Categories
Events News

MSCL Colloquium: Dr. Mascha Gugganig

We would like to invite you to our colloquium, “Opening up Indoor Vertical Farming – How (not) to Communicate a Novel Food Production System,” on March 26th at 13:00 (German time).

Dr. Gugganig will discuss how proponents of indoor vertical farming like to herald it as a precise and efficient (urban) food production system that keeps out various nuances, be it pesticides, pathogens, or even humans, as carriers of germs, or imperfect workers that cannot compete with automated systems. This raises the question of what human-plant relations emerge as a result and how to communicate a novel food production system in public spheres when its setup is inherently closed off. Based on findings of a public engagement project, this talk will juxtapose the prominent depiction of vertical farming as a ‘black-boxed’ silver bullet solution for various food and agri-environmental crises with opening up vertical farming as a wider platform for deliberations over the transformation of the contemporary agrifood system.

Dr. Gugganig received her Ph.D. in Cultural and Social Anthropology from the University of British Columbia in 2016. She was a Fellow at the Program on Science, Technology & Society at Harvard University and at the Department for Science, Technology & Society at Cornell University, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa. Since Spring 2023, she has been a Lecturer (akademische Rätin) at the Chair of Life Sciences in Society and an Affiliated Researcher at the Rachel Carson Center, both at the University of Munich (LMU), and she continues to be a Research Associate at the Department of STS at TU Munich.

Find the paper at Vanguard Visions of Vertical Farming: Envisaging and Contesting an Emerging Food Production System (Science, Technology, & Human Values) and a recording of the talk below.

Hier klicken, um den Inhalt von YouTube anzuzeigen.
Learn more in YouTube’s privacy policy.

More information on each colloquium will be sent to our mailing list as the dates approach. Here you can subscribe to our email list: https://www.mscl.de/mailing-list/ .

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or ideas about possible topics and speakers.

Categories
Events

Venice International University Spring School

Equipping Researchers with Skills, Strategies and Confidence for Science Communication

The Spring School will take place from March 18th to March 22nd, 2024 and the program is now available. We are proud to share that three members of the Munich Science Communication Lab (MSCL) are part of the faculty: Lars Guenther, Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität (LMU), Munich Science Communication Lab; Julia Serong, Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität (LMU), Munich Science Communication Lab; and Monica Déchène, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU), Munich Science Communication Lab.

This program aims to provide researchers and graduate students from various disciplines – including Natural and Social Sciences, Engineering, and Humanities – with the necessary skills and confidence to effectively communicate their research to public and policy audiences.

The Spring School is designed for researchers and graduate students who wish to enhance their ability to communicate their research to wider audiences.

For more information, please visit: Equipping Researchers with Skills, Strategies and Confidence for Science Communication – Venice International University (univiu.org)

Categories
Events News

Evaluation in der Wissenschaftskommunikation

6. and 7. March 2024

The Munich Science Communication Lab (MSCL) and the Impact Unit invite you to the joint conference “Evaluation in Science Communication” at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. The conference will present and discuss current developments, challenges, and future perspectives of evaluations in science communication and will bring together insights from practice and research.

Current discussions show again and again how important a comprehensible, credible, and effective science communication is. Therefore, it is key to reflect on whether projects of science communication are really making a difference, to ask questions about quality, and to discuss what constitutes good science communication. Evaluations are means to check the effectiveness of a science communication project. However, they can also help to better understand the mechanisms of a project and identify areas for improvement.

This conference will provide a space for 1) reflection on current challenges in evaluating science communication, 2) the presentation of learnings and recommendations for the evaluation of science communication from practical and scientific perspectives, 3) the discussion of future developments in science communication evaluation, and 4) exchange and networking among science communication practitioners and researchers in order to foster collaborations and mutual support opportunities.

The conference is aimed in particular at…

  • Science communication practitioners (e.g. representatives from communication departments of universities and research institutions, schools, museums/science centers);
  • Researchers of all disciplines involved in science communication;
  • Scientists with a focus on science communication;
  • Science communication trainers

This is an in-person event held in German – however, you can always ask questions and make comments in English if you feel more comfortable.

Venue of the conference:
Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich
Institute for Communication Science and Media Research
Oettingenstr. 67
80538 Munich

Room: B001 + Foyer

How to find us: Tram 16, stop: Tivolistraße / Bus 154 Tivolistr. or bus 54/154, 58, 68 Hirschauer Str.

