ArchiveThis paper firstly introduces the mechanism concerning the interaction between basic research and science communication as well as some typical practices conducted by these countries which prioritize the development of science and technology, in which science popularization and science research are combined perfectly. More importantly, this paper analyzes and does an in-depth research into the current state regarding the interaction between basic research and science popularization, and simultaneously makes a comparison between the two models both at home and abroad. Last but not the least, the paper comes up with some valuable proposals and suggestions in terms of how to make efforts to strengthen the interaction between basic research and science communication. It is believed that this paper will present some ideas of great significance with regard to strengthening the combination and linkage between science research and science communication of the basic research field as well as promoting the development of science communication in China.
Over the development of the past 25 years, Natural Science Funds of China (NSFC) has now become an important part of national knowledge innovation system, and has provided a strong protection for our country to catch up with and surpass the advanced world levels in basic science fields. Now, the NSFC has been a vital pillar for the sustainable development of social and science enterprise in China. Through the continuous exploration and practice, NSFC has accumulated rich experiences in the management of science funds, and has formed a management system of Chinese characteristic. Meanwhile, through the subsidization of NSFC, the project forms a huge scientific information database of scientific achievements, talented and platforms, etc, by the process of project application to project finished. The science communication of NSFC should start at the information needs of government agencies, scientists group and the public towards NSFC and aim at creating an effective information communication system by using modern science communication methods and different media. It uses sci-tech news reports as the main body using modern communication language, together with other communication means, to inform the general public about the NSFC so as to build a social environment for technological innovation and accelerate the development of social and science enterprise in China. At the same time, it also provides an opportunity for the government, science and engineering and the general public to know more about the NSFC and then to push it to a better future. The communication of NSFC's performance should be launched on the principles of objectivity, authenticity, timeliness, confidentiality and risk avoiding. It also puts forward that the communication should target the needs of audience, integration of communication channels, and timing of communication. It stresses the combination of the internal communication and the external communication. We should give full play to the mix of mainstream media and the sci-tech mainstream media.
The presentation will report on the science communication policy implemented by the European Union (EU) in research projects and on science communication activities developed in the international ITER project in which China, EU, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and United States are participating.
Science and technology is the primary productivity, science popularization is a huge motivation behind economic development and social progress, it is observed that the better the science popularization is conducted, the more well-developed the economy and society will remain, and inevitably, the happier the people there will feel. We should do our utmost to vigorously strengthen the efforts made into science popularization, advocate scientific concept, uphold scientific spirit, and add some cultural elements to scientific connotation during the massive development and prosperity of culture with a view to avoiding the formation and dissemination of such sort of culture which will be detrimental and pose negative effects to the society, contributing to the healthy development of culture. Science popularization whose importance is universally-known is a social undertaking involving the efforts of people from all walks of life, however, to have it implemented well in practice is not an easy job, therefore, from that sense, a large number of effective measures should be taken to motivate the scientists to engage this activity.
Knowledge distribution force which promotes the highly effective flow of knowledge serves as an important factor affecting innovative capability and performance. Basic research, in essence, is a process of reproduction and co-production of knowledge, the performance of knowledge flow will not only affect its ability and performance in basic research, but also will affect the sound application of achievements coming from it. The paper, adopting the analytical method of knowledge flow, is to discover the major problems facing science popularization in basic research.
According to the classification of genetics, science can be divided into 3 historical paradigms, namely, classical natural history one, modern math one, and contemporary STS one (science, technology and society), since entering into the stage of contemporary science, STS has gone through a complex evolution process, specifically, from field to discipline, from discipline to cross-discipline, trans-disciplinary and science paradigm. In terms of people's understanding of STS, the most significant aspect is that they have established a series of new concepts and perspectives which are used for promoting the coordinated development of science, technology and society, and especially that the newly established and proposed concept on science has brought about new concept on popularization.
Science extending activity is the general term of the science popularization activities carried out by such public groups or organizations as institutions of higher learning, science and research institute, academic groups of science, and science foundation aiming at promoting the scientific literacy of the general public and boosting the communication between the public and scientist. It is of a necessity for the researchers to conduct two-way science popularization activities, namely science extending activity, to the public on an equal footing according to their researches, this is the social responsibilities of the scientists. Such kind of activity initially came to be known during the late of 1990s and the beginning of this century in USA and some European countries, the reason why great emphasis should be put on the dialogue and communication between the public and the scientists is that the development of science can not be going further without the public support and that the decision making of science needs the participation of the public. Despite the fact that the conduction of science extending activity in Japan was slightly later than that in USA and Great Britain, less than a decade in the past witnessed its realization of being institutionalized in Japan. It is good, but plenty of problems need to be resolved prior to doing a great job in science extending activity.
