European Science Communication Institute

13 Feb 2025

Just quickly introducing ourselves as we haven’t done so yet. 🙂 We are a non-profit organisation of science communicators, science journalists, graphic designers and video producers, and we’re excited to build a community around #ScienceCommunication with you here on Bluesky!

New publication: WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin No. 22 🌍 CO₂, methane and nitrous oxide reached unprecedented highs in 2025. Nature recovers more slowly than expected from heat and drought 🔗https://wmo.int/resources/publication-series/greenhouse-gas-bulletin/no-22 #ClimateChange

"The science alone is rarely the hook. It's the 'so what' and the human angle around it," says Lea Hüvelmeier-Schmidt, Deputy Head of Outreach at ESCI. A newsworthy story connects to something people already care about: health, the environment, money or curiosity. More from Lea 👉🧵

Can a scientist be coached to be a good interviewee? Lea says yes, because most of it is learnable: 🎯 Lead with the main message 🧩 Use concrete examples and comparisons 🗣️ Avoid jargon 💬 Be comfortable saying "we don't know yet"

Lea says: a large part of communication & dissemination is coordination and translation between partners, the technical work & the people who could use it, not just "a website, a logo & some social media posts". Her approach to planning: "firm on objectives and flexible on execution."

Some statistics make it into project reports. These probably never will. 👀 Our completely unofficial ESCI survey found: 🧦 837 pairs of socks 🎵 17 different instruments played across the team 🐾 28% pet owners #ESCI10Years #SciComm 🧵 1/2

🧵 2/2 And the pets include dogs, cats, guinea pigs, fish, shrimp... and earthworms. 🪱 We also hid four of our team's more unusual instruments in the graphics. 🎶 Can you identify A, B, C and D? This is only Part 1 of our highly unofficial statistics. #ESCI10Years #SciComm

Working with a social media algorithm can feel like fighting an opponent who keeps changing the rules mid-game. @lenaaab.bsky.social, Project Manager at ESCI, says: stay informed and flexible, but never lose sight of your audience or let the algorithm replace your communication strategy. 🧵1/4

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🧵 3/4 What makes international collaboration work? A genuinely shared goal, clear expectations, room for different opinions, honest conversations and empathy. Teams and cloud storage help, but sometimes one phone call can move things forward faster than a dozen emails.

🧵 4/4 Website and social media data can reveal what audiences are interested in, whether content reaches the right people and what might work better next time. For EU projects, this also turns communication activity into meaningful evidence for reporting. #SciComm #EUProjects

EU Science, Research & Innovation

🧵 2/4 For Lena, strong science communication starts with understanding the topic yourself. It lets you follow your own path to understanding, then create an easier path for others through clear, audience-focused content.

European Science Communication Institute reposted

@scienceinnovation.ec.europa.eu

(1/4) Not everything you see online is true. And not everyone shares it by accident. False information spreads fast. It can shape opinions, undermine trust and threaten our democracies. So, before you share, stop and think: Could this be misleading? #SciComm 🧪

Science communication is more than posts, videos and websites. It is also about helping researchers and project teams communicate their own work. Over 10 years, ESCI has delivered around 128 trainings, reaching an estimated 2,560 people. 🔬💬 🧵 1/3

🧵 2/3 A lot happens behind the scenes too. Across our projects, we have contributed to around 416 official project documents, including communication & dissemination strategies, monitoring reports and review reports. 📑

🧵 3/3 And the team behind that work is just as varied. Our survey respondents split almost evenly between natural science sand communication & humanities, and speak around 3 languages per person on average. 🌍 Different disciplines, languages and perspectives shape how we communicate science.

Making science accessible isn't just about avoiding jargon, says Mihaela Bozukova, science communicator and project manager at ESCI. It also means questioning what knowledge we take for granted, and whether people can see why a topic is relevant to them in the first place. More from Mihaela 👉🧵

Being publicly available doesn't mean something is truly accessible. For Mihaela, it's about creating different entry points into science, so engaging with it doesn't depend on already knowing how science works.

Why interactive formats matter, in Mihaela's words: 🤝 They turn communication into a two-way exchange, not a one-way transfer of knowledge. 🗣️ People become active participants, not just an audience. 💬 Everyone brings their own questions and experience & takes new knowledge back to their communities.