The conference rooms are located between the A and C wings of the building. The easiest way to reach us from the street is to use the entrance directly by the foyer. If you enter the building at the gate, you have to go down the corridor to the right until you reach the C wing of the building.

Speakers’ Spotlight

Dr. Bernhard Goodwin
Bernhard Goodwin studierte Kommunikationswissenschaft, Informatik und Recht. Anschließend hat er mit einer Arbeit über Wissenschaftskommunikation an der TU München promoviert – am Lehrstuhl für Wald- und Umweltpolitik. Seit 2010 ist er Geschäftsführer des Instituts für Kommunikationswissenschaft und Medienforschung und seit 2021 Executive Director des Munich Science Communication Lab. Weitere Information: https://www.ifkw.uni-muenchen.de/organisation/personen/mitarbeiter/goodwin_bernhard/

Dr. Cora Schaffert-Ziegenbalg
Cora Schaffert-Ziegenbalg ist Co-Leiterin der Förderinitiative “Wissenschaftskommunikation Hoch Drei” der VolkswagenStiftung. Sie ist Programmdirektorin bei der VolkswagenStiftung, Deutschlands größter privater und unabhängiger Wissenschaftsförderorganisation. Dr. Schaffert-Ziegenbalg ist ausgebildete Politikwissenschaftlerin und hat über Agendasetting Prozesse der Europäischen Kommission geforscht. In der Stiftung ist sie neben dem Fachbereich der Politikwissenschaft auch für die Wissenschaftskommunikation und transdisziplinäre Forschung zuständig.

Dr. Friederike Hendriks
Friederike Hendriks promovierte im Jahr 2016 an der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster als Teil des interdisziplinären DFG-Graduiertenkollegs “Vertrauen und Kommunikation in einer digitalisierten Welt”. Sie verbrachte ihr Postdoc-Zeit an der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster und am Leibniz-Institut für die Pädagogik der Naturwisschenschaften und Mathematik (IPN) in Kiel. Seit Juli 2021 leitet Friederike Hendriks die Nachwuchsforschungsgruppe „Communicating Scientists: Challenges, Competencies, Contexts (fourC)“ an der Technischen Universität Braunschweig. Ihre Forschungsinteressen umfassen Vertrauen in Wissenschaft, informelles und außerschulisches Lernen über Wissenschaft, sowie Einstellungen und Befähigung von Forschenden zur Wissenschaftskommunikation.

Prof. Dipl.-Chem. Holger Wormer
Holger Wormer, ist Professor für Wissenschaftsjournalismus am Institut für Journalistik der Technischen Universität Dortmund und einer der Gründer des Rhine Ruhr Center for Science Communication Research (RRC). Ferner hat er u.a. als Co-Sprecher an gleich drei Stellungnahmen der Deutschen Wisenschaftsakademien zur Wissenschaftskommunikation mitgewirkt. Aktuelle Geschehnisse aus dem Feld analysiert er regelmäßig in der Kolumne “Besser Wissen” des Berliner Tagesspiegels https://www.tagesspiegel.de/kolumnen/besser-wissen

Imke Hedder
Imke Hedder ist Projektmanagerin in der Impact Unit von Wissenschaft im Dialog. Sie evaluierte das Wissenschaftsvarieté Glitzern & Denken, den IdeenLauf im Wissenschaftsjahr 2022 – Nachgefragt! und untersucht aktuell das Ausstellungsprojekt Wissenschaftskommunikation Energiewende. Vor ihrer Zeit bei WiD studierte sie Medienmanagement und Strategische Kommunikation.

Dr. Julia Serong
Julia Serong ist Research Director und Mitglied des Executive Boards des Munich Science Communication Lab. Außerdem ist sie wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaft und Medienforschung. Bis 2021 war sie Koordinatorin der Ad-hoc-Arbeitsgruppe “Faktizität der Welt” an der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Sie promovierte an der FU Berlin zum Thema “Medienqualität und Publikum”. Julia Serong studierte Kommunikationswissenschaft, Wirtschaftspolitik und Anglistik an der WWU Münster.

