About ASC Webmaster

James has trained as a lawyer, animator, molecular biologist and computer programmer. So if you want to develop an animated documentary series about bioinformatics patent infringements, James is your man.

11th PCST-2010, New Delhi, India, December 06-10, 2010

Posted on 17 June 2010 by ASC Webmaster

> Subject: 11th PCST-2010, New Delhi, India, December 06-10, 2010 > > The 11th International Conference on > Public Communication of Science & Technology (PCST-2010) > Science Communication Without Frontiers > > NASC Complex, Todapur, DPS Road , Pusa, New Delhi-110012, India > December 06-10, 2010 > > being organized by > International Network on Public Communication of Science & > Technology (PCST-Network)National Council for Science & Technology > Communication (NCSTC/ DST) > Madhya Pradesh Council of Science & Technology (MPCOST) > International Centre for Science Communication (ICSC) > Indian Science Communication Society (ISCOS) > Indian Science Writers’ Association (ISWA) > www.pcst-2010.org > Last Date for Submission of Proposals (500 > Words) : August 31, 2010 > Last Date for Application for Travel > Fellowship : August 31, 2010 > Intimation of acceptance of Abstracts/ Proposals > : September 30, 2010 > Last Date for Early Bird > Registration : > September 30, 2010 > Last Date for Submission of Full Paper > : October 31, 2010 > Last Date for > Registration > : > October 31, 2010 > > More details at Conference Website www.pcst-2010.org > > With thanks and regards, > > Dr. Manoj K. Patairiya > Vice Chair & Convener (PCST-2010) > Director (Scientist ‘F’) > National Council for Science & Technology Communication > Technology Bhavan, New Mehrauli Road , New Delhi – 110016, India > Phone : > +91-11-26537976 > Fax : +91-11-26590238, 26866675 > Email : mkp@nic.in; manojpatairiya@yahoo.com; editor@ijsc@gmail.com > Website : www.dst.gov.in > *************** Toss Gascoigne President PCST Network

Join the PCST network at: http://mailmanlist.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pcst/

E. director@tossgascoigne.com.au P. +61 408 704 442 W. tossgascoigne.com.au

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Sponsorship to Biodiversity Conference

Posted on 16 June 2010 by ASC Webmaster

I am hoping that some ASC members will be in organisations that have young agricultural scientists that may find the following scholarships of interest:

Crawford Fund 2010 Annual Development Conference

BIODIVERSITY AND World Food Security:

Nourishing the Planet and its People

Sponsorship for young Australian agricultural scientists to attend the Crawford Fund Conference, Parliament House,

Canberra, 30 August-1 September 2010

The Crawford Fund (www.crawfordfund.org http://www.crawfordfund.org/ ) is an Australian not-for-profit organisation that exists to promote research and development for world food security.

We are offering eight awards of up to $1000 to assist young Australian agricultural scientists to attend the 2010 Crawford Fund conference, entitled Biodiversity and World Food Security: Nourishing the Planet and its People. Speakers include Dr Cristián Samper, Director, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; Professor Steve Hopper, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Dr Emile Frison, Director General, Bioversity International, Dr Meryl Williams, Chair of the ACIAR Commission, and Megan Clark and TJ Higgins from CSIRO. Information is available on our website.

Seven awards will be made through the Crawford Funds current State and Territory programs, while the eighth award is available for Tasmania. All awards are subject to a suitable candidate being identified.

Eligible costs to be met from the grant include conference registration fees and related transport and accommodation costs. Applicants must:

– Be under the age of 30 as at 1 July 2010, and

– Be either a full-time student at a university located in the relevant State or Territory, or be working in agricultural science.

– Be able to demonstrate an interest in international agricultural development, and preferably in the technical area covered by the Crawford Fund conference.

Those sponsored to attend the conference will be required to make a presentation at a relevant academic or research institute prior to 30 November 2010, and to provide a 500-word article outlining how they benefited from the conference and what they considered to be the highlights. These articles will be summarised for inclusion in the Crawford Fund newsletter.

