Research Comms Peter Barker

Despite the alarming statistic that 1 in 3 people born today will develop dementia in their lifetime, research into the neurodegenerative disease has historically been underfunded compared with other areas of medical research such as cancer.
In this episode of Research Comms, host Peter Barker explores the reasons behind that with Lucy Wilson, Director of Communications and Engagement at the UK Dementia Research Institute (DRI), who offers optimistic insight into how the tide is turning. 
Lucy outlines how the DRI, founded in 2017, was created to address the knowledge gap and boost the dementia research workforce across multiple UK universities. In doing so, the institute has brought together researchers from across diverse disciplines, collectively enabling a better understanding of dementia and the brain. 
This 'hub and spoke' model is not without its comms challenges, and Lucy shares her insights into how her team and their key initiatives help foster a shared sense of the DRI's purpose. 
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UK Dementia Research Institute
The Montessori Child

Sensemaking is a powerful communications tool that provides a framework for understanding the world in which we live and shaping the stories that we tell. In this episode of Research Comms, Peter is joined by Liz Neeley and Ambika Kamath, the founding members of science communications collective Liminal, to unpack sensemaking and its potential for navigating complicated issues facing society today.

Liz and Ambika share their vision for Liminal as a collective model that brings together professionals across disciplines to transform how research is understood and shared through more impactful and contextualised communication.
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Wrigley Storymakers Program

It's no secret that video can be one of the most powerful ways of sharing research with audiences online. But creating a successful strategy that will get your videos seen by the right people isn't always so straightforward.
 
One research organisation that has achieved huge levels of public engagement with its own video content is the Institute for New Economic Thinking, or INET. This New York based, nonprofit think tank funds economic research that ‘challenges conventional wisdom and advances ideas to better serve society’. And its incredible library of videos that showcase and elevate those ideas have reached millions of people around the world.

In this episode of Research Comms, Peter talks to Matthew Kulvicki, INET's Director of Video, about what has made the institute's approach to video such a success. 
 
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📕 Book of the month Sidney Lumey, Making Movies

Over the past few decades, the evidence to show that climate change is happening, that it’s caused by human activities, and that we need to take urgent action to limit its impact, has gathered at an overhelming rate.

But research into the best way to communicate that message has lagged behind.
That’s changing, thanks in large part to the work of organisations like the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
 
In this episode of Research Comms, Peter chats with YPCCC Project Manager, Eric Fine, about his organisation's work to understand public attitudes to climate change, the ‘spiral of silence’ that can happen when we make assumptions about people's beliefs, the 'SASSY' public opinion survey, the power of segmentation for crafting tailored messages, and how to find optimism at at time when reality can seem so bleak.

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Yale Program on Climate Change Communication SASSY survey Climate silence: pluralistic ignorance as a barrier to climate change discussion by Nathaniel Geiger and Janet Swim

Generative-AI tools, like ChatGPT, are increasingly embedded in the day-to-day work of research communicators. At the University of Cambridge the senior comms team has published a set of AI guidelines, created in consultation with staff across the university.
In this episode of Research Comms, members of the working group that put the guidelines together - Amy Mollett, Barney Brown and William Kerslake - talk about their feelings towards AI, the good and the bad, why they felt they needed to create guidelines for its use, and how the University of Cambridge is currently using AI tools to communicate research.
Links:
Research Comms newsletter on substack University of Cambridge Generative-AI Guidelines Research Communications Survey Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro Generative AI is already widespread in the public sector | Alan Turing Institute 

In this episode, host Peter Barker reflects on the unique archive of over fifty Research Comms episodes to bring together insights from those conversations around the theme of trust.  
Whether we’re discussing vaccine hesitancy, climate scepticism, young people’s engagement with science and scientists or the rise of conspiracy theorists, all of these topics are, at their core, issues of trust. Recognising how essential trust is to public engagement, how can the wider research community earn the trust of the public?