Sometimes science communication means going where the science happens. 🌍 Over the past two years, ESCI colleagues estimate that project work has taken us around 100,000 km: ✈️ 55K by plane 🚆 33K by train 🚗 12K by car #ESCI10Years #SciComm 🧵 1/3

🧵 2/3 The average colleague travelled for project work in around 4 countries. Why? Filming, demo-site visits, consortium meetings, trainings, conferences and all the other things that are simply easier when you are actually there. 🎥🧪🤝

🧵 3/3 That does not mean we have abandoned our webcams. 💻 Our survey suggests around 360 online meeting attendances across the team every month. EU projects now involve plenty of both: meeting through a screen and travelling to where the research happens. #ESCI10Years #SciComm

Writing a Horizon Europe proposal for the 2027 calls? On 21 October, @bartlmae.bsky.social will explain how to tackle dissemination, exploitation, communication & maximise your Impact score in the @uni-goettingen.de webinar series. Info & registration: https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/214691.html

What do rare-earth magnets, Antarctic observation, food waste, microalgae and AI cybersecurity have in common? We’ve had to learn how to communicate all of them. 🔬 Across 10 years: 59 projects, 12 broad research themes, plus at least 38 demo/test sites, 22 Field labs and 12 industrial pilots.

Communicating complex, multi-partner research doesn't stop at translation, says Sara Leska, Project Manager for Science Communication at ESCI. For her, accessible should never mean inaccurate – it's a negotiation, not a trade-off. More on keeping research (and research teams) on track from Sara 👉🧵

A habit Sara sees often: teams lead with the method instead of the “so what”. Most people connect with outcomes and relevance first – and in big consortia, that clarity matters just as much internally as it does with the public.

Sara's approach to keeping multi-partner projects on track: 🤝 Stay in close, steady contact with partners rather than relying on a rigid system 🗣️ Keep communication channels simple and predictable, so nothing gets lost in an inbox 📨 Send a short nudge before a deadline – it saves hassle afterwards

What does 10 years of “making science visible” look like? 👀 🎥 491 videos 👁️ 755.6K views ⏱️ 16.2K hours watched 🔔 7.4K subscriptions 🌐 60 websites built & managed And that is only part of it. 🧵1/2 #ESCI10Years #SciComm

🧵2/2 We also estimate: 📰 ~350 articles 📣 ~200 press releases 🎙️ ~400 expert interviews 📊 ~420 infographics 📑 ~360 deliverables 🇪🇺 ~190 EU reports 📱 ~120 social media accounts 10 years, many formats, one goal: making research visible and understandable. 🔬💬

Looking for good reads on EU-funded research? Horizon Magazine turns Horizon Europe science into stories worth reading: from AI spotting early dementia signs to AI tracking ocean pollution, plankton to plastics. https://projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/en/horizon-magazine

22 Sept

Research doesn't happen in isolation, says @fintanburke.com, our Head of Outreach. It's funded for a reason, and the results will be used in future, something that Fintan believes can make scientific stories stand out. More basics about #SciComm from Fintan 👉🧵

22 Sept

To make science more engaging, our Head of Outreach, recommends to speak about personal and emotional details. These are often left out from academic writing, he says, but when speaking with others they bring details alive.

22 Sept

How to make science clear? Our Head of Outreach, @fintanburke.com, advices: ▪️Read your work out loud so you can ‘hear’ which sentences are too long or which words are too abstract ▪️Split your text so that each sentence becomes its own paragraph to find which sections can be reduced, or cut

17 Sept

Science communication is a team sport. 🌍 Over 10 years, ESCI has worked with 858 partner organisations across 41+ countries and 6 inhabited continents. Some familiar faces keep returning too: RISE (10 projects), CLuBE (8), ZABALA (7) and Aarhus University (6). Thanks for building with us💙 #SciComm

16 Sept

Science is rarely a straight line. The largest-ever survey of physicists found no majority agreement on dark matter, the standard cosmological model, or quantum gravity. This proofs that the field's biggest questions are still wide open. https://physics.aps.org/articles/v19/34

15 Sept

Welcome to our team in Oldenburg, Marit! 🙌 Our new scicomm intern brings: 🌱 a broad interest in media, politics, culture and science ✍️ a love for working on creative projects 📖 an addiction to buying books Happy to have you join us!