Applications for the award must be submitted by 30 June to the Crawford Fund coordinator for your State/Territory (go to www.crawfordfund.org/contacts.html) or if you are in Tasmania contact Crawford@crawfordfund.org. The application should contain biographical details and relevant research interests, and should be accompanied by a letter of support from your University or research supervisor.

Successful applicants will be notified, confirming the assistance they will be receiving, by 15 July 2010.

Cathy Reade Coordinator – Public Awareness Crawford Fund Ph/Fax: 07 54483095 Mobile: 0413 575 934 www.crawfordfund.org

The Crawford Fund’s mission is to increase Australia’s engagement in international agricultural research, development and education for the benefit of developing countries and Australia.

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evaluations of science communication

Posted on 16 June 2010 by ASC Webmaster

Hi ASCers, particularly those involved in the recent discussion about the evaluation of science communication…

I’m in the process of finishing my thesis, which includes a chapter on evaluating science communication events and programs. I’d like to use a couple of quotes from this recent discussion in that chapter. I know that this email list is public domain given it’s available on the ASC website (http://www.asc.asn.au/section/list/).

However given that I’d be referencing specific people’s emails, I wanted to check whether anyone *doesn’t* want me to use their contribution to the discussion as a reference. If you’d prefer not to be cited, just let me know.

Also, I think it’s great to see this being discussed on the ASC list after the topic gained some momentum at the national conference in January. We talked about it in the session I presented at, which Kristin Alford blogged about here: http://bridge8.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/tools-for-democracy-and-dialogue-in-science/

I think her dot-point summary from that includes some useful questions for evaluations:

“So what have we learnt about engaging everyone? First we need to do something! More events! No! The first thing is to think more strategically about the following questions: – What is our objective we expect to fulfill through this activity? – Who’s your target audience? – What do they need in terms of information and understanding of the science? – What do they want by joining in? (And this can be quite different from what we think they need.) – How can our audience inform us? What do we want to know from them? And then we can suitably alter the approach and the framing of the activity to ensure that we are able to engage with a broader cross-section of the population on their terms.”

Also, I wouldn’t mind enhancing another of my chapters on *who* participates in science communication with some quotes from other professional science communicators, so if you’d like to respond on this list with some thoughts on that I might cite you as well. I’m most interested in how participants for science engagement events are attracted/recruited, and how much thought is given to catering events to different types of people.

While I’m at it, if you’d like to share any references to evaluations of Australian science communication events and programs I’d appreciate it, in case I haven’t come across them yet. You can browse my existing references here if you like (but by all means just suggest a link without checking, as I’d rather have someone suggest something I’ve already included than not at all, and searching the collection can be unfruitful): http://www.citeulike.org/user/cobi

Cheers,

Cobi Smith Centre for the Public Awareness of Science Australian National University email: cobi.smith@anu.edu.au web: http://cpas.anu.edu.au/people/cobi_smith/ Note: I’m in South America now, so if you’d like to contact me please stick to email.

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do Australians trust scientists?

Posted on 14 June 2010 by ASC Webmaster

Thank you to all who responded to this question about trust.

See below for a compilation of excerpts taken from responses which might be of general interest.

These include links to Readers Digest surveys of professions and people, Swinburne’s National Technology and Society Monitor and recent work out of CSIRO Energy Transformed Flagship.

Kind regards, Nancy

Assoc Prof Nancy Longnecker

Coordinator, Science Communication Program Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences The University of Western Australia

1) Readers Digest runs a survey on trust each year – for brands, individuals and professions.

The survey isn’t too bad by methodology and the data is tracked year by year.

Scientists rate 12 – but doctors and pharmacists might be considered by some to be scientists. In the individual trust category – many scientists rate very highly.

http://www.readersdigest.com.au/life/australias-most-trusted-professions -2009/article142043.html

http://www.readersdigest.com.au/life/australias-most-trusted-people-2009 /article141332.html

Dr Craig Cormick Manager Public Awareness and Community Engagement National Enabling Technologies Strategy

2) The closest thing I’ve seen is Reader’s Digest’s annual “Australia’s 100 most trusted individuals” list. I don’t know how rigorous they are – probably not very – but do appear there, though prominent medical professionals often do very well: in 2009 Dr Fiona Wood made the number one spot, with Professor Ian Frazer in third. Dr Karl – a fixture in the list for many years – came in at number 11.

