SciBeh Virtual Workshop 2021: Science Communication as Collective Intelligence
18–19 November 2021
Goal
We need science communication that moves beyond the traditional “lone wolf” model (where individual scientists engage in public outreach) towards a collective intelligence model.
Why collective intelligence?
- In a crisis, the landscape of science communication and its socio-political context is changing dynamically.
- Social media disinformation and anti-science campaigns have become part of the wider discourse, damaging trust in scientific communication.
- Individual scientists will struggle to communicate effectively amidst these forces.
- We need to adapt—by harnessing collective intelligence to communicate scientific outputs to both policy-makers and the public.
Agenda: Speakers, panelists, and workshop videos
For short bios of the speakers and panelists, please see here.
Day 1: What does collective intelligence have to offer?
Keynote Kai Spiekermann
Kai Spiekermann, LSE is Professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics. Among his research interests are normative and positive political theory, philosophy of the social sciences, social epistemology and environmental change. He is particularly interested in applying formal methods, computational simulations, and experiments to problems in political philosophy.
Panel Session 1: What does collective intelligence have to offer?
Session chair: Stephan Lewandowsky
Speakers:
- Arend Kuester, Springer Nature
- Dr Geoffrey Supran, Harvard University
- Prof Timothy Caulfield, University of Alberta
- Dr Kai Kupferschmidt, Science Magazine
- Prof Cecília Tomori, John Hopkins University
- Prof Kai Spiekermann, LSE
Collective view (pol.is poll): “What does collective intelligence have to offer to science communication?”
Click here for report of the pol.is poll with the prompt quoted below.
Please submit and react to statements about ideas, conjectures, examples, results, papers, tools, methods etc. that you think are relevant and important for understanding the limitations of traditional models of science communication for reaching the public and policy-makers, and what collective intelligence has to offer. Where applicable and feasible, please also add URLs/DOIs etc.
Please phrase self-explainable statements (i.e., not questions). Note that you are not replying to other statements when you submit a statement yourself (it is simply a new, independent statement).
Breakout discussion
Attendees worked on different parts of the “Science Communication as Collective Intelligence” Manifesto, supported by moderators and rapporteurs in different breakout rooms.
Moderator: Dawn Holford
Day 2: Designing science communication around collective intelligence
Keynote Dr Deepti Gurdasani, QMUL
Deepti Gurdasani is a clinical epidemiologist and statistical geneticist by background. Her research interests range from the development of new statistical methodology for population genetics, genome-wide association studies and genomic prediction, to developing new pipelines for drug discovery using large-scale multi-dimensional data.
Panel Session 2: Designing science communication around collective intelligence
Session chair: Ulrike Hahn
Speakers:
- Dr Joshua Becker, UCL
- Dr Niccolo Pescetelli, New Jersey Institute of Technology
- Dr Aleks Berditchevskaia, NESTA
- Dr Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Max Planck Institute for Human Development
- Prof Sune Lehmann, Technical University of Denmark & University of Copenhagen
Breakout discussion
Attendees worked on different parts of the “Science Communication as Collective Intelligence” Manifesto, supported by moderators and rapporteurs in different breakout rooms.
Moderator: Dawn Holford
Collective view (pol.is poll): “How do we build and sustain systems that support the role of collective intelligence in science communication?”
Click here for report of the pol.is poll with the prompt quoted below.
Please submit and react to statements about ideas, conjectures, examples, results, papers, tools, methods etc. that you think are relevant and important for building and sustaining systems—particularly online spaces—that support the role of collective intelligence in science communication. Where applicable and feasible, please also add URLs/DOIs etc.
Please phrase self-explainable statements (i.e., not questions). Note that you are not replying to other statements when you submit a statement yourself (it is simply a new, independent statement).
Breakout discussion
Attendees worked on different parts of the “Science Communication as Collective Intelligence” Manifesto, supported by moderators and rapporteurs in different breakout rooms.
Moderator: Dawn Holford
Day 2: Workshop wrap-Up
Organization team
- Key organizer: Dawn Holford
- Co-organizers
Acknowledgments
- Organisational support: A special thanks goes to our workshop rapporteurs Xana Butt, Natasja Derby-Mccabe, Jasmine Hollingworth, Zoe Ikeotuonye, Jacqueline Krauss, Lucy Parfitt and Sophia Sterckx for their excellent note-taking and organizational help.
- 🇪🇺 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 964728 (JITSUVAX).