It doesn’t happen so often that one has the opportunity to share a wonderful conversation with top-notch people locally (even if it was online) to share all our thoughts with people from our local communities. I’ve been part of panels and conferences abroad, and I was thrilled to have this session in Barcelona finally.

“Què és una comunicació. científica efectiva?”.( What makes an effective science communication?) was a symposium that took part on the 28th of November of 2020 organized by Jonas Krebs from the CRG, ELISAVA and the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) in the framework of the European Researchers Night.

I had the honor to share a good talk with Marco Di Stefano, Blanca Guasch Balcells, and Laia Guasch Balcells, hosted by Michele Cantazaro, around what we do to get an effective sci-comm from different angles.
https://lanitdelarecerca.cat/que-es-unacomunicacio- cientifica-efectiva/

It was nice to bring different perspectives from molecular biology, teaching, design & journalism. Some thoughts collected by Michele summarize very well my contributions:

Carla is researching how to bring genomics to society by creating interactive installations by conveying things in new ways. She wonders why biological ideas are so conceptual and why the technology is still limited to represent them? A way to overcome this could be working with prototypes: as immersive as possible. Those make you think about something you already know and learn about things you don’t know. The main goal is to spark some interest. 

What about Metaphors? Metaphors are a starting point to keep some of the scientific complexity. The rest of the complexity can be added in additional pieces, reading, etc.

The way Carla creates these prototypes is by working with scientists.  When she works with them, she becomes more of a scientist and them more of a designer. The main point seems to be finding a good balance between motivating, generating curiosity, and delivering an actual packet of neat knowledge.

It’s been a couple of months since the pandemic started, and seeing this 6 people grid was a good time with a wonderful audience asking challenging but rewarding questions. I can’t wait for the next panel!

From Left to Right, Top Bottom: Jonas Krebs, Carla Molins Pitarch, Marco Di Stefano, Laia Guasch Balcells, Michele Cantazaro and Blanca Guasch Balcells.