The 2009 list can be found here: http://www.readersdigest.com.au/life/australias-most-trusted-people-2009/article141332.html

3) A 2008 Australian Reader’s Digest poll shows the trend: http://www.readersdigest.com.au/popular/australias-most-trusted-professions- 2008-readers-digest-australia/article77699.html

Some quick links to international polls include: http://businesstrends.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/most-prestigious-occupations- in-america/ http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-04/27/content_9777169.htm

However, I also believe that another question should be asked about the scientific profession itself – which type of scientists from what industries are trusted more than others. I think it’s not correct to lump all scientists together. I work in healthcare and I know that pharmaceutical companies have a bad reputation as being fairly untrustworthy. Consequentially (and probably unfairly), scientists and healthcare professionals from pharma companies seem to have attached to them the bad stigma of the industry. I’m not sure how a survey about the science profession would work exactly, but it is an interesting question.

4) Hi Nancy

Apologies for the late reply. You might be interested in Swinburne’s National Technology and Society Monitor. Here’s a link to the 2009 edition: http://www.swinburne.edu.au/lss/spru/spru-monitor.html .

Cheers Chris KP

_______________________________ Chris Krishna-Pillay Victorian Manager, CSIRO Education CSIRO

5) There was a study done in 2009 by Swinburne called the National Technology and Society Monitor. It looked at groups of organisations rather than specific professions, and considered how trustworthy those organisations were in relation to the provision of science and technoloogy information. CSIRO came first, followed by universities, medical doctors, scientists and hospitals, then progressed downwards, ending with major international companies and commercial media..

6) The Who Cares about the environment in 2009? Survey asked residents of NSW (n=2003) the reliability of different information sources including scientists and technical specialists.

In 2009, 38% of respondents said that scientists and technical specialists were very reliable (which is a decrease from 2003 (n=1421) when 40% of respondents said they were very reliable, although an increase from 1994 when only 19% of respondents said they were very reliable).

For more about the Who Cares survey (which has run each three years since 1994) and more about these results, see the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water NSW website at: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/community/Whocares2009.htm

7) …the “Who Cares about the Environment in 2009?” survey of NSW people’s environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviours includes a question relating to perceived reliability of information sources (relating to the environment).

The results are on pages 56-60 of the full report that can be found at http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/community/Whocares2009.htm.

A question about sources of environmental information is on Page 77.

8) The CSIRO Energy Flagship social sciences group asked in several of large group processes which has a question on trust. See in the links below.

http://www.csiro.au/resources/Perceptions-of-low-emission-energy-technologies-Perth.html

Similar studies were done in Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane which are all on the website too.

____________________________ From: Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2010 20:14:43 +1000 To: Conversation: [ASC-list] do Australians trust scientists? Subject: [ASC-list] do Australians trust scientists?

Hello all,

Does anyone know of any (recent) survey data that asks Australians whether they trust scientists, esp in comparison to other professional groups?

Kind regards, Nancy

Assoc Prof Nancy Longnecker

Coordinator, Science Communication Program Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences, M011 The University of Western Australia 35 Stirling Highway Crawley, WA 6009

ph: 61 8 6488 3926 email: nancy.longnecker@uwa.edu.au skype: nancylongnecker

There is no point explaining everything in the universe if no one is listening to you. (UWA Sci Comm student, 2009)

CRICOS Provider No. 00126G

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-13

Posted on 13 June 2010 by ASC Webmaster

Scientix: web portal for teachers, researchers, policy makers, parents & anyone interested in sci ed http://bit.ly/cDgP6v via @kristinalford #

Australian Science Communicators

The national forum for science communicators and science journalists

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