Coronavirus in the Swedish media
– latest results of VA study

Researchers are perceived to be less in agreement in their views on how the corona pandemic is being handled in Sweden. Confidence in various professional groups, however, has not changed since July, nor has Swedes’ consumption and perceptions of the media’s reporting on the coronavirus. These are the latest findings of VA’s real-time study to understand how people in Sweden are receiving and interpreting information about the pandemic, and how this is linked to the way it is being communicated in the media. Results from eight waves of the survey are now available.

Researchers’ Grand Prix welcomes contributions in English and Swedish

The Researchers’ Grand Prix, the annual science communication contest in which researchers working in Sweden are challenged to present their research to a public audience in just four minutes, is open to applications in both Swedish and English. Researchers can either apply to participate via one of six regional heats or through N.Ö.R.D. an online open heat, to directly win a place in the final in December. Free coaching through online webinars is also available – join one in English on 6 November.

Forthcoming activities

Sweden’s Researchers’ Night science festival, ForskarFredag, will this year be held on 27-28 November. Co-ordinated by VA, events are being organised in about 30 cities and towns across Sweden and will consist of a mix of physical and virtual activities designed to engage and inspire both school pupils and members of the public.

Pupils across Sweden will be helping researchers to test a new way to reduce food waste in Swedish schools in this year’s mass experiment. Running between 9 and 27 November as part of European Researchers’ Night activities in Sweden, the Food Waste Experiment will utilise an artificial intelligence app and the world’s largest food sustainability database to investigate how much food is being thrown away and find ways to reduce waste.

Learn about the potential of bioplastics at a free webinar on 29 September being organised by the EU Bloom bioeconomy project. Bioeconomy experts will talk about some of the many everyday applications of this next generation of plastics with a focus on technological, economical and environmental perspectives. 
 
VA will be presenting the results from our ongoing study about public perceptions of the media reporting about corona at the German science communication conference Forum Wissenschaftskommunikation on 5 October. In the session on Science communication during the corona pandemic – public perceptions in three European countries, speakers will discuss findings from Germany, Italy and Sweden.

Is there an Open Science topic you wish you knew more about? Join the EU ORION Open Science project for an afternoon of bitesize events at an online Open Science café during Berlin Science Week. On 4 November, a rolling series of twenty-minute micro-talks and activities about Open Science will be delivered by graduates of ORION’s Train the Trainer course and hosted by the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine.

VA is running a series of workshops on Open Science in collaboration with Swedish universities. The next online workshop What is Open Science to me? will be held on 29 September, where participating researchers will learn about the basic principles of Open Science, including open access, open data, science communication, public engagement and citizen science, and how they can apply them to their work.

VA’s recent activities

New features on EU-Citizen.Science: The latest release of the European platform for citizen science includes several new features. In the community forums, anyone interested in citizen science can interact and exchange ideas with researchers, citizen scientists, and other users across Europe and beyond. Other new features include training resources and institutional profiles for organisations plus a new video presentation of the project.

This year’s EuroScience Open Forum, a hybrid of in-person and online events held from 2–6 September, provided a key international platform to discuss issues relating to the interaction between science and society in light of the corona pandemic. Read a report about the four sessions which VA contributed to.
 
The motivations and working practices of science communicators across Europe have been investigated by the EU funded RETHINK project. The study investigated what science communicators perceive their role to be, the tools they use, challenges and motivations behind their activities. VA, a partner in the project, was involved in the distribution of the questionnaire in Sweden. Read the report.

Sailing the same storm – but which boats are the best? All across the globe, the Covid 19 pandemic has created a sense of uncertainty and irritation. The international public engagement community is no exception. Read a blog post by Dr Annette Klinkert, Executive Director of the European Science Engagement Association, EUSEA: Science Engagement in Times of COVID 19.

The findings of the pan-European public attitudes survey on life sciences research and genome editing have recently been published in a scientific article in PLOS One. The survey, conducted by the EU ORION Open Science project, revealed gender and age differences when it comes to the reasons that motivate members of the public to get involved in life sciences research. Read more about the findings.

VA’s recent publications and resources available in English

VA Barometer 2019/2020: An annual survey into the Swedish public’s general attitudes towards science and researchers.

VA information folder 2020: Information about VA and its members.

Research.Foresight: A study investigating how research is communicated in Sweden and Europe today and in the future.

VA in social media