10 Sept

10 years of ESCI = 59 projects and 237.5 combined project-years. The average project runs for 48.3 months, with timelines ranging from 26 to 72 months. Different schemes, topics and consortia have made for a pretty good decade of learning how to communicate science. 🔬 #SciComm

wissenschaftskommunikation.deWhy science communicators should think like diplomatsScience diplomacy is becoming increasingly important across Europe. According to former diplomat Anna Przybyło-Józefowicz, science communication could also benefit from diplomatic knowledge and practice. International mobility in science communication is emerging as a valuable avenue for strengthening individual and institutional capacity, as recently argued in University World News. Traveling across borders, learning new tools and […]

9 Sept

Ever noticed the overlap between science communication and diplomacy? Preparation, listening and tact matter just as much in scicom as on a diplomatic posting. Read this article to find out why 👇

3 Sept

In Berlin, we visited three places where science, society and the future meet: the Museum für Naturkunde, the Bundestag and the former Tegel Airport, now becoming Berlin TXL. A reminder that science communication connects knowledge with people, policy and possible futures.

guess-the-citations.orgGuess The Citations | A Game About Citation AttentionGuess which papers received more citations per year, and see why citation counts are risky for assessing research quality or impact.

2 Sept

Need something to procrastinate with, but it should still feel scientific? We have just the right recommendation for you. A little game where you guess which paper received more citations. Check it out below and let us know your high score.

1 Sept

The whole team in Berlin. Two weeks ago we spent a few days there for some team building.

27 Aug

Wetlands can store water, support biodiversity, and help keep carbon in the ground. In this video, produced by ESCI for @wethorizons.eu, researchers explain why rewetting degraded wetlands matters and how new tools can support better decisions. Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvMn...

20 Aug

Citizen science can play an important role in wetland restoration. By involving local communities in monitoring and data collection, restoration projects can generate valuable insights while strengthening public engagement with nature. Read more: https://bit.ly/RestoringWetlands

13 Aug

From 2 August 2026, the EU AI Act requires labelling of AI-generated content and clear disclosure when you're interacting with an AI system. The goal: help people tell human from AI, and trust what they engage with online. Part 1

13 Aug

Part 2

12 Aug

Today's rare solar eclipse is thrilling for us, but for animals it's just sudden, confusing darkness in the middle of the day, no countdown, no explanation.

Euronews@euronews.com

Today's rare solar eclipse is thrilling for humans, but animals will face something they can't prepare for: sudden confusing darkness in the middle of the day. ➡️ https://l.euronews.com/e4sN

nature.com‘Good design takes mastery’: scientific illustrators sketch out AI’s futureNature talks to five artists about their approaches to communicating science visually.

10 Aug

AI will generate an image of almost anything — but it cannot verify whether what it produces is scientifically accurate." Turns out drawing a dinosaur accurately still needs an actual paleoartist. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

l.euronews.comIs regenerative farming a ‘ray of hope’ against Europe’s wildfires?Europe’s regenerative farmers are providing vital wildfire protection – but they need more support.

7 Aug

Amid Europe's worst fire season yet, a hopeful sign: farms managed with grazing and regenerative practices are surviving wildfires that destroy their neighbors. The tools already exist, they just need support.

Euronews@euronews.com

Europe’s regenerative farmers are providing vital wildfire protection – but they need more support.

6 Aug

Producing videos for #ResearchCommunication involves more than just hitting record. Each shoot requires adaptation to unique settings, and sometimes to an unexpected assistant. Our furry quality inspector gave no barking complaints, so we assume he was happy with the filming.

5 Aug

Midweek reality check: a like is not a sample. Never was. Turns out your citizen science project doesn't need to go viral, it needs 50 people who actually show up and count frog calls correctly. 🐸 www.scicomm.it/citizen-scie...

nature.comCelebrating Nature’s covers — past, present and futureNature’s iconic front page uses inspiration, creativity and ingenuity to unite science and technology with art and design.

3 Aug

Nothing says "productive Monday" like falling down a Nature magazine cover rabbit hole. Turns out science had great cover art way before it was cool. 🔬🎨 www.nature.com/articles/d41...