Why a Private Funder is Partnering With a Federal Agency to Improve Science Communication

Between COVID-19 vaccines, smartphones, in-car satellite navigation and the crucial but incomprehensible magic of streaming television, most people are aware that technology and applied science play a big role in everyday life. And most understand it’s worth supporting the research and development that produces the stuff that keeps us healthy, entertained and plugged into the modern world. That level of public awareness is a big help for the grantmakers and grantseekers who work in the “applied” end of the science business—the more tangible side of research and development that we interact with regularly.

But what about the more arcane research in the basic sciences—the physics and other nerdy stuff that most of us find boring, or even incomprehensible, much less connected to our everyday lives? It’s a lot harder to stoke public interest—and willingness to fund—this kind of fundamental research. That’s why a number of philanthropic science funders, such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Simons Foundation, make it a priority to support not only basic research itself, but also efforts to inform the public about the importance of this work.

In one recent example, a key science funder made a move to help scientists and the organizations they work within to better engage the public with the sort of research that may be decades from turning into applications and products that enter widespread awareness in the form of cures, cars, gadgets or entertainment.

For 20 years, the Kavli Foundation has funded science research at universities around the world in a big way, and has also been committed to engaging the public through improved science journalism and education. As a result, grantmakers at Kavli know the importance of broad public buy-in to continued support for science. So Kavli recently partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, a major funder of basic science that literally depends on public support, to advance the “science of science communications.”

The fact that the foundation is working with a government agency on this effort is notable, as a big reason science philanthropy is so interested in educating the public is the fact that the majority of scientific research is reliant on the public sector. Philanthropy is relatively small, so if private funders can encourage more public buy-in, the hope is that they’ll have a much larger impact.

Another interesting aspect of this partnership is that its goal is not simply to make scientists and their associated communications professionals better at explaining science to the other 99% of us who don’t make our living peering through microscopes or searching for Higgs bosons. It’s more about interaction with the public—not just talking, but listening to people, explained Brooke Smith, director of public engagement at Kavli.

“There’s so much focus on the applied sciences that public engagement in basic science has really been overlooked,” Smith said. A big part of this effort involves the same impulse toward diversity and inclusivity that’s going on in so many other areas of philanthropy and society right now—a lot of basic science researchers are white and male. “A message that needs to be involved in how we connect people with science is the importance of talking to the public—engaging and listening to communities and seeing what their interests are.”

Kavli and DOE’s initiative, called SciPEP (Science Public Engagement Partnership), aims to better understand how the public engages with and understands basic science research and to develop resources to help scientists and communications specialists sharpen these skills. SciPEP’s efforts will not be in outreach to the public itself, but will instead work to make scientists and communications professionals better at public engagement by giving them tools and instruction. Developing these approaches will also involve an expanding class of social scientists across a number of disciplines whose field of study is exactly this relationship between science and the public, Smith said.

Today’s products, technologies and medical therapies are built upon the basic research of years past. Connecting with the public to ensure enthusiasm (and funding) for basic research today, some of which will enable products and technologies of the future, is going to need this two-way street of engagement between the lab and the public.