scientists

SOCIETY

SCIENCE

• More collaborative science across disciplines, professions, institutions, and geographies

• Dialogue, not dissemination

SELF

• Communication effort is rewarded in tenure & promotion

• More career options for PhDs

SOCIETY

SCIENCE

SELF

Thinking Styles• Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument• Thinking and information processing style

• People differ in their preferences• Preferences follow patterns

• personal preferences in thinking • and processing styles

HBDI measures

competence, personality, or intelligence

but NOT

When viewed from a diametrically opposed quadrant, strengths may

be seen differently!

HBDI & team workWhat would be the advantages of each ‘colour’ in an interdisciplinary research

project?

GRANT&APPLICATIONS

The Science

The ProgramThe People

and the Relationship

The Future

GIVING&FEEDBACK

• Be precise & logical

• Use facts

• Pay attention to data

• Be imaginative & holistic

• Use Metaphor

• Pay attention to ultimate outcomes

• Be organized & structured• Use a sequential approach• Pay attention to details

• Be empathic & caring

• Use eye contact

• Pay attention to feelings/relationships

“Team creativity comes from the appreciation and maximum use of

differences”- Ned Herrmann

SOCIETY

SCIENCE

SELF

Our collective challenge: mapping a course to improve

national training capacity in science communication

for STEM graduate students

Our collective challenge: mapping the pathways to

integrate science communication core competencies into STEM

graduate student training

SUMMARYgraphic

ROADMAPreport

SUPPORTING documents, talks, products

SUMMARYgraphic

ROADMAPreport

NOT DRIVING DIRECTIONS

9 AUGUST 2013 VOL 341 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org 616

POLICYFORUM

On 22 February, the U.S. Offi ce of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a memo call-

ing for public access for publications and data resulting from federally sponsored research grants ( 1). The memo directed federal agencies with more than $100 mil-lion R&D expenditures to “develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government.” Perhaps even more suc-cinctly, a subsequent New York Times opin-ion page sported the headline “We Paid for the Research, So Let’s See It” ( 2). So who pays for data infrastructure?

The OSTP memo requested agencies to provide plans by September 2013 that describe their strategies for providing pub-lic access to both research publications and research data. Plans are expected to be imple-mented using “resources within the existing agency budget,” i.e., no new money should be expected. Currently, federal R&D agen-cies are working hard to foster approaches to public access, to assess needs for support-ing partnerships and enabling infrastructure, and to develop timetables and approaches for implementation. We focus here on the research data portion of the OSTP memo, rather than on publications.

Digital data are ephemeral, and access to data involves infrastructure and economic support. In order to support the download-ing of data from federally funded chemistry experiments, astronomy sky surveys, social science studies, biomedical analyses, and other research efforts, the data may need to be collected, documented, organized in a database, curated, and/or made available by a computer that needs maintenance, power, and administrative resources. Access to data requires that the data be hosted somewhere and managed by someone. Technological and human infrastructure supporting data stewardship is a precondition to meaningful access and reuse, as “homeless” data quickly become no data at all.

Research data of community value are supported today in a variety of ways. Some of them, like those in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) ( 3)—a database of protein structure information used heavily by the life sciences community—are supported by the pub-lic sector. (In particular, U.S. funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Department of Energy for the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformat-ics (RCSB) PDB is $6.3 million annually.) Other data, as from the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY) ( 4)—a longitu-dinal study of student attitudes about science and careers—are available through subscrip-tion from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan. (ICPSR mem-bership ranges from $15,750 for doctoral research–extensive academic institutions to $1680 for community colleges and provides access to 7500 data collections.) Some data live on researchers’ hard drives, some are stored by the commercial sector, and some are hosted in academic libraries, private or public repositories, or archives. Much of our federally funded research data are “at risk,” with no long-term viable economic model in place to ensure continuing access and preser-vation for the community. An in-depth study of the economics of digital preservation ( 5, 6) explored the complex issues of supporting valued data for the public good, but ultimately there is no economic “magic bullet” that does not require someone, somewhere, to pay.

What happens to valuable data when project funding ends? Consider, for example, a 3-year research project in which valu-able sensor data are collected from an environmentally sensi-tive area. Those data may be use-ful not just for the duration of the project but for the next decade or more to collaborators and a broader community of research-ers. For the f irst 3 years, the costs of stewardship (including development of a database that supports analysis, access to the data for the community through

a portal, adequate storage and manage-ment of the data collection, and so on) may be paid for by the grant. But who pays for subsequent support? In such cases, research data may become more valuable just as the economics of stewardship become less viable.

Up to this point, no one sector has stepped up to take on the problem alone, and it is unrealistic to expect as much. In the public sector, federal R&D agencies are unlikely to allocate enough resources to support all federally funded research data. The costs of infrastructure would absorb too great a por-tion of a budget that must support both inno-vation and the infrastructure needed to drive innovation. The private sector, especially in information technology, has tremendous capacity and expertise to support the stew-ardship of public-access research data; how-ever, there are few explicit incentives to take this on. In early 2008, Google announced that it would begin to support open-source scientifi c data sets. By the end of the year, the project was shut down for business rea-sons ( 7). Without explicit incentives and credits, it is challenging for companies to step forward and partner productively to support the common good. In the academic sector, university libraries are natural foci for the stewardship of digital research data. But they need fi nancial support to evolve in this direction at a time when many budgets are being cut.

The key is not to look to a particular sector alone but to develop much stronger

Who Will Pay for Public Access

to Research Data?

SCIENCE PRIORITIES

When economic models and infrastructure are

not in place to ensure access and preservation,

federally funded research data are “at risk.”

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*Corresponding author. E-mail: bermaf@rpi.edu

1

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, USA.

2

Google, Reston, VA 20190, USA.

Francine Berman

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and Vint Cerf

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Published by AAAS

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SUPPORTING documents, talks, products

Roadblocks

over? under?around?through?

•Scientist identities don’t combine research AND communication (presumed tradeoff)

•Lack of support from advisors

•Money

•Monitoring and evaluation

Graduate Education Roadblocks

2NegotiationSelf,interest

it is a pathway

Money is NOT an obstacle

TextTextText

1. Scientist identities don’t combine research AND communication (presumed tradeoff)

2. Lack of support from advisors3. Monitoring and evaluation

Graduate Education Roadblocks

breakout groupprocess

Our collective challenge: mapping the pathways to

integrate science communication core competencies into STEM

graduate student training