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NSERC awarded Nicholas Woolridge, associate professor in the Master of Science in Biomedical Communications at the University of Toronto, a $20,000 grant in its pilot Science Communications Skills competition.
The grant will support Woolridge’s development of a workshop to train STEM students and researchers in the effective communication of science to the public. The workshop will be developed for, and with, principal investigators and their trainees.
Nicholas Woolridge, Associate Director, Master of Science in Biomedical Communications. Photo credit: Maeve Doyle
DiSCOVER–Design in Science Communication: Opportunities in Visual Education for Researchers
Woolridge says that PIs, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students are often called upon to communicate scientific concepts. But, they may lack training in the skills they need to effectively communicate that science in visual form, such as data visualizations, imaging, graphs, diagrams, flow charts, and other forms of visual media.
“The primary goal of DiSCOVER is to design a prototype workshop experience to impart audience-aware design methods and skills,” he says. “We mean to create a portable workshop format that can be deployed beyond U of T for researchers and trainees in STEM.”
Design Process
Unique to DiSCOVER is the co-design process, which will involve the stakeholders. "By building a facilitated collaborative phase into the workshop development, we hope to address both the needs of the people we are training, and the needs of the audiences who will be informed by them." The project will partner with Bridgeable Inc., a Toronto design consultancy, on the co-creation training and process.
The benefits of the project are two-fold. "Participants will leave with greater experience in the design of visual media for science communication, but another takeaway will be the design of the workshop itself."
Portable Design
Woolridge will document the activities and exercises so that DiSCOVER can be implemented elsewhere. "It won't just be a one-time activity. If people have a good experience with it, facilitators in other research centres can mount the science communications training again and again, year after year."
Future funding could support work to refine the design for different domains. "The communications needs and objectives of, say, biology might vary between biological disciplines. Similarly, the needs and objectives will vary for different domains, such as earth sciences or physics or chemistry," says Woolridge. Different approaches may be taken and might evolve through further workshop designs.
Woolridge hopes that the DiSCOVER project can be expanded to provide a menu of choices of workshop activities that can be deployed relevant to the fields of research work to be communicated.