There exist inevitably large numbers of conflicting interests in the science popularization of climate change studies. These conflicts are typically associated with political stance, strategy of industry development, academic viewpoints and media strategy. In order to enhance and improve science communication of climate change studies, public interest as an ethical priority should be strengthened. institutes and agencies sponsored by the government or public fund are supposed to share their scientific resources to promote the transparency and demystification. Scientists should be responsible for the complete stages of research, including the popularization. The legal regulation and ethical rules for handling conflicting interest should be accelerated to establish, including disclosure and withdraw. The media should be required to keep the moral principle of rigor and accuracy. Finally, the scientific understanding of climate change should be improved so as to raise fundamentally the capability of science popularization of climate change studies.
This paper shares and makes a study of some cases involving the interrelation between science popularization and scientific research on such national famous science webs as http://songshuhui.net/ and http://www.guokr.com/. The specific cases from the webs are stated as follows: science popularization promotes the interdisciplinary exchange among the science communities, science popularization helps to integrate the social resources used for science research, science popularization elevates the influence of the scientific achievements, how to win the public trust, and science popularization makes the relevant arguments being debated hotly and makes its achievements enlightened.
The illustration of the achievements for the basic science disciplines is made in a rigorously logical and systematical manner, through which the professional term of science community has come into shape, becoming a channel for the social elites to have themselves expressed in the traditional science communication. In modern times, the newly emerging media help to facilitate the birth of new communication era, the ways for the public to gain access to the science information in the web era are characteristic of deconstruction quite different from the previously traditional ways which gave emphasis on strong construction and linearization. How to make the relations between science community and basic science research more interlinked, and how to make it adapt to the new communicating platform in which a huge number of people have themselves expressed to avoid the demise of the dominance of the discourses has become an unavoidable topic of strategic significance.
With the rapid social and economic development, science communication of basic research has important practical significance. Therefore, the relationship between basic research and science communication is considered to be discussed initially. Then science communication on the basic research of aquatic food safety is explored and attempted combined with the construction and practice of food quality and safety discipline, one of the national characteristic majors, in Zhejiang Gongshang University. In addition, the problems existing in the science communication are analyzed followed by the possible solution methods. In a word, the above analysis is to provide a certain reference for the science communication of basic research.
A great number of changes have taken place in the relation between science & society and something occurring in science research since the second half of 20th century, science in the contemporary era needs to be open to the public, science communication proves to be a pivotal route and mechanism to promote and realize this kind of being open, what is more, to strengthen institution building is a must to promote science communication to the public and the society as a whole.
This paper, taking People's Daily, a representative of print media, as an example, analyzes the role and position of the mass media playing in basic research, and puts forward some suggestions regarding how to promote the research by resorting to help from mass media, these suggestions are stated as follows, to set and determine different targets accordingly, to choose relevant media, to closely cooperate with media, to select appropriate reporting ways and channels, to invite journalists to make a coverage of some basic research ahead of time, and to actively provide some professional training and knowledge concerning science popularization to the media.
Over the years, the government has continually made improvements in cultivating science talents, however it cannot meet the needs of the national science and technology dissemination and popularization work. How to construct science popularization professional workforce is the current urgent problem to address in the innovation system of the country. This paper analyzes 2010 national scientific and statistical data, full-time personnel working on science popularization, team status of full-time personnel in China, and proposes a Science Popularization Talent Development Plan as a strategic goal, countermeasures and suggestions.
This paper analyzed the role of public in the nanotechnology innovation, summarized the characteristics on public cognition of nanotechnology and the shortcomings in science communication according to Chinese nano-fever. In reviewing the international experiences, this paper proposed some suggestions on how to promote nanotechnology communication in China.
This paper analyses the documentary/book Le monde selon Monsanto made by Marie-Monique Robin and discusses the position and role of science communication in highly controversial and risky subjects. It concludes that the investigation and reflection based on the facts is the major role in this kind of subject, and it is one of duties for science communication in risky society to reflect the voices from those beyond science community and related groups.