Dr. Lorenz Kampschulte
Lorenz Kampschulte ist Leiter der Abteilung Bildung am Deutschen Museum in München. Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte sind Evaluation und Besucherforschung, der Einsatz (mobiler) digitaler Medien in formellen und informellen Lernsituationen sowie die Vermittlung eines authentischen Wissenschaftsbildes an unterschiedliche Zielgruppen. Er promovierte auf dem Gebiet der Nanowissenschaften an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Markus Gabriel
Markus Gabirel ist Partner bei com.X Institut für Kommunikations-Analyse & Evaluation. Seine Expertise liegt in der Konzeption, Leitung und Auswertung von multiperspektivischen Evaluations- und Forschungsprojekten mit einem quantitativ-qualitativen Methodenmix (Mixed-Methods-Designs) zu Themen aus den Bereichen Bildung, Gesundheit, Wissenschaftskommunikation, Bürgerbeteiligung und Gleichstellung. Er hat Medienwissenschaft und Kommunikationspsychologie und Spanisch studiert.

Prof. Dr. Mike S. Schäfer
Mike S. Schäfer ist seit 2013 Professor für Wissenschaftskommunikation und Direktor am IKMZ der Universität Zürich. Er ist u.a. gewähltes Mitglied von acatech – Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften und war Thinker in Residence zum Thema “Sprache und Klima” an der KVAB – Königlich Flämischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und Künste Belgiens. Zu seinen Forschungsinteressen gehören Wissenschaftskommunikation, Umwelt- und Klimakommunikation sowie die öffentliche Wahrnehmung von Wissenschaft und Technologie.

Dr. Philipp Schrögel
Philipp Schrögel ist Forschungskoordinator und Wissenschaftskommunikator am Käte Hamburger Zentrum für Apokalyptische und Postapokalyptische Studien der Universität Heidelberg. Dort forscht und arbeitet er praktisch vor allem mit kreativen und partizipativen Formen der Wissenschaftskommunikation. Er wurde vom Physiker zum Wissenschaftskommunikationsforscher mit Abschlüssen der Universitäten Erlangen-Nürnberg und Harvard. Er forschte am Karlsruher Institut für Technologie zu Wissenschaftskommunikation und arbeitete als Berater und Moderator für Bürgerbeteiligung.

Ricarda Ziegler
Ricarda Ziegler leitet seit März 2023 den Evaluationsbereich am NaWik. Zuvor war die studierte Politikwissenschaftlerin bei Wissenschaft im Dialog in Berlin tätig. Sie verantwortete dort u.a. das bevölkerungsrepräsentative Wissenschaftssurvey Wissenschaftsbarometer und baute die Impact Unit für Wirkung und Evaluation in der Wissenschaftskommunikation auf.

Dr. Selahattin Danisman
Selahattin Danisman ist Co-Leiter der Förderinitiative “Wissenschaftskommunikation Hoch Drei” der VolkswagenStiftung. Er ist Programmdirektor bei der VolkswagenStiftung, Deutschlands größter privater und unabhängiger Wissenschaftsförderorganisation. Dr. Danisman ist ausgebildeter Molekularbiologe und hat zur Entwicklungsbiologie, Transkriptionsfaktoren und die Innere Uhr von Pflanzen geforscht.

Dr. Sophia Charlotte Volk
Sophia Charlotte Volk ist Oberassistentin in der Abteilung Wissenschaftskommunikation am Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaft und Medienforschung der Universität Zürich, Mitglied der Editorial Boards des International Journal of Strategic Communication und Corporate Communications: an International Journal sowie Fachgruppensprecherin PR/Organisationskommunikation in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (DGPuK). Zu ihren Forschungsschwerpunkten gehören strategische Wissenschaftskommunikation in digitalen Medienumgebungen, Evaluation und Impact Messung, international vergleichende Forschung und Team Science.

Prof. Dr. Tom Duscher
Tom Duscher ist Kommunikationsdesigner und seit 2003 Professor für interaktive Medien an der Muthesius Kunsthochschule in Kiel. Informationsdesign und die Visualisierung wissenschaftlicher Themen sind seine Forschungsschwerpunkte, in denen er neue Formate und Visualisierungsstrategien untersucht und zusammen mit den Studierenden im Masterschwerpunkt „Interaktives Informationsdesign” weiterentwickelt. Im Jahr 2015 gründete er das Designstudio „Science Communication Lab” (www.scicom-lab.com), das sich auf die Entwicklung innovativer visueller Kommunikation für die Wissenschaften spezialisiert hat. Seit 2021 ist er Principal Investigator im Zentrum für Wissenschaftskommunikation Kiel Science Communication Network (KielSCN). Er erforscht transdisziplinär visuelle Formate der Wissenschaftskommunikation sowie deren Entwicklungs- und Wirkungsprozesse (Experience Design). Das KSCN ist ein Konsortium aus der Muthesius Kunsthochschule, dem Leibniz-Institut für die Pädagogik der Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik (IPN), der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel sowie den Praxispartnern Spektrum der Wissenschaft, kurzgesagt.org und NDR. Es wird durch das Wissenschaftsprogramm „Wissenschaftskommunikation hoch drei“ der Volkswagenstiftung gefördert und ist eines von bundesweit vier geförderten Zentren.

