Synopsis

Engaging with the public is vital to ensure trust in science. It can improve our research and our communication skills, and also be rewarding and fun. To best engage, we need to identify the specific audience we are intending to engage with and ensure that our message and our method match that audience.

The best engagement is two-way

• Our students come to us to be educated, but that isn’t the case for the wider public – if we use our usual ‘teaching’ methods, they won’t usually work
• People want to be inspired – so share your enthusiasm for your research more than your knowledge
• People are interested in us as people – so telling our story, or what we do day to day, brings down barriers
• People want to ask questions and give opinions – and this may take us in directions that we weren’t expecting, but it is also okay not to know the answersIf we engage, we become better scientists – and public trust increases

You need to know your audience

• The ‘public’ is very heterogenous – it is vital we identify the audience we are engaging with before we think about the method to use
• Some audiences will seek you out – and science festivals or open days are a great place to start
• Some audiences are easy to identify – for example kids in your child’s school or a patient support group
• Most people are not actively seeking out science – and if we want to engage them we need to go to the places (real or virtual) where they are

The message should match the audience

• Don’t be afraid to have a very simple take home message – “an MRI scanner uses a very strong magnet to see inside your body” or “physicists and engineers are involved in medical science” might be enough
• Keep refining your message – asking for feedback, from colleagues in a different discipline, schoolteachers, or museum staff can help ensure that we are getting it right
• Use your journey in science, or a walkthrough of your day – this helps to keep the message grounded
• Encourage people to ask questions or give their thoughts – and remember that people will enjoy speaking to you more if they feel clever themselves

The method should match the audience

• Use the medium that your audience are familiar with and not threatened by – for children get them making things with paper or colouring, and for adults in the street, make things look like a game
• Use TV genres as inspiration – how about a gameshow with MRI scans, or a mystery solving ‘whodunit’ about metabolite detection
• If you are giving lectures or talks, try using props not PowerPoint – and get the audience involved if possible
• Keep it simple – for your own sake as well as for your audience

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