Vanessa van den Bogaert
Vanessa van den Bogaert ist wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Lehrstuhl für Lehr-Lernforschung an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Mit einem Hintergrund in Erziehungswissenschaften, Mathematik und Biologie liegen ihre Interessen in den Bereichen Interessenentwicklung, Wissenschaft der Wissenschaftskommunikation und Wissenschaft der Bürgerwissenschaft.


FREE BINDING REGISTRATION UNTIL FEBRUARY 20, 2024

(LIMITED SPACE)

Categories
Events News

MSCL Colloquium: Dr. Helen Fischer

We would like to invite you to our colloquium, “Objective and Subjective Knowledge: “Feeling the truth” and its Importance for Science Communication,” on February 20th at 13:00 (German time).

In this talk, Dr. Helen Fischer will discuss the relevance of objective and subjective knowledge (“Feeling the truth”) for attitudes towards controversial and politicized science such as climate change or COVID-19. She will also show how objective and subjective knowledge shape behavior and why science communicators should be aware of “truthiness,” the phenomenon that some statements ring true irrespective of evidence.

Dr. Fischer currently holds the visiting professorship “Science and Society” at KIT and has been researching at the Leibniz Institute for Knowledge Media in Tübingen since April 2022. She investigates the role of metacognition, our insight into the reliability and limits of our own knowledge for beliefs about politicized science such as climate change or COVID-19. Her research sheds light on the role of metacognition in recognizing one’s own thinking errors such as motivated information processing and information sharing in social networks.

Dr. Fischer completed her doctorate in cognitive psychology at Heidelberg University in 2016. After postdoctoral positions at the University of Heidelberg on public perception of climate change, she was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG) in 2019. She worked at the Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm, Sweden, from 2019-2020 and was a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, from 2020-2022. Since 2022, she has been conducting research at the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, Tübingen, and most recently completed a research stay at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, where she is researching the longitudinal relationship between social media use and beliefs about climate change in a project funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.

This is an online event carried out in English. However, questions in German are also welcomed. We look forward to your participation in our lively after-talk discussion! Please register here in advance: https://lmu-munich.zoom-x.de/meeting/register/u5AqcO6tqjkjGtF5ZprdYNfCX3SCHA_evXZs

More information on each colloquium will be sent to our mailing list as the dates approach. Here you can subscribe to our email list: https://www.mscl.de/mailing-list/ .

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or ideas about possible topics and speakers.

Categories
Research

Categories
Events News

MSCL Colloquium: Gregg Mitman

We would like to invite you to our colloquium, “Ebola in a Stew of Fear” on November 7th at 13:00 (CET).

This talk explores a range of moral tales put forth to account for the origin and spread of the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Conservation biologists seized upon Ebola’s emergence and the associated fear to stigmatize bushmeat hunting in the name of biodiversity protection. Political ecologists employed the disease onslaught to critique the environmental and social impacts of industrial plantation agriculture sweeping across West Africa. Liberians claimed sovereignty over the virus, attempting to overturn parasitic relations of exchange that have long plagued the country. The assorted Ebola outbreak narratives reveal contested histories, politics, meanings, beliefs, fears, values, and rights that have shaped—and will shape—access to the natural resources of the Upper Guinean Forests of West Africa in a world increasingly threatened by deforestation, zoonotic disease, biodiversity loss, and climate change.

Gregg Mitman is the Vilas Research and William Coleman Professor of History, Medical History, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Guest Research Professor at LMU’s Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich. He is currently researching fragments of the Upper Guinean rainforest in Liberia and Guinea. These forest fragments have become “hotspots” where conservation, infectious diseases, and resource extraction collide. The research aims to understand the ecological, economic, political, and social factors behind this convergence.

For the past years Mitman has focused on a multimedia project exploring the history and legacy of the Firestone Plantations Company in Liberia. He coproduced and codirected with Sarita Siegel two films, In the Shadow of Ebola, an intimate portrait of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, and The Land Beneath Our Feet, a documentary on history, memory, and land rights in Liberia. His most recent book, Empire of Rubber: Firestone’s Scramble for Land and Power in Liberia, was published by The New Press in November 2021.

Dr. Mitman has a Ph.D. and an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Department of History of Science. And a B.Sc. in Biology from Dalhousie University. More information on him and his work: About Gregg Mitman.

More information on each colloquium will be sent to our mailing list as the dates approach. Here you can subscribe to our email list: https://www.mscl.de/mailing-list/ .

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or ideas about possible topics and speakers.

If you missed the event, you can still watch the presentation here:

Hier klicken, um den Inhalt von YouTube anzuzeigen.
Learn more in YouTube’s privacy policy.

Categories
Research

Science Popularization in a Polarized Society: How Scientists in the Field of Climate Change Communicate Science and Deal with Potential Negative Feedback

Dr. Josephine Schmitt und Dr. Sabine Reich, 2023
Poster presentation at the 13th Conference of the Media Psychology Division (DGPs) in Luxembourg.

Categories
Research

Provocations to Environmental History and History of Technology:The Anthropocene

Helmuth Trischler and Fabienne Will, 2023.
Giacomo Bonan und Katia Occhi (HRSG.): Environment and Infrastructure. Challenges, knowledge and Innovation from the Early Modern Period, 13-32

Full text: PDF (free download)

Categories
Research

Evaluationsbericht zur Klimasimulation En-Roads

Clara Kühner, Fabienne Will, Bernhard Goodwin, 2023
Science Communication Lab, Deutsches Museum. München: LMU, Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaft und Medienforschung

Abstract: The following report presents the evaluation results of a science communication initiative that took place in February 2023 at the Science Communication Lab of the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Visitors were able to use the climate simulation model “En-ROADS” on a touchscreen table, under the guidance of scientists from the FH Kufstein. En-ROADS is a climate simulation model that predicts the temperature increase in the year 2100 based on different parameter settings such as the share of renewable energies and economic growth. Through the interaction with the climate simulation, the aim was to increase visitors’ understanding and knowledge of the causes of the climate crisis, as well as their perceived self-efficacy to mitigate climate change and their willingness to reduce their own carbon footprint. An initial survey was conducted with 104 visitors before the interaction, and a follow-up survey was conducted with 85 visitors after the interaction to assess the impact of the event on the participants. While there was no change in the areas of understanding, knowledge, and self-efficacy, visitors reported an increased willingness to change their behavior to reduce their own carbon footprint after the interaction with the simulation. Overall, visitors evaluated the interaction with the climate simulation very positively, and the majority indicated that they wanted to use the freely available online version of the simulation in the future and would recommend it to others.

Full text: PDF (free download)

Categories
Research

Evaluation Report on the Event “Social Tipping Interventions and Science Communication

Clara Kühner, Bernhard Goodwin, 2023
Munich: Munich Science Communication Lab

Abstract: This report presents the evaluation results of a two-hour science communication event titled “Social Tipping Interventions and Science Communication” at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU). Within five short presentations, a panel discussion, and a question-and-answer session with the audience, three speakers (Prof. Dr.
Harald Lesch, Prof. Dr. Claudia Traidl-Hoffmann, and Dr. Martin Herrmann) explained and discussed the concept and significance of social tipping interventions in the context of the climate crisis. The goals of the event were to convey the concept of social tipping interventions, to motivate participants to engage in climate-protective behavior on an individual and collective level, to increase perceived self-efficacy regarding the climate crisis, and to reduce negative climate emotions. An online pre- (N = 553) and post-survey (N = 424) was used to examine the fulfillment of these goals and the impact of the event on the participants. Interest in the event topic, perceived relevance of social tipping interventions, willingness to act on a societal level, and confidence and drive for action regarding the climate crisis increased after the event. There were no changes in reported self-efficacy as a result of the event. Anger and disappointment were among the most frequently mentioned climate emotions in both the pre-and post-surveys. Overall, participants rated the event positively, but only 65% stated that the event met their expectations. Possible explanations for the partially critical view of the event are presented as part of the analysis of qualitative comments from the post-survey (e.g., lack of practical examples of social tipping interventions).

Full text: PDF (free download)